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You know, this past Sunday, we heard a very familiar word from our Lord. He said, you are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Right now, light can be interpreted obviously as casting out darkness, sure, helping people to see clearly, make their way through the world. But then we specifically said this weekend, like truth, light as truth. He wants us to bring truth into the world. And as far as salt, he wants us to draw the goodness out of life. You know, how salt does not create the flavor, but draws it out. There's goodness in people that God has put there, and he wants us to be people who can draw that out. And salt also preserves. You know, salt's a great preservative. Before the refrigerator, salt was the preservative. So we're both very liberal, you know, as Catholic Christians, loving our Lord, we're liberal in letting our light shine wherever we are. So there's that liberality with which we share the truth with people in a world of deception and lie and deceit in a dark world because of people who live by and promote those lies. But nonetheless, with liberality, we share the truth with everyone. But there's also a conservative character to our discipleship, which is to offer a way of conserving that or preserving it the way salt does. So I wanted to remember with you that for us to really preach the truth with conviction in the world, I think it requires that we really believe that it ultimately draws the goodness out of people. So it would be for them that they could recognize some goodness in themselves that might otherwise be lying dormant. Then I think that emboldens us to persevere in bringing truth into the world. I just wanted to acknowledge with you that I think it's a daunting task to think about being light and salt. You know, with regard to being light, I mean, Jesus said, a city set on a hill shall not be hidden. But why would a city set on a hill or a mountaintop ever want to be hidden? Well, maybe perhaps doesn't want to get the attention of enemies or other cities of the world that don't like it very much and may want to attack it. Maybe that city would prefer to be hidden from the possibility of being disliked or attacked. And that is for sure one of the reasons why we find it difficult to bring love and truth into the world. We're afraid of getting the attention of our enemies or being attacked. I mean, even just putting something on social media with the hopes of bringing a little light into the darkness will always run the risk of being met with the Ire of the enemy. A person who disagrees strongly or who from that sad darkness, attacks with vitriol. Like, as Catholics, you know, we live in the world that is celebrating all sorts of things that we don't celebrate and bringing a true response to someone when they ask us to be happy for them, when they might be choosing to do something, we don't celebrate. But again, if we believe that bringing light into the world by living truthfully in this world can help someone to recognize their own goodness, I think that's real motivation. You know why? Because there are people in the world who have the truth, and they preach the truth, even boldly, or sing about it or tattoo it on their body, but they don't really live a good life. Like, they speak truth, but they're also at the same time prejudicial to the point of being judgmental. They might have the truth about things, but there's no warmth. It's like this winter sunlight that we've been suffering from up here in New York for so long. It's like, yeah, there are a lot of light, but there's no warmth. And nobody wants to go outside. And there are people in the world who are like this. They've got the truth, but there's no warmth. And no one wants to go out of themselves. That goodness in us remains because they don't draw it out. So a person who is only light but not salt, meaning a person who is only truth but not love, it's still. It's not enough to draw the goodness in us out. But then there are also people in the world who. Who are living in sin, for example, or unable to see the error of their way. But you can honestly say, oh, I feel so bad, though, because he's a good guy. He's a good guy. I know that might be something people would disagree with saying, no, if a person is living in sin, they are not good. But you know what I mean. There are people who are kind of endearing, but. And lovable even as they're living in sin. So they don't see the truth of something. But we say sometimes they got a good heart. But this image of being light and salt would be to live in the truth, to be real, to truly be willing to sacrifice our attachment to lie and to be humble before what we perceive so we can be free from deception and truly discern what is real like reality, so as not to lose sight of the dignity of life from conception to natural death, you know, or the dignity and the beauty of the relationship. Between man and woman, remembering that the human being is created male and female. These life issues, they are the examples of what it looks like to try to hold intention, always the truth and goodness and love. So when Christ calls us to be the light of the world and then says, you shouldn't be hidden under a bushel basket, he's trying to encourage us to bring the truth. But then when he says, you are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? He's reminding us, speaking to his disciples. He's teaching us that if we were to become like the world that chooses sometimes either truth but no love, or love but no truth, there is no place for us to go. The Christian alone hangs with Christ on the cross in the tension between the vertical reality of our life, our life with God, and the horizontal reality of life, our life with our neighbor. That's why the church gave us the second reading from St. Paul to the Corinthians. He says, I want you to know Christ crucified. I have come to you to preach Christ crucified. And Christ crucified is a man who. Who literally hangs in the tension between the truth that is our relationship with God, that vertical beam of the cross, and the horizontal truth of our reality with our neighbor in a fallen world where there must be mercy and forgiveness and understanding. So that's why St. Paul speaks about preaching Christ crucified. You see how Christ is the man who lives in the tension between the vertical beam and the horizontal beam. There are people in the world who just do the vertical beam. They have maybe religious