Matthew 5:13-16
When I visit Catholic residents in the nursing home, it’s very likely that the television is tuned to EWTN. Oddly enough, it’s true of a lot of non catholic residents as well. Most of the time the topic on television is religious news, or an interview of someone. Sometimes it’s prayers being said, maybe the angelus. Other channels are available, but it seems as though these residents find better company in EWTN.
EWTN, the Eternal Word Television Network, currently has about 400 employees and brings in about 64 million dollars every year, much of it from donations and bequests. It is a very transparent company compared with many tax exempt organizations. Their annual financial report is accessible online.
The history of EWTN is remarkable. Rita Rizzo was born in 1923 to parents who subsequently separated and eventually divorced. Rita was raised by her mother and grandparents, living in poverty and moving frequently. She attended Catholic grade school and remarked once that she hated nuns, who were the meanest people on earth.. She went to a public high school where she was in a marching band. She barely graduated, since during this time she held down two part time jobs to support her mother and help out her grandparents. After graduation she worked as a secretary, She suffered from a chronic stomach problem which caused her to lose about 20 pounds. Her mother brought her to a self-proclaimed mystic who urged Rita to make a novena to saint Therese, after which she had a conversion experience and all her symptoms disappeared.. She felt she had a vocation and eventually took vows as a Poor Clare nun, with the name “Angelica of the Annunciation". She suffered a bad fall resulting in problems walking which got worse. She had a back operation which was partially successful, but for the rest of her life she had back pains and difficulty walking. During this time she felt God was calling her to set up a monastery in the south. With a few other poor Clare nuns she moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and she and other nuns began making fishing lures to support themselves, and they raised enough to begin the process of building a chapel.
It was during this time that her weekly conversations about the faith began to attract more and more people, and the bishop helped her set up weekly broadcasts and later videocasts of these talks. Anyway, one thing led to another and she eventually founded EWTN, which produces television content and is accessible world-wide. As her vision for the monastery and EWTN took shape, she got in the habit of making plans, with the expectation that God would step in where needed, and that helped. Her biography is fascinating in this regard -- so many close calls where out of the blue someone came forth to give a donation or lend needed expertise. She died in 2016 after a series of strokes that made her active involvement in her apostolate no longer possible. EWTN and her convent in Irondale, Alabama, continues to thrive.
This remarkable story illustrates what Jesus is asking of his disciples. He’s not calling them to something new, he’s reminding them that they are already called, that through his grace we all have salt and light, we are all part of the city on a hill. Rita Rizzo started with nothing and suffered many setbacks. Mother Angelica let what she was become what everyone could see -- salt of the earth and light of the world.
I see two things to take away from today’s gospel; first, you and I are already salt and light; we get the tools we need at Baptism -- to enrich the lives of others and to be people who show the world what being a follower of Jesus is all about. Most of us are hampered from this vocation by false humility. We are afraid to be like Mother Angelica, even though we could be. Second, bearing salt and being light is meant to glorify God. The gospel we read uses the words “give praise” but most translations as well as the Greek original use the word meaning “glorify”. We toss that word around a lot in our prayers and liturgies. I realized as I was studying this gospel that I didn’t know what “glorify” meant. It doesn’t mean “praise”. It means showing the world the goodness of something, in this case, our heavenly father. Mary uses the same word in her song, where it's sometimes translated as “magnify” as in “my soul magnifies the Lord”.
Today, let us ask ourselves, are we glorifying God with our lives? Are we salt, are we light? If not, how can we let God take over and show us how we live the way Jesus calls us to live -- to be salt and light?
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