Homily for 23 Feb 2017

23 Feb 2017

(School Mass)

Jesus says to “keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”  And when he says “salt” he means just regular salt—like what we put on our food.  And the reason he says this is because, a long time ago, when people would sit down and eat a meal together, the salt they used all came from the same bowl.  They would “pass the salt” around.  And so, sharing the salt was a symbol of their friendship with each other.

That’s why Jesus says to “keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”  And, you know, this is basically what happens here at Mass and with the Eucharist.  Now, we don’t pass a bowl of salt around.  But, we do pass

something else around—the Body and the Blood of Christ. 

And there’s only one Christ.  He’s the one “thing” we all share.  Just think about it: When communion is done, there’s a little bit of Jesus inside each of us.  And so, when you look at your friend or your neighbor, or even somebody here you don’t know, you can say, “That person has Jesus inside them—the same Jesus who’s inside of me.”

And that affects how we treat each other because then we see each other as friends, as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Jesus said, basically, to “share a bowl of salt with each other and you will have peace.”  And we would also say, “Keep Jesus in yourselves, see Jesus in each other, share Jesus with others, and you will have peace with one another.”