Learning From St. Francis How To Enhance Life For All

SALT – we use it every day.  Lots of cities and counties have already stockpiled lots of salt to put on roads as the temperatures drop and rain turns to snow.  The trucks will both sprinkle salt and pour out those little streams of briny solution on the pavement to keep driving as safe as possible.

Salt enhances the flavour of the foods we eat.  When something is just “missing” from what we are tasting, often a pinch of salt will make all the difference.  It’s not the flavour of salt that we want but the essence of the thing we are eating that comes out when we salt it.

Salt was used a lot during the time Jesus walked on the earth and that made it a very useful object lesson for an important teaching Jesus invites us to bring front and center to our attention.  Many of us have often read or heard these familiar words:

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 

Matthew 5:13

The Message translation puts it this way:

Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

Matthew 5:13

God’s loving plan for our lives today is that our character would reflect His goodness and the way we interact with Him and others would bring out goodness.  The idea is to live in such a way that others actually experiencing that blessing because we’ve been a part of their life.

The challenge to this way of living is that it so often has to come in circumstances that require us to rise above something that is difficult.  St. Francis of Assisi put these thoughts into a prayer that many of us are familiar with.

Prayer:  Lord make Me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness joy. O Divine master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; To be understood, as to understand; To be loved. as to love. For it's in giving that we receive, and it's in pardoning that we are pardoned and it's in dying that we are born to eternal life.  Amen

Let’s learn from St. Francis of Assisi, as he sought to put this principle of Jesus in action in his life and do the same in ours.

Have a great day