Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time Year A-- 1/60th Of Salt

For the Jewish people, 1/60th was the mathematical fraction if some non-Kosher food, like Korean Galbi -- marinated grilled beef or pork short ribs-- was accidently mixed-in to your Kosher food- it would still be OK to eat since 1/60th is such a small amount.

Not 1/60th, but with lots of salt, all Old Testament sacrifices had to be sprinkled—including animal, bird, or grain sacrifices.

When Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth,” he means you are empowered to make the necessary sacrifices to bring flavor and preserve others from becoming rotten due to your intercessory prayers and example.

However, since 1/60 is 1.66%, adding this small amount of salt to food would not only be "flavorful" but would likely make the food taste quite salty.

This suggests that you being even 1/60th of the "salt of the earth" can be enough- which implies that you don’t need to be part of the majority. A small, dedicated group of Catholics (or even a single person’s prayers) can prevent an entire community from "spoiling." Your presence acts as a spiritual preservative for those around you. The holier, the more saltier.

E.g. In the Jewish commentary called the Talmud, there is a famous teaching that anyone who visits a sick person "takes away 1/60th of their pain." (Nedarim 39b); and the cumulative effect of many visitors continuously reduces the suffering.

It’s interesting how salt on chocolate makes the chocolate taste sweeter.

When you're saltier, you can be sweet too!

e.g. The First Reading says: Thus says the LORD: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless.

However, there is a "void" which is a vacuum that, if not filled with something holy (like prayer or the "salt" of a moral life), temptations encouraged by demons are much stronger.

The potential void for high schoolers is their developmental stage at this point in their lives. A "Spiritual Vacuum" happens when the student does not worship at Sunday Mass, and receive worthily the Eucharist, which creates an "empty house" that invites negative influences in.

Consider that that just 1/60th of "blessed salt" mixed into a gallon of Holy Water not only can renew your baptismal graces, but if you sprinkle it around your room, it will repel demons. In her autobiography, Saint Teresa of Avila famously testifies that holy water is the most effective weapon against demonic presence because of its unique "virtue" or power, and lasting effect. (Chapter 31)

Jesus also says, “You are the light of the world.”

At the Feast of Tabernacles, the courts of the Temple were lit twenty-four hours a day by large menorahs that had to be lit by men climbing up on ladders. And Jerusalem is likewise a “city sat on a hill,” with the Temple itself being in the most prominent position. (Samuel Keyes)

The whole point seems to be that Jesus sees his disciples as a living temple, replacing the old temple of stone. This idea takes on further weight when we look at the Lord’s claims about that Old Testament temple being cast down, and about how his disciples will consume his body and blood—he who describes himself consistently in sacrificial terms as somehow embodying a New Temple of God’s Presence. (Samuel Keyes)

Lastly, the salt which has lost its taste has more sand and the dust of the earth in the container than pure salt because it was quarried that way: blocks of salt mixed with lots of sand and dirt as it was often harvested from the Dead Sea.

If you have enough salt, you won’t taste the dust, which we are made of.

Remember man that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

For salt to lose its taste means it has become “unsavory.”

Not so much a lack of intelligence as the perversion of a will turned away from God.

Excluded from the kingdom.

The expressions “to be thrown out” and “to be trampled underfoot” means judgment.

The street was where tasteless salt was dumped and people would walk all over it, which is expressive of contempt and scorn.

Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another (Mark 9:49-50).

Amen.