Posted on 05/29/2018 8:33:30 AM PDT by Salvation
The Gospel from last Thursday’s daily Mass featured one of Jesus’ lesser-known teachings:
Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another (Mark 9:49-50).
Let’s begin with a few observations about salt in those times.
To apply the image of salt to the Christian life, we should see that the Christian is charged with purifying, sanctifying, and preserving this wounded and decaying world by being salt to it. The Christian is called to bring flavor to life in a world that is so often filled with despair and meaninglessness.
With that background, let’s turn to an analysis of Jesus’ words from the Gospel of Mark.
1. Everyone will be salted with fire. Two images of salt and fire come together here, but the result is the same: purification. We have already seen how salt purifies. Fire does the same thing through the refining process. Precious metals come from the ground admixed with iron and many other metals. Subjecting them to fire purifies the gold or silver, separating it from the iron and other metals.
Both salt and fire purify by burning, each in its own way. Hence the Lord marvelously brings those two images together, telling us that we will all be “salted with fire.”
Indeed, it must be so. We must all be purified. Scripture says of Heaven, nothing impure will ever enter it (Rev 21:27). St. Paul speaks of purgatorial fire as effecting whatever purification has not taken place here on earth:
If anyone builds on this foundation [of Christ] using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—yet as one escaping through the flames (1 Cor 3:15-15).
The Book of Malachi also reminds us of our need to be purified, to be “salted with fire.”
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver (Mal 3:2-3).
Yes, we must all be salted with fire. We must be purified, both here, and if necessary (as it likely will be), in Purgatory.
2. Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? In other words, we must let the salt of God’s grace have its effect or else we, who are to be salt for others, become flat, tasteless, and good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot (cf Matt 5:13).
If the salt will not be salt, there is no substitute for it. Jesus asks rhetorically, if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? There is no substitute for Christians. If we will not be light, then the world will be in darkness. If we will not be salt, then the world will not be purified, preserved, or have anything good or tasty about it at all. The decay of Western culture has happened on our watch, when we collectively decided to stop being salt and light.
3. Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another. In other words, allow the salt, the purification, to have its effect. Only if we do this will we have peace with one another.
Our divisions and lack of peace are caused by our sins. Thus, to accept the purification of being salted with fire is our only true hope for peace. When the Lord burns away my envy, I no longer resent your gifts; I rejoice in them and come to appreciate that I need you to complete me. In this way there is peace. When the Lord burns away my jealousy and greed and helps me to be grateful for what I have, I no longer desire to take what is rightly yours nor do I resent you for having it. In this way there is peace. When the Lord burns away my bitter memories of past hurts and gives me the grace to forgive, an enormous amount of poison goes out of my soul and I am equipped to love and to be kind, generous, and patient. In this way there is peace.
Yes, allowing ourselves to be salted with fire is a source of peace for us. And while we may resist the pain of fire and salt, just as with any stinging medicine we must learn that although it is painful it is good for us. Yes, it brings peace; it ushers in shalom.
Everyone will be (must be) salted with fire!
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Thank you, Salvation!
My humble uneducated opinion:
One would tend to disagree with the spiritual interpretation unless the interpretation is based upon FACTS of the time of Jesus concerning the origin of salt= ROMAN SLAVE SALT MINES!
??at?? st? ?? =salt in the earth
This is spiritual humbuggery by the commentators who know nothing of the realities of life under the horrible Roman Empire in Judea etc.-
When Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth” Greek= Matt. 5:13=
“Uueis este to alas tas gas”
St. Jerome Vulgate:
“vos estis sal terrae quod si sal evanuerit in quo sallietur ad nihilum valet ultra nisi ut mittatur foras et conculcetur ab hominibus”
He is referring to SALT FROM THE EARTH”e.i., a SALT MINE.
Salt of the Earth doesn`t make any sense unless it is translated “Salt from the earth= a salt mine!
Otherwise it doesn`t make any sense at all.
