Back to the Salt Mines
Salt and light are the themes for today’s gospel. We are to add flavor to the world around us and bring light into a dark world. Great examples. I had the chance to visit the salt mines in Poland. They are famous for the sculptures carved into rock and walls of the mine. There is even a great hall that would fit St Joseph’s church easily within its walls. The miners carved all sorts of religious figures, an altar to be used for mass, and even placed images of themselves in the carving of the figures in these rock murals. Fascinating work and exceptionally beautiful. Even more impressive they would have done these carvings after working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. We would say in their ‘free time’. Mining is dirty and dangerous work. And they would have used only candles and oil lamps to see what they were doing. Many lives were lost.
To go beyond just adding flavor to our lives around us, maybe we should consider the example given to us by the miners. Day after day they did the same thing. I am sure they complained and grumbled. Pay was not good, food always tasted like too much salt, and no time to really clean up. But that did not prevent them from sharing the gospel. To carve the images they did meant that in the deepest part of their hearts they believed, believed in God and of an eternal life with Him. The miners wanted to glorify God by their work, not just the mining, but in their beautiful artwork.
They used the only canvas available to them, rock walls. It should give us pause to think. What is available to us? What is our canvas? How will we tell the gospel message with what we have? It can be done. You can do it. You do not need a hammer and a chisel, but if that is what you have begin today. The seeds you plant today carry down to many generations. Or maybe you are the one who does the watering. In either case, your light will shine forever.
May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen