November 8, 2004

The other day a sudden thought came to me during our community’s daily Eucharistic Holy Hour. The Church is like a big spiritual salt shaker.

I recalled the time my family and I visited my aunt’s summer home at the Jersey shore. The rather unusual salt shakers which Aunt Mary used to keep on the dinner table came to mind. The curious thing about these salt shakers was that they not only had salt in them, they also had rice in them. Rice, I wondered??? After asking her, Aunt Mary explained that the dry rice absorbed the humidity in the salt shakers to prevent clogging (and there’s nothing worse than a clogged salt shaker, right?). Then, the following words of Jesus concerning Christians in the world came to mind:

YOU are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Now I should add that that particular Holy Hour would be the last one before people poured out to the polls on Election Day. I, like many people of faith, was begging God to spare our country from all candidates whose work would bear witness to what St. Paul calls a gospel other than the one he had preached. (Thankfully, our prayers have been answered!)

Election Day boldly underscores the immense importance of the lay apostolate. It is you who bring the Gospel into every walk of life – to family and friends, to the schools and the supermarkets, to the workplace and the streets – to every place without exception (and yes, even to the politicians and the polls). YOU are the salt of the earth.

If the Church is a big spiritual salt shaker, and you are the salt in the shaker, then we clergy and religious must be the rice in that shaker. Our apostolate is at the service of the lay apostolate, namely, to keep the shaker from clogging by our clear, consistent and continued preaching of the Gospel. Convinced that we possess the prophetic truth as something altogether reliable, we in turn confirm our brothers and sisters in the faith, and together we set out to convert the world to Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Remember that gut-wrenching feeling you had when it seemed that the elections might have had an unhappy outcome? Let it stand as a reminder that we have a lot more shaking to do. When all the members of the Church work together to spread the Gospel, we are the light of the world and it is Our Savior who shines brightly with splendor. Let us continue working together to push the dimmer switch up to full power!

Fr. Sylvester Mary Mann, C.F.R.
Director of St. Anthony's Residence, residing at St. Crispin Friary in the South Bronx
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