Today’s gospel answers the question for us: Why are we supposed to do good things? Unfortunately, there is a powerful heresy that has gripped North American Catholicism for years. It is the false belief that we are saved by doing good works. Therefore, as long as one is a good person, he is saved. There is nothing in Catholicism that teaches this.  Indeed, those who preached this in Jesus’ time were reprimanded by Our Lord. It is not that people have a call to do bad works or not do any good works at all, but it is our relationship with God that must drive our behavior.

In Today’s gospel we see Jesus call us The Salt of the Earth. He also makes an interesting comment that in today’s world says something more than in His day. If salt loses it flavor it is good for nothing but to be trampled. Salt cannot lose its flavor, that is one of its properties. If it does loses its flavor it was never salt.

You and I are called to not

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only be a sign of God’s presence, but as different as salt is to corn, so must we be to the world. If there is no noticeable difference between the Catholic community and the rest of the world, then we have no witness to the world.

You and I, however, have a calling to be different and to be holy. Why? So that we may be saved? That is not what Jesus says. It is so that God’s name may be glorified. We do not do good things that we may be saved, we do good things that God may be glorified. Our focus is not on ourselves but on the God we serve.

This is what God calls us to do. Our focus is to glorify God in all that we do. We seek Christ and we live Christ and so our whole existence is Christ centered. This is our focus. When we do that, we will by default act differently. We will be different because unlike the rest of the world, our focus is on being servants of the Christ who saves us.

When we are focused instead on things of this world, or we look elsewhere then we will morph into everyone else and be no different than the rest of the world.

It is interesting to note that there is a worldwide movement to silence the Catholic Church, specifically, that is because we are different and we are at odds with the world that hates us. However, as different as salt is to corn, so we are called to be different to the rest of the world.

We may hear people complaining that in our world sex before marriage is ok, marriage is no longer necessary, gay marriage is ok, abortion is ok, among many other things. we don’t believe in any of this as Catholics. Why? as different as salt is from corn, so must we be different from the rest of the world.

I like to remind people of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Why did God destroy those cities? If you say because of the sinfulness of the people you will be wrong. It is because of the lack of the presence of the righteous. This same principle applies with us. You and I are called to holiness that others may know God. We cannot do that if our goal is to be accepted in this world, or to be like others and even if our desire is to make it in this world at the expense of glorifying the God that we serve.

What is your motivation in life? Are you seeking your own interests or the will of God? This might be something to reflect upon this week.

God Bless You.

Fr. Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community (Canção Nova). He is the pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA and is the editor of this blog.

You may also find his videos in English at Gloria.tv. They will soon also be appearing on the New Song Media website to be unveiled soon.