"You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world"
The Lord said to his apostles: "You are the light of the world." How accurate they are, those analogies our Lord uses in referring to our fathers in the faith! He calls "salt" those who teach us God's wisdom and "light" those who dispel from our hearts the blindness and obscurity of our doubt. So it is very right that the apostles should receive this name of light. In the darkness of this world they proclaim the brightness of heaven, the splendor of eternity. Didn't Peter become a light for the whole world and for all the faithful when he said to the Lord: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"? (Mt 16:16) What greater enlightenment could the human race have received than to learn through Peter that the Son of the living God was the creator of its own light?
And Saint Paul was no less a great light for the world. While all the earth was blinded by the darkness of its misdeeds, he was raised even to heaven (2Cor 12:2) and, on his return, made known the mysteries of the everlasting glory. That is why he could neither hide himself, as in the case of the city set on a hilltop, nor let himself be put under a bushel measure, since Christ, by the light of his majesty, had set him alight like a chosen lamp filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit. Hence, my friends, if, renouncing the illusory things of this world, we have at heart to seek out the savor of God's wisdom, let us taste the salt of the apostles.