Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 8, 2026
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”
Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner. The full readings of the day from the Lectionary are available here.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always been baffled by this image of salt losing its flavor. How can it still be salt if it doesn’t have that salty flavor? We don’t even have words to describe the flavor apart from its own name!
St. Catherine of Siena is credited with instructing us, “Be who God made you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” This exhortation is similar to the salt image: on the one hand, we cannot help but be ourselves, for there is no one else we can be. Yet how often we do try to be someone else, some version of ourselves we think is more likable, more successful, more attractive, more holy.
We are, of course, called to become more like Jesus, to make our lives more like his own. But Jesus does not ask us to stop being ourselves in order to do that. Indeed, the more we conform our lives to his, the more fully ourselves we become. God has made each of us with unique personalities, experiences, and gifts. Jesus calls each one of us as ourselves to come follow him. God loves and wants to save each of us as the beloved son or daughter he has willed from eternity.
To follow Jesus then requires of us the hard work of accepting ourselves and taking every part of ourselves seriously as a means of living out the Gospel. God wants each of our personal flavors in the life of the church, our unique light to shine out the light of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus loves each of us and calls each of us to be most fully ourselves by becoming like him. Your particular flavor does not deter him, for he made you with that flavor and calls you to use it for his glory. Be who God made you to be, and you will set the world on fire.
Prayer
Almighty and ever living God, your people long to taste and see the goodness of your love. Bless our hands and our wits that we might become your beacon of hope in a darkened world. Make our voice your own that your children may savor the presence of your promise and peace revealed in Jesus who is Lord forever and ever. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Imprisoned, St. Jerome Emiliani made a deal with Mary—if she freed him, he would dedicate his life to serving God. That's just what happened.
Jerome was born in Venice, Italy, in 1481. When he was a teenager, his father died, and Jerome ran away from home. It may have been this experience as a homeless and orphaned teenager that allowed Jerome to identify with other abandoned children and devote his adulthood to serving them.
Joining the military pulled Jerome from his wayward path, and he soon rose in rank to command a league of forces in charge of a castle near Venice. When the fortress was captured, he was imprisoned in a dungeon.
There, in the dungeon, he had a lot of time to think, and he gradually learned to pray. He prayed to Mary and promised that if she helped him escape, he would live a life worthy of being called a Christian. She appeared to him in a vision, freed him from his chains, and led him out past his captors. When he returned to Venice, he placed his shackles in a Church as an offering of thanksgiving and a sign of his dedication.
He immediately began studies for the priesthood, and cared for the poor he found in Venice. He was ordained in 1518 amidst an outbreak of a plague, and he continued to care for the sick—especially for children who were orphaned by the sickness. He took these orphans into his own home and fed, clothed, and taught them. He was the first to use a question-and-answer format to teach children the Catholic faith, an approach that became common in catechisms.
He would wander the streets of Venice to bury the dead who had died of the plague that day. Eventually, he caught the fever himself, but survived, and he redoubled his efforts to help those who were suffering. He founded six orphanages, a hospital, and a shelter for prostitutes.
Others started to gather around him to help him, and he established a religious order of priests dedicated to the care of orphans, called the Clerks Regular of Somascha, after the place where they had their headquarters. This order continues his work today in a dozen countries.
St. Jerome is patron saint of orphans and abandoned children, and his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Jerome Emiliani, you braved the plague to care for children who were orphaned by it, pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Jerome Emiliani is in the public domain. Last accessed December 5, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.
