The Good I Can Do

"It's a Wonderful World" sings Louis Armstrong; true, without a doubt, but also a challenge. The prophet Isaiah spoke of it centuries before Jesus: "Go to this people and say:/ You shall indeed hear but not understand./ You shall indeed look but never see./ Gross is the heart of this people;/ they will not hear with their ears; /they have closed their eyes,/ so that they may not see with their eyes/ and hear with their ears/ and understand with their heart/ and be converted,/ and I heal them." (Is 6: 9-10). A French spiritual writer, Elizabeth Leseur, who died in 1914, asked, "What can be done in the face of evil and indifference by someone as obscure as I? Nothing of myself, no doubt, but all through and with God. I believe that in the good there is a great expansive force; I believe that no humble, unkown act or thought, seen by God alone, is lost, and that all, in fact, contribute to the good of others. I believe, according to the saying...that 'when we do good we know not how much good we do.' What we have to do is to work on ourselves, to accomplish our own inner transformation , to fulfill our obligations and do all the good that we can, each day and each hour. Above all, we must ask God to fill us with an intense charity". St. Paul lived this with a dynamism that converted the Mediterranean Basin; St. Julie Billart, whose Memorial we observe today, despite her 22 year long paralysis, founded the Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, whose influence in education is still felt currently. These "great movers" began with themselves, began with the positive outlook described by Madame Leseur. Let us not short-change ourselves and the good we can do in the simplest of tasks we face today.