We are ‘light of the world,’ ‘salt of the earth’

Third Sunday of Easter, Year B
First Reading: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
Second Reading: 1 Jn 2:1-5
Gospel Reading: Lk 24:35-48

“The Christ is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem,” Jesus says in this Sunday’s Gospel Reading.

Accordingly, the apostles handed on what they had received “from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works,” and at “the prompting of the Holy Spirit,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They did so in two ways: first, by their preaching, their example, and “the institutions they established,” and second, by writing it down under “the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit.”

We hear Peter first preaching to the people in this Sunday’s First Reading. “You killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead,” he told them boldly. “Repent, therefore, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.”

The apostles had already instituted “apostolic succession” by electing Matthias to succeed Judas. In this way, they “left bishops as their successors,” giving them “their own position of teaching authority,” so that the Church might preserve “the full and living Gospel.”

The “living transmission” of the Gospel is called “Sacred Tradition.” By Sacred Tradition, the word of God, “entrusted to the apostles” by Jesus and the Holy Spirit, is transmitted “in its entirety” to today’s bishops. Through Sacred Tradition, the Church “perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is” and “all that she believes.”

(Accordingly, the Catholic Church does not derive her certainty about revealed truth from the Bible alone, as Protestants do. In fact, the first generation of Christians did not even have a written New Testament.)

Jesus gave his Church the responsibility of transmitting and interpreting authentically the revealed word of God, “whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition.” In practice, this task is carried out by “the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome,” who, at their ordination, are given “the sure charism of truth.”

However, the deposit of faith (Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition) is God’s gift to the whole Church. “Aroused and sustained” by the Holy Spirit, and guided by the Church, we all receive and “share in understanding” the faith revealed “once for all.”

Moreover, we share in handing it on. We are all obliged, by word and example, to manifest Christ, who clothed us with himself at baptism, and the Holy Spirit, who strengthened us at confirmation. Like St. Paul before his judges, we must boldly bear witness to our faith in any situation that requires it.

“Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven,” Christ promised. “Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in heaven.” If we are ashamed of him and his doctrine, he will be ashamed of us when he comes to judge the world.

As Catholics, we have the fullness of the truth about Christ and his doctrine. Now we must bear witness to it, knowing that we are making “an extraordinarily valuable contribution” to society, helping to ward off “a headlong plunge into the most dangerous crisis” that can afflict the world: namely a “confusion between good and evil,” St. John Paul II said.

We must assert that God exists: atheism is not a reasonable alternative. We must explain that Jesus “is the atoning sacrifice” for “the sins of the whole world,” as St. John says in the Second Reading. We must proclaim that the Catholic Church is the Church Jesus founded; only she has the fullness of the truth God has revealed to humans.

If we do, we are public benefactors: “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.” We must let our light shine before all people, so that they may see God’s goodness and give praise to him.