For 7 verses before the “salt verse- All Jesus talks about is PERSECUTION viz= 7 TIMES- He repeats the idea PERSECUTION” 7 TIMES to emphasize WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT!
[seven was a very important number to the Jews.]
5: 3 “poor in spirit” Romans try to break your spirit in a salt mine
5,4 “meek”- if you resist the Romans they will kill you on the spot
5 5 “mourn” someone died?
5 6 “hunger and thirst” =sounds like a slave condition to me
5 7
5 9 “suffer persecution”
5,10, “persecution”
5,11 “persecution”
512 “persecution”
5, 13 SALT MINES
13
The salt mines at the time of Jesus were located around the edge of the Dead Sea.
The salt mines were run by the Romans as a death sentence for people. Slaves for the Romans worked in the Dead Sea salt mines til they died in there. THEN their bodies were just thrown out into the Dead Sea to be eaten away by the corrosive brine..
“that being sent to the salt mines was considered a death sentence.”
“Similar in purpose (and worse in reality) to the slave cell were the quarries and mines of the Roman
Empire. Judges condemned men, women, and even children to work in them for the rest of their lives,
sometimes in literal salt mines. These people often lived underground, never again seeing the light of
day.”
[http://www.mpumc.org/uploads/file/Prisons%20in%20Paul.pdf]
Jesus always referred to real examples when talking to every day folks, -He didn`t speak of things that the everyday folks couldn’t understand-
GA= Greek= earth soil, land- So it can be translated= salt of the soil, salt of the land- It doesn`t mean salt of the planet earth, but SOIL or DIRT or land
-Then Jesus says- “loses its strength”
“ It means a salt mine slave lost all his strength from being worked to death- see next statement by Jesus-
coz he says as the last statement “It is no longer usable but to be able thrown outside to be trampled by men.” cf above “thrown out into the Dead Sea”
“to be thrown outside”- must mean that it was inside something before- i.e, the SALT MINE>
It matches what the Romans were doing at that time concerning human beings being sentenced to death in salt mines.
Thus Jesus is telling the ordinary folks to watch out for the Romans so they do not wind up in the salt mines slaving til they are dead and their bodies cast out into the Dead Sea.
Coz in the previous verse Jeeus is talking about the presecution of the Jewish people by the Romans=
“when people..persecute you”-Matt 5:11-13
gimme a break!
The only people doing persecutions in the ROMAN EMPIRE were ROMANS!
One cannot isolate the sermon phrases of Jesus from one another, because they are all linked together by a common thread. In this case, “PERSECUTION” & “SALT” MINES-
It is a common error to quote Jesus out of context and then try to translate it in a spiritual sense with utter disregard to its precedent context and immediate previous statements by Him..
Well, DUHHHHHHHH
GIMME A BREAK!
Jesus dealt with REALITY, not lala land
Any 5th grader could figure this one out.
I expect the Pope to come out and clarify that it really means that gays are the bestest ever, immigrants too.
being smarter than any of the 2000 plus years of theologic giants of the Christian world, must be a heavy burden to bare for you, i guess?
Ever hear of allegory?
This is speaking of salt as the trials and tribulations everyone goes through in their lives.
You are taking it too literally.
“Salted with fire.” Isn’t that what we do to cashew nuts?
Perhaps something has been lost in translation over the millenia.
funny thing: I initially read the headline as “salted with fries” ...
Almost comical coming from you.
Of this passage and its interpretation, we might be reminded of the words of our Lord:
Mark 4:9 - "Then Jesus said, "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear."
The Holy Spirit is the fire that will be sprinkled on everyone. Some will Love it and many will fear it burning them.
Fire is something that can ‘burtt forth’ and can be ignored by few ... It moves people to action.
What can move men to travel to the ends of the Earth to proclaim ‘the truth’ and be martyred for it (ie - Apostle Thomas was martyred in India)
LOL!
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