Readings:
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Matthew 5:13-16
Reflection:
As I write this, there’s a pot of beef stock simmering on the stovetop for use in a winter soup. Although it’s called rich beef stock, it tastes pretty ordinary because the recipe omits salt. Only when the soup ingredients are added comes a dash of salt (‘not too much!)’, the doctor says). It should taste great.
In today’s gospel, Christ calls his followers the salt of the earth. We are to bring the tang of God’s love to a pretty ordinary world. Our Christian lives are only worth throwing out and trampling upon if we lose our zest for living them. Paul, in our reading from 2 Corinthians today, shows us what it means to be salt of the earth. We must be like Christ, for whom it was ‘never Yes and No: with him, it was always Yes’.
So our first calling is always to say Yes with Christ. The next is to discern how, where and with whom we might share that Yes. And then, all we have to do is to have the courage to get on with it.
Brian Norman has been associated with the Passionists in various ways since he was three weeks old when he squared off with Fr Placid Millay CP over the baptismal font at St Brigid’s, Marrickville.