Mt 5,13-16
You are salt for the earth. But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again? It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled under people’s feet. You are light for the world. A city built on a hill-top cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in people’s sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in heaven.
This Word of the Lord today is in some ways like salt to us, which can burn in our own wounds.
Who can not complain that this is exactly the impression we must get today when we look at the witness of the Church in many areas. There are only a few who fearlessly proclaim the truth. In a certain sense the Word of God is being softened up until it is no longer any good and is proclaimed often as if it is enough to “be kind to one another”. If the church walks on the line of “political correctness”, then she is no longer a sign of contradiction but disappears into a field “to be not important”. Is it therefore surprising that just in the corona pandemic the church is more often regarded by political forces as not important for the system and is also treated as such?
What has happened that the high good of truth, the powerful proclamation of the Word of God, the urgent call to conversion is so neglected that the Church in some regions of the world can give people less and less orientation. She is therefore hardly regarded as the teacher of the peoples and unfortunately one often notices a lukewarmness that is hard to bear!
The Word of God, however, has nothing of this lukewarmness. It puts God’s love and mercy before the eyes of man, without hiding the consequences of not following the path of truth. It proclaims Jesus as the only Saviour of mankind and does not make any other religion a path of salvation. It calls sin also sin without compromise and at the same time shows the way of forgiveness on the cross. It teaches us to live in the world, but not to be of it!
This list could be continued and again and again one would be able to feel a burning of the wound if one accepts the truth of the Word of God and also loves the authentic teaching of the Church and this compares what misguided and confusing things one perceives today frequently in the life of the Church.
But all complaining does not help: we urgently need a true renewal in our Catholic Church.
Anchored in the Word of God and the true teaching of the Church, we must seriously walk the path of holiness every day. We cannot wait for other Catholics to do so, but each one is responsible for himself if the salt in his life becomes stale and the light is darkened instead of standing on the candlestick and giving direction to others!
This certainly includes on the liturgical level the liberation of the Holy Mass from human ideas, experiments, inappropriate music and other inappropriate contributions. This must be done on the part of the Hierarchy, and unhindered access to the Tridentine Mass should be secured and promoted, which is for not a few Catholics – including young people – a spiritual place of liturgical home and beauty.
The concern whether this clear word of the Lord in today’s Gospel can still shake us up and lead us to critical reflection has to be questioned. One rather gets the impression that large parts of the Church are in a spiritual dormant state, lulled by the world’s spirit.
Let us therefore ask the Lord to wake us all up and to use the short time of our lives to do everything that is in our power so that the salt does not become stale and the light shines!
Jesus had asked the question in today’s gospel: “But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again?”
We should at least try and above all ask the Holy Spirit to renew the Church, to purify the unnecessary, banal, harmful and to make the true treasures of the Church shine.
Perhaps we can answer the Lord in this way: “It is impossible for human beings, but it should be possible with the Holy Spirit! Or? What do you think, Lord?”