We Must Be the Salt of the Earth, by Marcellino D’Ambrosio
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image: The Chapel of St. Kinga in Wieliczka salt mine, one of many chapels constructed from the salt.
By Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D., Catholic Exchange, February 7, 2020
Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio writes from Texas. For info on his resources and pilgrimages to Rome and the Holy Land, visit www.crossroadsinitiative.com..
As a Catholic teen growing up in one of the most Catholic areas of the US, I never would have considered abandoning my faith. But neither would I ever have considered getting excited about it. Why should I? Nobody else in my parish seemed excited. The teens in the parish went wild at the rock concerts we attended, and the adults got excited about New Year’s Eve and Super Bowl parties.
Yet when I looked around at these same people during Sunday Mass, I saw a sea of blank faces. So I assumed being Catholic was about denying yourself a bit of fun now so that something really bad wouldn’t happen to you later (namely, hell). Of course, I did not want to settle for a dull life, so I paid my weekly dues at church and tried to avoid real serious sin as I grabbed for as much gusto as I could.
From the looks of things, you’d think that one of the beatitudes was “blessed be the bland.” To the contrary, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount “you are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Salt is spicy, not dull and boring. It actually has the power to make insipid food tasty and to preserve food that would otherwise spoil. Salt was so valuable in antiquity that it was often used to pay soldiers their wages. The Latin term for salt is actually the origin of our English word “salary.” Hence the expression “he’s worth his salt.” ….
Read more here catholicexchange.com/we-must-be-the-salt-of-the-earth
