June 10, 2014 Tuesday
10th Week
in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: 1 K 17:7-16
Gospel: Matthew 5:13-16
Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its strength, how can it be made salty again? It has become useless. It can only be thrown away and people will trample on it.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a mountain cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and covers it; instead it is put on a lampstand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine before others, so that they may see the good you do and praise your Father in heaven.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
When salt granules were bigger and unrefined, a housewife would wrap salt with a piece of white cloth and dip the bundle into boiling soup for seasoning. The salt’s power to give taste would diminish after several use until it would become flat and useless. The housewife would then open the bundle and throw the salt away. There was no way to make it salty again. For all practical purposes it was “dead” but it served its purpose. It did not “die” a useless death. If ‘death’ was the necessary consequence of its purposeful existence, the salt had ‘died’ a purposeful death.
The life story of salt in the housewife’s bundle inspires purposeful living in all of us. “You are the salt of the earth” was spoken to define life’s purpose. If we die making this world more befitting of the dignity of humanity adopted as children of God, we fulfill the sacred purpose of life.
When the Lord asked “What if salt loses its taste”, he was referring to people’s lives spent without reference to life’s real purpose. Let us define our existence by giving taste to our communities. Has giving taste to the world ever taken away life from us? Giving is not always fatal. Constant giving even adds value to our life because in constant giving we die to our selfishness. But we should be ready to give up our lives if loving should come to that extreme.
To give taste to the world means to heal the world. If all share a part of themselves the world will heal itself of its wounds of division. Add taste to the life of others instead of making their lives miserable. If you cannot help others, at least don’t make their situation worse. Love tenderly by acting justly and serving others generously. One person trying to improve the world may not see results in his lifetime. But one thing is sure: on Judgment Day, the Lord will measure him not by any big wave he may have done or may have failed to do in his lifetime but by his efforts in trying to become the salt of the earth.—Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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