truth, and they use it almost like as a sword. But they walk around wielding this knowledge of the truth. But there's very little horizontal. There's no love for the neighbor, no acceptance of the reality of a broken world where there must always be forgiveness and reconciliation and compromise. And so they're just a vertical beam, but without that horizontal beam, they're not yet salvific. They can't yet save the world because only the cross and Christ on the cross redeems the world. If they're just a vertical beam, they're still not yet able to save us. But then there's also people who walk around merely in that horizontal reality or with the horizontal beam, and they forget, like, the vertical reality of truth and our relationship with God. They just do. Like, you know, people are. You know, they all have dignity, that they say, love is love. This whole merely horizontal approach to life. I just think a person should be able to, you Know, like, you ask somebody what they think about perhaps an issue like abortion or something, and they say, well, I just feel like a woman should be able to. So there's an overemphasis of the horizontal to the point of ignoring or forgetting about the vertical. What would God have me do? So if we hold the tension between the vertical and the horizontal and live there now we are truly Christ's disciples, right? He said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. And that's why he's able to say to his disciples, you are the salt of the earth. You know, if we're willing to be crucified with Christ, we draw the goodness out of people, and you are the light of the world. If we're willing to be raised up on the cross like Christ crucified, then we become people who can truly bring light into the darkness as we do so, like with love, and free people from deception and error and lie. But again, it is. It is Christ who says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will have the light of life. But it is Christ crucified who says that to us, hanging in the tension between the vertical and the horizontal reality of life. You know, and I mentioned this weekend a priest that I was blessed to grow up seeing and hearing through childhood, and then while I was in high school, and then he was transferred as I went to college. But I kept in touch with him all throughout my time in college. And when I came home, I would visit him. It's Monsignor McDonald. So Monsignor James McDonald was my pastor when I was growing up. And, you know, he preached truth straightforwardly, plainly, unapologetically, and he brought light into the darkness of many people's lives, my own family's included. Although I didn't understand exactly what he was saying, when I was young, I knew he was saying it also with love for us. I trusted that the reason he preached so boldly the truth and the reason he was willing to shine so brightly was because he believed that it could draw goodness out of us that we would otherwise be unaware of. Like he preached to us with hope of what we might become. You know, it wasn't that he was preaching at us because he was upset with what we were not, but he preached enthusiastically and with zeal to us, with hope of what we might yet become. Does that make sense? That's what I love about him, and I want to be like that. I want to also preach with zeal and boldly witness to the truth in this world, but not out of frustration with a person's imperfection or failures or because the world is still so prone to deception. Not, no, but with hope that it may yet come forth from the darkness. It may yet recognize its own goodness. You know, so Monsignor was like that, you know, in eighth grade, when I was getting ready for confirmation, we were told by the Director of Religious Education to write a little letter to our pastor. And instead of writing just to my pastor, I wrote to my fine pastor. I didn't think he would necessarily read the letter because there were so many of us writing to him. But sure enough, either that Sunday or the following Sunday, as I was leaving Mass, we were just saying goodbye to him as we usually do. He said to me, oh, it's my fine parishioner. It's my fine parishioner. And I said, oh, my gosh, you read those letters? He said, yes, I read those, Robby. And that was it. Now I had his attention and he knew that he had mine. I. I stood out to him by just. Instead of writing to my pastor, writing to my fine pastor. But I look back on that and, I mean, I was never an altar boy. I never talked to him before like that. I must have seen something, though, and heard and felt in my heart something like as he was preaching and seeing him love his people of the parish, looking at his priesthood, he drew something out of me. He drew my own priesthood out of me. Which is why, and this is what I mentioned this weekend, and I wrote about it in the bulletin after college when I came home to visit him for confession once when he was then pastor at St. Matthews in Dix Hills. After that confession, as I was leaving the office, I'm probably confessing sins of the flesh and stuff, you know, he said to me, robbie, he says, you're never going to be happy until you're giving. And I remember exactly where I was standing when he said that. It was like a four o' clock moment. Remember, John says in his Gospel that when he and Andrew met the Lord, it was four in the afternoon on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. And you know, I remember what it felt like. He was not just speaking to the boy who just confessed those adolescent sins, but he was speaking to the man I might yet become. But listen to the message itself again. That's a tough word spoken to a young man. And he takes the risk of my not wanting to see him again because he would dare say to me that I have to give or be generous. But he did Dare. He was bold. And I do appreciate him for that because I knew it was so that he could draw out the goodness that he saw lying dormant in me, you know, my potential to become a man, perhaps like him, you know, happy, joyful, because generous. So I took him at his word. And I did begin to volunteer a little bit with the youth ministry and the outreach and the liturgy of the parish, you know, my home parish. And then I actually started working with the homeless through the shelters. And he was right. I tasted for the first time, like happiness and joy. And then he saw me enter the seminary. He actually became the rector of the seminary as I was approaching ordination. It was very special that