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5th Sunday Ordinary time, 8 February 2026
Is 58:6-10
1 Cor 2:1-5
Mt 5:13-16
What a joy, Dear Brethren, to hear the words of today’s gospel: “You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth.” These are words we need, words which nourish our hope and confidence.
When Jesus pronounces these powerful statements, He is not addressing qualified disciples at the end of a long and thorough training. Rather, these words come at the beginning of their instruction. Jesus is a good teacher. He knows that it is of foremost importance to begin with creating trust among His pupils: trust in Him, the master, obviously, but also trust in themselves, that they will be able to reach the goal.
Jesus’ first disciples were like us. They had all sorts of reasons to doubt their own ability. They had no great knowledge, the enjoy the advantages neither of birth nor of money. They were common ordinary men and women in need of a great deal of help.
Today, too, Jesus’ words are addressed to us who are a Church well aware of her weaknesses and her need for divine support. The Church of the post-conciliar and the abuse crises, the Church of ageing congregations, dwindling communities and fewer vocations, hears with gratitude Jesus’ words: “You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world”.
We are indeed this Church to whom Jesus rightly attributes the salt which gives taste, and the light which accompanies all the manifestations of life. Precisely because we are in a position of weakness, we, Christians, are light in the present world: a world whose leaders are advocating power and money at all costs, including the price of war; a world which kills the life of children in the womb of mothers and considers as human the right to dispose of one’s own life; a world which tries to beget with the power of technology a new humanity freed from the limitations imposed by the Creator; a world which hopes to become perennial by itself; a world of such darkness has an intense need for the salt of divine wisdom, and the light of the Gospel.
It is comforting to be called salt and light by Jesus precisely in this world. And truly, we are salt and light. If Christians were not salt and light, why would they be persecuted as are so many of our brothers and sisters all over the world – more than ever in the history of the Church? Martyrs are a great sign of light for the world. They proclaim “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”, “not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”, by loving to the end and dying for their enemies. They show the power of love in the weakness of the flesh. They make the light of the Cross shine in the present world.
Our world needs the salt and the light of the Gospel. Jesus wants us to be this salt and this light, not from our own capacity, but in a close relationship with Him. Jesus Himself is the wisdom and the strength of the poor who entrust themselves wholly to Him. He offers us to become Himself our saltiness and our inner light. And He reminds us of two dangers.
Frist, we are in danger of losing our saltiness: let us turn to Him in prayer and receive from Him the grace – the gratuitous gift – of His strength and life in us. Lent, soon to come, will be the right season to renew our Christian identity and commitment.
The second danger would be to keep for ourselves the light we receive from Him. Therefore, Jesus sends us: “Go out of yourselves. Preach the Gospel by your words, but mainly by your life. Do good works: the good and beautiful actions of those who show bounty and mercy, justice and love; but also the works of penance and humility of those who turn to God with hope in His mercy when they have failed.” Saints, of course, but even sinners are salt and light, provided they turn to Christ and let Him illumine their lives from within and make it tasteful.