IN MEMORY OF FR. VINCENT O’REILLY
SACRAMENT OF RECONCILLIATION
During the long winter we become keenly aware of the value of sunshine. The sun rises later in the morning and sets earlier in the afternoon; quite often it’s gray and cloudy all day. Today we hear Jesus tell his disciples that they are to shine their light for all to see, as a lamp on a lampstand does. This winter, may we spread Christ’s light to the world, bringing joy and life to darkness and gloom.
In SPANISH
En largo invierno nos hace intensamente mas conscientes del valor de la luz solar. El so sale mas tarde en la mañana y se pone mas temprano en la tarde, muy a menudo los dias son grises y nublados. Hoy escuchamos a Jesus decirles a sus discipulos que deben hacer brillar la luz de ellos para que todos la vean, como una vela en un candelero. Este invierno difundamos en el mundo la luz de Cristo llevando asis la alegria y la vida donde hay oscuridad y pesadumbre.
LET YOUR LOVE SHOW
Around the same time that Isaiah was reviving a living faith among the people in Jerusalem, his contemporary up in northern Israel, the prophet Amos, was expressing his fierce indignation about the plight of the poor and needy, who were being denied justice in the courts (Amos 5:7, 10, 12, 15) and whose goods were confiscated (5:11) . In his turn, Isaiah also makes an impassioned cry for social justice. His sense of fairness and sharing comes from his deep sense that God’s creativity and glory fill the whole earth (Isa 6:3). The divine presence fills not only the temple but the whole of creation. Yahweh desires human beings to make justice flourish on the earth. To buttress his appeal, Isaiah warns of a coming day of judgment, because of the inhumanity of the great and the powerful towards the weak, poor and helpless.
His people, unfortunately, seemed to prefer formal religion to honesty and justice. Just as Isaiah felt personally cleansed through the burning coal scorching his lips, his people need cleansing too. They need to change their behavior, to practice a more honest kind of religion (Isa 1:16-17). Only if they sincerely try to practice justice can their worship mean anything. Isaiah ends with the promise: “if you feed the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, your light shall rise in the darkness.” (58:10.) Sharing and justice are essential, if we are to please our God.
In calling his people to conversion, John the Baptist echoed the teaching of Isaiah when he said, “Whoever has two coats must share with whoever has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Jesus, too, chose words from Isaiah about mercy and compassion, as his own manifesto. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4: 17-19; Isaiah 61:1)
In today’s Gospel he says, “let your light shine before others.” But how can we reconcile “letting our light shine” with the fact that Jesus spent most of his own life quietly in Nazareth, as the son of the carpenter. What Jesus practiced at Nazareth was fidelity to the ordinary, the daily routine, which requires its own kind of courage. What sets him apart was anchoring his whole life in God, to let the Father be the guiding force in his life.
The quiet practice of virtue was the hallmark of the saints, who never published their holiness, but just tried to remain close to God, in a spirit of “loving attentive expectancy,” as St John of the Cross put it. This spirit marked the life of saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who died at the age of 24, after living as an enclosed nun from her teenage years. Some of the other nuns thought that Therese had achieved nothing at all in her short life. Yet within a generation, this young nun who had never left her convent was proclaimed Patroness of the Foreign Missions. Even from her cloister she let her light shone out. Reflecting on the three virtues that last, faith, hope and love, Therese saw prayerful love as her special mission in life. “In the heart of the Church,” she said, “I shall be love.” And from that loving spirit the grace of God was richly channeled out to the missionary world.
GOING TO THE MARGINS
With the images of salt and light, Jesus says what he expects from his followers. They don’t need to be always thinking about their own interests, their own prestige, their own power. Even though they are a small group in the huge Roman Empire, they are the «salt» and the «light» that the world needs. “You are the salt of the world.” The simple people of Galilee spontaneously knew what he meant. They knew what salt is good for: giving food flavor and conserving it from spoiling. Just so, we need to contribute to helping people find the savor in life. “You are the light of the world.” Without sunlight, our world would stay dark and gloomy. Jesus’ disciples can shine a light to probe the meaning of life, to walk with hope.
These metaphors have something vital in common. If the salt stays in the shaker, it doesn’t do its proper work. Only when it dissolves in the food can it give flavor to what we eat. The same thing happens with light. If it stays closed and hidden away, it can’t enlighten anyone. Only when it shines out in the dark can it illuminate and guide. A church isolated from the world can be neither salt nor light.
Pope Francis called on Catholics today to “go out to the margins.” He preferred a church that is “bruised and dirty because it has been out on the streets” to one that is “clinging to its own security, caught up in a web of procedures.” We can’t hunker down in our structures with passive hope. The Gospel invites us to run the risk of meeting face to face with others. It wants to promote culture of encounter, because what our church needs today is to heal wounds and to warm hearts.
Gospel: Matthew 5:13-16