I didn’t grow up a Catholic, or even a Christian. So when I would hear my Christian friends say things like “that guy is salt of the earth” I never really understood what it meant or where it came from. 

But over time, I began to notice something. 

These “salt of the earth” people never seemed to be just cordial or a do-gooder. They were never someone who just checked the boxes or frantically did all the good deeds they could. 

Instead, it seemed to me that there was something else about them. 

Years later, after becoming Catholic and starting to follow Jesus I began to see a little better just what this intangible quality was that always seemed present in those “salt of the earth” folks. 

They were almost always simply people who were fully themselves and who, by being themselves, transformed those around them—almost effortlessly. 

And that’s the thing about salt, right? It isn’t complicated to improve the flavor of the food. You just add it and let it be what it is. 

Surprisingly, John Paul II tells us that “salt of the earth” refers to us, the lay faithful. It is our responsibility to be the salt of the earth—to transform all that is around us for Jesus Christ. We may think that’s the job of priests or bishops, but John Paul says otherwise.

But the truly life-changing secret is that all this requires is for us to be the person who God made us to be. The secret of salt is the secret of our lives—the more we simply are who we are meant to be, the more we transform the world around us. This means living out our lay vocation to the fullest and in the way that only we can. 

If we do this our very life spreads the Gospel into the world and we become salt of the earth kind of people.