he would be the rector of the seminary when I was ordained. The picture I put in the bulletin of Monsignor McDonald this week is a picture of him embracing me as I was being ordained a priest that day on June 14, 2008. So I mention him because he wasn't just light, he was also salt. He preached light into the darkness. He preached truth to heal the lie, but also drew out this goodness from within anyone who would allow him to. And then he was as a great son of the church and one who could preserve that goodness with his love for the richness and the splendor of our Catholic faith. He gave us also a way of living that goodness with perseverance. And Monsignor McDonald loved Fulton Sheen, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and on one occasion, Monsignor, probably around this time, as I was visiting him after college and getting excited about growing in the faith now and giving and discerning what God would call me to before I was thinking about the priesthood, he gave me a whole CD collection of all of Bishop Sheen's talks, radio talks. So you can look up Bishop Sheen. He was teaching a lot. Late 50s through the 60s, 70s, early 80s. This bishop was a great teacher of the faith. And listening to those CDs, I learned a lot for the first time about what was behind Monsignor McDonald's preaching. And then also, Bishop Sheen was a man who loved to try to help a person come to see their own potential to be a Saint. And Monsignor MacDonald lived like that, too. He believed that everyone he was talking to could possibly become a saint. And that's not just wishful thinking or mere piety. That's the truth of the human person, that we're all capable of becoming a saint. I don't think God would have given us life in this world if we couldn't become saints. Right. That would be a cruel thing. To do. Nor do I think he would have made you and me for this time we live in if we couldn't become saints in this age in which we live. You know, he didn't create us 1700 years ago, and we don't believe in reincarnation. So this is it. This is the time we live in. And if God created us for this time, then I think he's saying to us also that we can become saints in these times. So here's one last image, and we said this this past Sunday. It's of something that Bishop Sheen wrote in his book called the Life of Christ. And maybe it's in some of his other books. He's written many. But it's something that I first read from him and I've held onto ever since. And I share it with you here for three reasons. First, because Monsignor McDonald loved Bishop Sheen, and he gave me this relationship that I have with Bishop Sheen. Also because Bishop Sheen gave me this image that I'm going to share with you again here. And then because it has to do with the Sea of Galilee, and that's the place where Jesus preached, you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. So what is it about the Sea of Galilee that has anything to say to what we've been talking about here? Well, the Jordan river flows into the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, but the Sea of Galilee is alive while the Dead Sea is dead. So why is the Sea of Galilee alive and the Dead Sea dead if they both receive the same waters of the River Jordan? Well, the Sea of Galilee gives all of that water away. You know, everything flows, flows in and then flows through. And it has all sorts of ways of giving that life away. And so the Sea of Galilee is teeming with life to this day, whereas the Dead Sea receives the River Jordan, but does not give it away. It has no sort of offshoots, no tributaries coming in, nor any way of giving away what it receives. And so nothing grows in it. And right there in that holy land and right by the Sea of Galilee itself, as our Lord preaches that we are salt of the earth, light of the world, he's calling us to be like the Sea of Galilee and to live those words that Monsignor McDonald said to me, if you want to be truly happy or truly joyful, give, give. You know the way. The Sea of Galilee gives away everything that it receives and is full of life because of it. So when Jesus says to us, I have come that you might have life and have it to the full. I want to remember with you that that's very much connected with our giving away the life that God is giving to us. You know, when he says that I have come, that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. He is teaching us about that mysterious joy which is the fruit of the spirit that comes from not, not the first tree in the Garden of Eden, but the tree of life that is the cross. Self emptying love. When we give ourselves away, we have joy. I think in some ways the criminal hanging next to Jesus on the cross, whom we call the good Thief because he stole heaven at the last moment. I think what he saw in Jesus was mysterious, indescribable joy. Now it sounds cruel, and I don't mean an earthly joy, but a man who was at peace, who trusted God so deeply that he was able to care for his mother and his friend from the cross and pray for the who were persecuting him and those who were crucifying him. And this criminal, who saw such extraordinary love and such a light in that terribly dark hour, allowed it to touch his heart. And then that goodness in him comes out. And he says, jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. The goodness in that man came out. And then the question is, will it, Will it be preserved? Will it remain? Or is it just a nice little pious moment? But Jesus says to him, this day you'll be with me in paradise. You know the everlasting joy that Christ offers to us. No mere passing, passing joy or earthly happiness. So when Christ calls us to be light in the world and truth in the world, it's because he's sharing his light and his truth with us. And he wants us to know the joy of sharing that with others, but also to do so as salt. He's saying to draw the goodness out of people. Because that's how he is with us. Being with Christ, the way that he looks at us helps us to recognize something in us that we can't see without him, without that gaze upon us in that way. That's why those first disciples never left his side. It was the way he looked at them. They allowed his gaze to pierce their hearts. And as long as they remained with him, they were able to keep loving that way, you know? So you and I receive a great gift from Christ in our baptism and in the Eucharist. We receive the faith we share. When he invites us to share it with others, it is as much for them as it is for us.