It is a curious mistake of the modern world to imagine that Christians best serve society by becoming bland and tame, like toothless lions. Our Lord did not tell His followers, “be like everyone else” but salt and light. He wanted them to change the world around them.

Salt, after all, does not exist for its own sake. It preserves, sharpens, and reveals flavor. A society may have abundance, efficiency, and cleverness, and yet still taste oddly thin. When Christians live their Catholic faith honestly – praying when prayer is unfashionable, forgiving when resentment would be easier, welcoming life where it is inconvenient – they restore depth to the human experience. They remind the world that truth is not invented, that goodness is not a private hobby, and that love is more than sentiment. Remove the salt, and decay is not dramatic at first; it is simply inevitable.

Light works differently. It does not argue with the darkness; it exposes it by being present. A single lamp does not abolish the night, but it makes orientation possible. In the same way, Catholics who live their faith publicly through works of mercy, fidelity in marriage, care for the poor, reverence for the weak,do not claim moral superiority. They simply make visible a way of living that assumes God is real and that human beings are made for more than comfort or consumption.

The great contribution, then, is not power or prestige, but witness. The Christian adds to society a stubborn hope that refuses to believe evil is final, a patience grounded in eternity, and a joy that does not depend on circumstances behaving themselves. Such people are often inconvenient. Salt stings in open wounds; light reveals what some would rather keep hidden. Yet without them, society may grow cleverer and louder, but not wiser.

When Catholics live as salt and light, they do not escape the world. They help save it from spoiling, and from forgetting what it is for. Remember, dear parishioner, you are called to be lions.