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. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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