Called to Bring
Justice
Is 58:7-10; 1 Cor
2:1-5; Mt5:13-16 (A 5)
“The cross of the Lord has become
the tree of life for us.”
Around the same time that Isaiah
was reviving a living faith among the people in Jerusalem (c. 742 B.C.), his
contemporary up in northern Israel, the prophet Amos (c. 760–755 B.C.), was
expressing his fierce indignation about the plight of the poor and needy, who
were being denied justice in the courts (Am 5:7-15) and whose goods were
confiscated (5:11). In his turn, Isaiah also makes an impassioned cry for
social justice. His sense of fairness and sharing comes from his deep sense
that God’s creativity and glory fill the whole earth (Is 6:3). The divine
presence fills not only the temple but the whole of creation. Both focused on
the exploitation of the poor, moral corruption, and the inevitability of divine
judgment. Yahweh desires all people to
make justice flourish on the earth.
Following the teaching of the
Beatitudes, Jesus uses the familiar metaphors of salt and light in today’s Gospel
reading to describe the life of discipleship. We seem to take salt and light
for granted in today’s society, but these commodities were more precious in
ancient cultures. Salt is used for flavoring, as a preservative, and as a
healing agent. The salt cannot be seen but can be perceived and relished. There
are many people who “can hardly be perceived”, as they are like “little ants”
working hard and doing good all the time. Some of them are “brought into the
limelight on top of a mountain” or on a “lamp stand” (Mt 5:14-15), toiling to bring
about justice to the deserving.
We are all called to be salt and
light. It is said that once, while he was playing, someone asked St. Aloysius
Gonzaga what he would do if he knew that within a few minutes he would be dying.
“I would keep on playing”, he answered. He would go on carrying out his normal
life. Our commitment to social justice flows from the exhortation that Jesus
gives us in today’s Gospel. Some of the activities that this commitment leads
us to are given more concrete expression as the corporal and spiritual works of
mercy. When we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, console those who mourn, and
so on, we show ourselves to be the salt of the earth and the light of the
world. When we do these things with the community of faith, the Church, we are
indeed acting as “a city set on a mountain” that cannot be hidden!
Pope Francis called on Catholics to
“go out to the margins.” He preferred a church that is “bruised and dirty
because it has been out on the streets” to one that is “clinging to its own
security, caught up in a web of procedures.” We can’t hunker down in our
structures with passive hope. The Gospel invites us to run the risk of meeting others
in need. It wants to promote a culture of encounter, because what our Church
needs today is to heal wounds and to warm hearts.
“Let the word of Christ dwell with
you in all its richness”.
