Salt of the earth

Today Jesus encourages us in the Gospel reading to be the salt of the earth, giving a special religious flavor to others by our actions. I shared in my homily today how salt is made in my homeland of Malta. These photos describe exactly the process of placing sea water in these salt pans and over the hot summer months, the sea water turns into salt, which is then piled up in mounds and placed in bags to be used for flavor and seasoning. Some of it is also trashed to finer salt and used along with the pepper for food. But sea salt has a coarse consistency and is used frequently by chefs and cooks around the world.