A few days ago, I spoke with a friend of mine who is a priest out East. And I asked him how things were going. And he said, things were pretty good, but their housekeeper was sick. And he asked me to pray for her to get well, because he said that he couldn’t afford for her to be gone much longer. And I asked him, what he meant by that. And he said that he had to go out and buy all new clergy shirts. Clergy shirts are these stylish black shirts with the little white tab collars just like Fr. Dale and I wear all the time. My friend went on to tell me how, with their housekeeper gone, he had been doing his own laundry, and he had put bleach in with his black clergy shirts. Not a real smart thing to do! He said they all came out with white splotches all over them. He said now they all look like cow shirts. This guys is using bleach on black clothes. That’s not what bleach is for. In fact, here at our rectory, Fr. Dale and I, who do our own laundry, thank you very much, have even started using those new detergents for dark cloths, that keep black clothes from fading and getting gray. Bleach should be kept far away from priests. Bleach by it’s nature, is to make white clothes white and keep them that way. That’s what bleach is. That’s what bleach does.

In many ways, this is the same thing that Jesus is talking to us about today. Only Jesus uses the images of salt and light. He says salt is to flavor food. If salt is old and not going to do what it is supposed to do, it should be thrown away. It is worthless. Jesus tells us that light is to illuminate things. You don’t have a light, any kind of light, and put it under something. It would be a waste of the light and a waste of the energy. It’s not what light is for. It’s not what light is about. It doesn’t matter what the thing is that we are talking about, everything is supposed to be, what it is supposed to be. We need to be true to our identity and purpose, whether we are bleach, or salt, or light, or a Christian. And that’s what this Gospel is really all about.

As baptized Christians, we are called to be God’s witnesses in the world. It supposed to be who we are and what we are all about. We are to be like Jesus. That is to be our new nature. We are to be compassionate, and merciful, and witnesses to hope. We have as our goal that we want people to look at us, but to only see Jesus! But are we true to our nature? Are we who we profess to be? That’s really the question of the day. People misuse bleach every day and ruin things. Some people misuse salt, they use too much or they forget to put into the cooking. And some people misuse light all the time. We waste it. We leave lights on when they don’t need to be. We don’t follow the light to safety. We choose the darkness over the light. And, of course, we know that there are many people who play around with faith. There are lots of people who call themselves Christian. There are lots of people who have Bibles, or rosaries, or crosses around their necks. There are lots of people who spend time in churches. None of these things will make you a Christian. Christianity, by its essence, has to be lived. We can’t just talk about it. We can’t just pray about it. We can’t just build beautiful buildings to honor it. At some point, all of us have got to make the decision to be Christian, to do Christianity. And until we do, we’re just playing games.

We have to live our Faith. People ought to be able to look at us and know that we are Catholic Christians - not by the cross around our neck, not by the books that we read or the music that we listen to, and not by the license plate or bumper sticker that we have on our cars and trucks. Others should be able to know that we are Catholic Christians by the way that we are living our lives. We need to let our lights shine and illumine as many other lives as we can. We need to be salt for a bland world, shaking things up and challenging others to re-think their trust in the world. We need to be bleach for a world that desperately needs cleaned up and made shiny and presentable again. That’s our job. That’s our mission. That’s our vocation. As Catholic Christians, that’s our nature. You cannot really be a Catholic Christian unless you are getting out there and living your Faith. God’s got enough talkers, and writers, and liturgical nazis today. What God needs are people who live out what we believe. Can you do that for Him?

Used in the right way, bleach can do amazing things to get some of your clothes clean. It has its purpose. But it has got to be used correctly. It’s got to have the right goals in mind. If you use it in the wrong way, you just end up, like my friend, with splotches all over your clothes. So too, Faith has to used and lived in the right way. May the Gospel guide all of us to living our Faith correctly and fulfilling our Christian nature.

May God bless us as we head into Lent this week, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… AMEN !!!