​“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  ...You are the light of the world...let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

~ Matthew 5: 13a, 14a, 16 ~

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"Be Salty. Stay Lit."​

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  I think this rather humorous take on our Lord's parable of Salt & Light (Matthew 5: 13-16) is a genius stroke of t-shirt marketing. Or perhaps I’m selfishly partial to it because it helps to prop up my own salty sense of humor. Of course, when Jesus calls His disciples – and us by extension – “salt and light”, he is not referencing the human proclivity toward biting sarcasm or making oneself the center of social attention. Rather, Jesus reminds us that, as Christians, we are meant to bring divine light and flavor to the world, which has grown increasingly bland and dark by sin and death.

  In his fictional work dubbed The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien equates the essence of evil with the repetitive, unoriginal, and loud noise of a single assertive note, rather than the rich, diverse harmony of true creation. As a priest who hears confessions often – and who has made plenty of his own confessions – I can tell you that sin is the most boring and repetitive experience of humanity, whether on a small or much larger scale. The experience of sin dulls our senses. Like a bland meal, sin lacks all imagination of palate; it doesn’t elicit any kind of excitement from us the way a truly flavorful and excellently crafted meal might. Sin slowly darkens and kills the soul, so that we become rather dull, boring, and flavorless people. Sin steals away our “spark”, our “spice of life”; it numbs that place in us that fuels imagination, prompts excitement, and motivates us to creative action. Sin causes us to blend into the formless and tasteless darkness of a broken world.

  On the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Simeon declares the infant Jesus as a “Light for revelation to the Gentiles”. We may here understand 'gentile' to mean ‘sinner’ in a general way – anyone who stands outside of Christ and His Body, the Church. Christ is a “light for revelation to sinners”, who are immersed in darkness and death. Christ is also salt. The ‘salt’ of His Divine Nature is joined to flesh of His human nature, giving it ‘divine flavor’, if you will, and through the Sacraments of Initiation in the Church, you and I are infused with this same ‘divine flavor’ when we receive the Holy Spirit. Thus, infused with the light and salt of God as His disciples, you and I are equipped to bring flavor and illumination to a tasteless and dark world!

  Humanity was created in salt and light, but through sin, its light dimmed and it lost its flavor. With what can we flavor salt that has lost its taste?! Nothing in a tasteless world can restore flavor to its own flavorless salt, and a people who have cut themselves off from the source of light will only grow more dim until their lives are snuffed out. So how does one re-flavor salt? The answer: only the Holy Spirit of God, the Giver of Life, can restore what is lost through sin, and the Father wills to mediate this exchange through the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of His Son, Who is God from God, Light from Light. In Jesus, light and flavor are restored to human nature, and this restoration is extended to His chosen few so that, through the bright and flavorful few, Jesus might restore divine light and flavor to all.

  It is therefore most important for you and I, few though we may be, to let all the divine flavor and light of our Catholic faith season and illuminate this dark world and its bland people, who have forgotten how to see and taste the goodness of the Lord. Do not let the divine salt you have received lose its flavor, and do not let the divine light you have received remain hidden or burn out. The faith that we have received in our Catholic Tradition is meant to be boldly proclaimed, fully seen, and generously shared in all its richness!

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So be salty, my friends, and stay lit!

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Oremvs Pro Invicem!

Father Albert Beltz, KHS, Pastor​​