Epiphany 5A (Matthew 5:13-20)

We would feel enormous pressure to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world?” if our understanding of salt and light is that we have to become someone so special and important. Indeed, both salt and light are important for many reasons. Salt is crucial for seasoning and preserving food or keeping our human body in balance. Without light, we cannot see any object. Following Jesus is certainly like becoming salt and light. This creates a holy burden for his followers, which includes us. Yet, I believe its importance does not focus on becoming someone visibly crucial as if one has to be in the spotlight. 

Salt is invisible once it’s dissolved in food. Salt’s purpose is to hide itself and help food taste just right. Light itself is invisible. Its purpose is to make things seen. This common aspect of invisibility may not sound so attractive or even disappointing and discouraging to those of us who are nostalgic for the “good old days” of parishes having multiple Sunday services and functioning as the main locus of social life. But that was then, this is now. 

I would like us to envision in concretely invisible ways how St. Agnes’ can be the salt of the earth and the light of the world in Little Falls. This vision of a somewhat preanalytic cognitive act needs personal and communal prayers of thoroughly going through the needs of our local community. At times, we would like our efforts to be publicly recognized, which we can only resist when we join Christ’s mission from the place of deep contemplation in which “we taste infinitude” as Pablo Neruda says. 

Ode To Salt by Pablo Neruda

This salt
in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me,
but
it sings,
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those solitudes
when I heard
the voice of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.

And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food. Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste infinitude.