Salt of the earth - A reflection
SALT
OF THE EARTH – A REFLECTION
Mario
D’Couto
When it comes to food, salt is like the universal
ingredient that is present in almost every dish that you can think of and
what’s interesting is that it is present in practically all types of cuisines
around the world. We may just say that it is like the King or the Queen of all
spices. It’s hard to imagine a dish without salt and yet when the salt loses
its saltiness, it’s of no use.
Salt is that which adds flavour to the food that we eat.
To an extent, it also holds medicinal value because our bodies need salt
besides, salt is also a good preservative. Our Blessed Lord said, “You
are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savour, wherewith shall it
be shall it be salted? It is good for nothing anymore but to be cast out and to
be trodden on by men” (Matthew 5:13). It is said that the ocean salt is
actually made from rocks on the land. I will not go too much into the details
as to how it is made but the fact that they come from rocks on dry land says
something.
We are called to be the ‘salt of the earth’. Just
as salt, when broken and dissolved adds flavours to the food, through the ‘not
so good’ experiences, we can actually use them in a positive way. When that
happens, we begin to bring in the flavour of hope into the lives of others who
probably are going through a similar negative experience if not a negative
experience of a different kind. But no matter what, if we use it positively, in
a constructive way rather than sulk and become bitter, there’s a lot of good
that can be done, as someone said it beautifully, “It’s better to light a
candle than to curse the darkness”. And were we to become bitter and
sulk, if we are going to ‘loose our saltiness’, we may as well be trampled.
Forget about helping others, if such a thing happens, you may not even be able to control of your own life.