Like Christ, we have to be the world’s salt and light

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

IF we want to be like Christ, we need to be the world’s salt and light. This, in fact, Christ said so very clearly in the gospel of St. Matthew (5,13-16). We have to seriously figure out how we can conform ourselves to what Christ wants us to be. We know that salt somehow gives a certain flavor to our food as well as helps in preserving highly perishable fool items. Light, of course, enables us to see things clearly.

We can readily conclude that what Christ wants is for us to provide Christian flavor in a world that is fast evolving as well as help in preserving the true Christian spirit in a world that is so exposed to a lot of confusing changes, many of them with their luggage of dangers even as they also offer a lot of benefits.

We also are meant to give light to the others by giving good example and by actively doing apostolate, leading people to God along the right if prudent, tortuous and treacherous paths of this world. With rectitude of intention, we have to inspire others to follow us so that with us they can come to Christ.

Let’s be like St. Paul who, with rectitude of intention, said: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Cor 11,1) These words are a corollary to what Christ said about us being light of the world: “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” (Mt 5,16)

Let’s try our best that we too can echo another of St. Paul’s words: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal 2,20) This is the ideal to aim at, because Christ himself said, “I am the light of the world…the man who follows me will have the light of life.” (Jn 8,12)

Let’s remember that since we are not only individual persons but also social beings, always having some relation with others, we cannot avoid having this duty. We are not meant to be alone, indifferent and detached from others, and especially from God. We are meant to live in communion with others and pumping goodness always to the system, so to speak.

We therefore should not be afraid to be in the limelight. In fact, we have to foster a holy desire to be there. Our understanding of humility and that delicadeza of passing unnoticed should not exclude this need for us to give good example and be models of virtues for everyone to see and to hopefully be edified, especially in a world that is increasingly sinking in darkness and confusion.

Obviously, we have to do it properly and with the right intention. And that’s because we also know very well of our warped desire to be in the limelight for the wrong reasons. We have the tendency to show off our vanity and frivolity, and to act out our pride, greed, envy, etc. Instead of sowing good things, we can be spreading our unfortunate motives to others.

Perhaps what can be helpful here is for us to regularly bring this topic to our prayer so we can come up with relevant daily strategies in the presence of God and with the right intention. We can also make a regular review of how we are faring in this aspect by considering it in our daily examination of conscience. That way we can hopefully keep the right intention as we give ourselves as an example to the others.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com