by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
“The Church is the salt of the earth, she is the light of the world. She is called to make present in society the leaven of the Kingdom of God and she does this primarily with her witness, the witness of brotherly love, of solidarity and of sharing with others.” (Pope Francis, 2013)
Come on people, it’s time to wake up and bear witness to our faith! We cannot afford to be a sleeping giant in the midst of all the social ills that beset us!
In last week’s Gospel, in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offered, as Pope Francis said in his 2017 Peace Message (Non-violence: A Style of Politics for Peace), a ‘manual’ for the strategy of peacemaking. The eight Beatitudes, says the Holy Father, “provide a portrait of the person we could describe as blessed, good and authentic”.
Jesus does not mince his words in today’s Gospel (Mt 5:13-16). The characteristics of a Catholic include being salt of the earth and light of the world. We Trinbagonians like we salt – to flavour de pot, to preserve e.g. meat and fruits. Jesus calls us not to be ‘like’ salt, but to BE salt. And take heed of what he says happens to salt that becomes tasteless: “It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled underfoot by men.”
Have we been sitting around passively watching things get out of hand? Have we become tasteless? It is no use wringing our hands crying: “Wha’ we go do?”
There are sufficient role models who can inspire us to SEE-JUDGE-ACT. Pope Francis names a few in his Peace Message, for example: St Teresa, “a symbol, an icon of our times”, whose “mission was to reach out to the suffering, with generous dedication, touching and binding up every wounded body, healing every broken life”; Mahatma Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, “Leymah Gbowee and the thousands of Liberian women, who organised pray-ins and non-violent protest that resulted in high-level peace talks to end the second civil war in Liberia.”
And right here in T&T there are role models such as those unsung heroes/heroines in LWC, SVP, ELC, in our parishes and communities, who need us to play our part to be salt of the earth.
Do we have the courage to speak truth to power at all levels? Jesus commands us in this Gospel to be “the light of the world” and reminds us of the folly of putting a lit lamp under a tub. His message is clear: “…your light must shine in the sight of men, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven.”
This is not the time to contemplate navels; we must get up and DO good works; to demonstrate that we are leaven in society. Every response, however modest, says the Holy Father, is “the first step towards justice and peace”.
The words of St John Paul II, uttered in his homily to Youth at World Youth Day in Toronto in 2002, apply to all of us. He said: “Following Jesus, you have to change and improve the ‘taste’ of human history. With your faith, hope, and love, with your intelligence, courage, and perseverance, you have to humanise the world in the way today’s reading from Isaiah indicates: “loose the bonds of wickedness, . . . share your bread with the hungry, . . . take away . . . the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness . . .then shall your light rise in the darkness” (Is 58:6-10).
Even a tiny flame lifts the heavy lid of night. How much more light will you make, all together, if you bond as one in the communion of the Church! If you love Jesus, love the Church!…
“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son… By looking at Jesus you will learn what it means to be poor in spirit, meek, and merciful; what it means to seek justice, to be pure in heart, to be peacemakers. With your gaze set firmly on Him, you will discover the path of forgiveness and reconciliation in a world often laid waste by violence and terror.”
Jesus himself lived the Beatitudes. As His followers, let us commit to do as Pope Francis has said: “…look deeply within and allow God’s mercy to enter there” so that we can continue our work as missionaries of mercy. It’s time to be salt and light.
