Jesus asks the disciples to be salt and light of the earth. He says this to those who immediately proclaimed blessed, people who often find themselves on the edge of the world that matters, who share the fate of the discarded and excluded with many others. Yet they are the ones who give light and flavor to the story. Moreover, the indicative present that Jesus uses is surprising. Not an exhortative – “be” -; not an imperative – “you must be” -; but “you are”, an indicative that has the flavor of a gift and a promise: you are already what you must be because the grace of God gives it to you freely. The risk is not to make the gift fruitful for others. Salt cannot lose its flavor, but what good is it if it doesn’t agree to be dispersed in food? The light continues to shine, but who needs it if it remains hidden under a bucket? So is the disciple, called to live the logic of the beatitudes not for himself, but for the whole world. Indeed, precisely for that world that does not consider it, exclude it or even persecute it. This salt and this light are given to the disciple by the “wisdom and power of God”, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, and they manifest themselves in the unarmed and supportive attitude with which we take care of poverty and weakness, as Isaiah recalls: “if you will open your heart to the hungry, if you will satisfy the afflicted of heart, then your light will shine in the darkness».

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey