While evil is loud and attracts attention, good is very discreet and works in peoples’ hearts, in each individual encounter. Evil has lots of space to work in America because convictions and attitudes opposed to Christianity are rooted within the culture. On the other hand, however, this allows small miracles to emerge even more clearly, reminding us that God often prefers to advance His good work through what seems insignificant to us.
During the year that I spent in mission at our house in Broomfield, Colorado, my sisters and I were given the grace to witness some of these small miracles. One of them is our parish’s group of middle school kids: twenty kids who discovered and freely embraced a place of beauty and truth in which they could belong, among all the other activities and sports that the world offers them.
While evil is loud and attracts attention, good is very discreet and works in peoples’ hearts, in each individual encounter.
The thing which surprised me most is that their sense of belonging began to express itself in a missionary urge, just as had happened for the first students of Fr. Giussani. One day, for example, we were working with some of them on Blessed Carlo Acutis’ exhibit dedicated to eucharistic miracles. Sr. Mariagrazia and I proposed to the kids to present the exhibit during a summer vacation. There were many other groups staying at our hotel, some of them not from Christian organizations. When we explained to the kids that we would present the exhibit only to our group, one of them burst out: “But why? Only to them? Why don’t we invite the other groups that still don’t know Jesus?” Mariagrazia and I looked at each other in shock. It’s a small example in which God gave us a glimpse of how the Church is born and reborn: not because it makes the news or has many members, but because it continues to attract people to itself. Who knows how much a small impulse towards charity counts for in eternity!
We are called to take all the space that evil would like to grab and fill it with humble acts of good, throwing big celebrations for small miracles.
