This Sunday’s Gospel provides a very important image to help us understand what we are called to be in the world.  The Lord says, “You are the salt of the earth.”  Salt is an interesting metaphor.  Salt is small.  It can go unnoticed.  Its grains are tiny and easily blend in.  It seems trivial at first.  Yet this is what God calls us to be.  Why?  Because that little thing makes a huge difference.  Add the right amount of salt to your food, and all the flavors start to shine.  Elsewhere in Scripture, Our Lord refers to us as leaven, or yeast.  It’s a similar idea.  Think of how small a part of the recipe yeast is, in bread, small by volume at least.  But by importance, it’s absolutely huge.  Salt and leaven – these are small things, but things that make an enormous difference. 

This is a good way of thinking about your individual role in the world as a faithful Christian.  Most of you have secular professions and occupations: you don’t work for the Catholic Church.  You have families, you have jobs, you have friends and social lives.  And in those places: that’s where you have the opportunity to be salt and light and leaven.  I can't do this for you.  My job is to get you ready.  Your job is to bring the Kingdom of God into the environments where you live and work and recreate and just generally live your lives.  You’re salt in those places because, you might be a small part of a bigger whole; you might blend in; but you are called to make every difference in the world.  By being a faithful follower of Christ, by letting your Faith and your Hope and your Charity inform everything that you do, you bring real flavor to every situation that you’re in.  And not just natural spice: supernatural, spiritual, eternal meaning.  That is your call as salt for the world. 

And you make a difference.  A big difference.  Because salt doesn’t just give flavor; it’s also a preservative.  Salt preserves things that are good.  And as faithful people, this is what you do for human culture and society.  You bring out and preserve what is good in the world: you help shape the moral character of our society.  You help combat the forces of mediocrity and comfort-seeking that have such a grip on our world right now: you help build up a society of justice and truth, and real freedom.  As a priest, I can’t do this for you.  I’m deliberately and specifically set apart from the world, even though I live in it.  I’m a facilitator.  I get you ready.  Then, you bring Christ to those you meet every day, to your coworkers, to your family, to your friends.  You’ve been given certain gifts and talents.  And God has also given you certain spheres of influence, certain family members, certain coworkers, certain friends.  You have a mission to them: it’s a mission that’s not given to anyone else.  To be salt and leaven for them, for the people who, in God’s providence, are part of your life. 

And that’s how you truly become what the Lord calls us to be next, which is the Light of the World.  Shining before others.  Prompting all those we meet to join us in praising and glorifying our Father in heaven.  The just one is a light in the darkness for the upright.  May you bring salt, and leaven, and light to every friendship, every professional encounter, every moment of family life: and thus do your part in the building up of God’s Kingdom.