“Jesus Preached and
Cured” by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)
Piety
When the priests
left the holy place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD
so that the
priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the LORD’s glory
had filled the temple of the LORD. Then Solomon said, “The LORD intends to
dwell in the dark cloud; I have truly built you a princely house, a dwelling
where you may abide forever.”
1 Kings 8:10-11
Gospel Alleluia: Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom and
cured every disease among the people. Matthew 4:23
As they were
leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the
surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they
heard he was. Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid
the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the
tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed. Mark 6:54-56
Study
The late Pentecostal
preacher David du Plessis was once approached by a Christian who complained
that people don’t seem thirsty for the Lord these days. Without missing a beat,
du Plessis replied, “It’s not that they are not thirsty enough. It’s that we
are not salty enough!”
Sunday’s Gospel reminded
us once again about the place that salt had in life and worship during the Hebrew
Bible and in the New Testament. During this week, the Gospels from St. Mark
continue with stories of Jesus healing, teaching, and challenging the
authorities. As Jesus and his disciples step onshore, people scurry from all
over to bring those in need of a cure.
Salt-cured meat or
salted fish are preserved (or cured) with salt. Salting, either with dry salt
or brine, was the standard method of preserving meat until the middle of the
20th century, becoming less popular after the advent of refrigeration. By
preventing it from spoiling, the salt-cured also helped people avoid illness
from meat that went bad.
Salt also had to be
carefully stored to avoid going bad. Since moisture makes salt clump together,
many people put rice in their salt shakers to absorb the moisture into the uncooked
grains. However, much salt sold today has “anti-caking agents” in the salt that
absorbs moisture or coats the salt to make it water-repellent. If you wish to
avoid such chemicals, your brand of salt can only list one sole ingredient:
“salt.”
As long as pure salt
is kept dry, it will persist forever without changing its properties.
Purity is another of
the Biblical meanings of salt. Nothing else added. Single-hearted for the Lord.
In Exodus 30:35, we
hear that “seasoned with salt” make the sacrifice “pure and holy.” Here, salt
has an explicit connotation of purity. Salt added virtue to the sacrifice by which
Israel was strengthened and fortified in covenant fellowship with God. This
meaning also is echoed by St. Paul when he says in Colossians 4:6: “Let your
conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.” That means
wholesome, gracious speech.
Since salt points to
sacrifice, self-denial and dying to self is part of being a disciple. Notice
that salt is not for itself; it is a seasoning for food. Disciples are there
not for themselves but for others.
“You are the salt of
the earth,” Jesus tells his disciples.
Flavorless
Christianity is living just like everybody else, taking birth control pills and
having sex before marriage.
Married women in
their child-bearing years, ask your husband to learn about one the highly
effective natural family planning methods instead of risking your health and
soul by oral contraceptives. See Genesis, chapter 38 and the Catholic Church
teaching in Humanae Vitae, written by Pope St. Paul VI in 1968, to see brief
but beautiful and clear instruction about God's plan for married love and the
transmission of life.
Part of the metaphor
of salt is worldwide evangelism. The influence of believers thus has eternal
ramifications on others.
When your saltier,
you can be sweet too!
Salt on chocolate
makes the chocolate taste sweeter than without the added seasoning.
Like regular service
for others, the AA Big Book says, “Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers,
depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their
needs.”
Sunday’s First Reading
says: Thus, says the LORD: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the
oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them and do not turn
your back on your own.
When the Israelites got
home from exile in Babylon after 50 years, they found their towns and farms in
a worse state than ever. They had to rebuild everything: farms, homes, businesses,
cities, the temple. In rebuilding, they fell into injustice, oppression, and
internal conflicts. The restoration stalled. When God’s people became a society
based on compassion rather than oppression, justice rather than injustice, the
renewal went forward.
Lastly, the salt
which has lost its taste has more sand and earth than salt because that was the
way people removed it from the mines and quarries – like blocks of salt mixed
with lots of sand.
Salt cannot lose its
taste, unless mixed with impurities of various kinds and moisture, dissolves what
little salt there at the outset.
The Devil hates
salt, as Father Montague explains:
"Salt never appeared at the witches' table [because] it is an
emblem of eternity, [and so there was] the absence of salt at these infernal
banquets. 'At these meals,' …' salt never appears.' (The History of Witchcraft,
p. 145, Barnes and Noble Books).
As a Catholic
sacramental, a priest or deacon can bless salt. It is normally mixed into holy
water, but it does not have to be. In whichever form intended, salt is an instrument
of grace to preserve one from the corruption of evil occurring as sin-sickness,
demonic influence, or other evil manifestation.
At the start of the
Prophet Elisha’s ministry, he is called on to purify the cursed water of
Jericho. So Elisha used salt which cured the toxicity of the waters and also
desalinated it so that once again, it could become potable.
Action
Today we have toxic
T.V., toxic people, toxic environments.
For salt to lose its
taste means that it has become “unsavory.” Not so much a lack of intelligence
as the perversion of a will turned away from God -- excluded from the kingdom.
The expressions “to
be thrown out” and “to be trampled underfoot” mean judgment. The street was
where people dumped tasteless salt. People would walk over it, which is
expressive of contempt and scorn.
Keep salt in
yourselves, and you will have peace with one another (Mark 9:49-50). Amen.
1 comment:
Great editing Tony D
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