THE GOOD MAN.
February 5, 2023.
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – A.
A Native American Pueblo proverb says: “A good man does not
take what belongs to someone else.” And a Chinese proverb adds: “One more good
man on earth is better than an extra angel in heaven.”
“Do good always. Do good to all. Never harm anyone...” (Don
Orione) I watched an American-Mexican series on Netflix (Señora Acero) and one
of the actors was named 'El Bueno' (the Good Man). One thing that caught my
attention about him was his definition of being good and what he was able to do
for goodness' sake. He even died in a war that was not his just by being good
and defending the poor and the oppressed Sara Aguilar and her son Salvador
Acero. He was ready to do good to all. To do good always. And without counting
the price. The life of 'El Bueno' matches with the words of Don Orione we
quoted ahead: do good always and to all. We learn through the testimony of El
Bueno that one becomes light only by being good and doing good. Evildoers are
filled with darkness and their life itself is an outspring of obscurity.
The word of God, on this 5th Sunday of the Ordinary Time A
is an exhortation on goodness and light. Every Christian is called to be a
light in the world. The Lord, through the Prophet Isaiah, tells his people that
the only way to have a shining and attractive life is to be a person of good, a
charitable and serving heart. So he says: "Share your bread with the
hungry, and shelter the homeless poor, clothe the man you see to be naked and
do not turn from your own kin. Then will your light shine like the dawn and
your wound be quickly healed over." Salvation and justification are made
effective and possible only through charity and goodness. Don Orione can say:
"Charity and only charity will save the world." Therefore, doing good
always and to all is the true and effective way to salvation.
The Gospel raises our Christian obligation: to be the salt
and light of the world. We are still in the Sermon on the Mount. And here, the
Lord opens the human dimension of perfection. The Lord says: "You are the
salt of the earth... You are the light of the world..." This is what we
are called to be, salt and light. Our lives must inspire and illuminate.
Those who like cooking or even every one of us, because we
like eating, know the importance of salt in a meal. A not seasoned diet can
hardly be eaten. If the excess of salt is pejorative to health, its absence is
not well appreciated, except for those under saltless prescription. And salt
cannot be hidden when added to a meal. It is easily noticed.
It goes also similar to light. We are all afraid of
darkness. All our demons rise when there is obscurity. Light is needed for
security, control, happiness, and peace. Someone, one day asked why nightclubs
are always open at night and with a dark light. The answer is simple. Because
demons like obscurity. The mask of darkness allows one to act other than
themselves. And someone wrote: "Darkness hides things. One is more
inclined to approach a woman at night in a jam-packed room with loud music than
in broad daylight in a quiet coffee shop. It’s because self-consciousness is
low or absent completely." Darkness opens to dark desires while light
calls for consciousness.
The Lord Jesus in today's Gospel insists on these two
imperatives of our Christian identity: Salt and light. That is to say, we must
give savor, and reveal. The purpose of salt and light is to preserve and
illuminate, and this is what we are called to do. Our societies and the world
have become a battlefield of any kind of evil. As Christians, we are urged to
serve as preservatives, stopping the moral decay in our sin-infected world.
This a wonderful privilege the Lord gives us to be the salt of the earth. To be
different and make others feel our presence. Where there is corruption, to
bring and inspire righteousness. And the Lord ends by telling us the
consequences of losing taste. Sin may lead us to be without savor. We can lose
our saltiness. When salt is contaminated it becomes corrosive and poisonous.
Regrettably, many of us, Christians, have turned out to be more poisonous than
savorous. In some places, corruption is the work of Christians and good
churchgoers.
Our other obligation is to be light. Jesus tells His
disciples, "You are the light of the world." If as salt we are urged
to be the counteract of the power of sin, as the light we are urged to
illuminate, to make visible, and to reveal. It is not enough to avoid sin
ourselves. We must also point an accusing finger at sin and make it visible to
all. The light brings things to be known. So too, as Christians, when we see
corruption or evilness in a place, we must say it and accuse it. To keep silent
in front of others’ sin is a collaboration to the increase of sin. Albert
Einstein said: "The world is a dangerous place to live not because of the
people who are evil but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
If you see evil and pass your way without acting against it, you are more
dangerous than the evildoer himself. Our world is regrettably in greater peril
because of our indifference and selfishness in front of evil. As light, we must
reveal and accuse what is bad. We must be the El Bueno.
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