The Light of the World
Homily Sunday, February 8, 2026: Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Jesus in the Gospel today tells us that when salt loses its flavor, it is not good for anything except to be thrown on the ground and trampled underfoot. Though right now, in this February in Vermont, we might think that that’s one of its most beneficial uses.
We are the Salt of the Earth, He tells us; we are the Light of the World; and we are the City set on a mountain.
All familiar phrases, we’ve heard them repeated many times. So what do they mean?
Our first reading gives some context, and is a lot more straightforward about it. Thus says the Lord: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them … then your light shall break forth like the dawn.
This is something we can see happening around us all the time. Think of our Popes, like Leo and Francis, or recent saints like Teresa of Calcutta. When Catholic leaders and personalities devote themselves to the poor and the oppressed, to doing good in the world, the World takes notice.
That is what Jesus means when he tells us to be the Light of the World. When we do as God commands us, when we treat others as we would want to be treated, we are shining God’s light into the darkness of the world. Those Good Works that Isaiah tells us about, they help people to see more clearly, to see the world as it should be, to see the world as God intended it to be.
Jesus gives us the reminder – and this always strikes me as a bit tongue-in-cheek – that we don’t light a lamp to hide it under a bushel basket. If we’re going to be the Light of the World we have to expect to be noticed.
And that notice might not always be a good thing.
The Catholic Church has had its share of scandal. Maybe more than its share. Right now our diocese is still trying to deal with the legal fallout from sins of the past.
Are there some opportunists out there, looking to cash in on misfortune? No doubt. But that is the price of drawing attention to oneself – of being in the spotlight. Of being that city set on a mountain that, for better and for worse, can’t be hidden.
It’s easy to cry “persecution” and dismiss it as the World just hating us because it hated Christ before us. But that’s too easy and not always entirely accurate. Because there have been real troubles in our Church. There are real sins, real crimes committed, real victims deserving of justice.
Because in the end we must acknowledge and understand that we are a Church of sinners. Each and every one of us, from the Pope on down to the lowliest lay person, we are all sinners, all in need of Christ’s redemption.
In need of that Light of Christ, which we shine into the dark spaces of the World, which we must at times turn also inward to the dark spaces in our own hearts, in our communities, in our institutions.
Through prayer, through examination of conscience, through regular Sacramental Confession, but also through those Works of Mercy that Isaiah lays out for us. The more we humble ourselves in the service of others, the more we too will see in the Light of Christ, ourselves as God intended us to be.
Because when we share our bread with the hungry, he tells us, when we shelter the oppressed and the homeless, then, he says, our light shall break forth like the dawn and our wounds shall be quickly healed.
In other words, the more we join in Christ’s mission to heal others, the more we too are healed.