Reflection
Each of us is a critical part of the whole. How we live our lives impacts everything. Our choices make things better or worse. How we live matters.” Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.” (Clarissa Pinkola Estes}
Prayer
We who are many are one body and members of one another.
Romans 12:4-8
Action
Reflect on the power of your life lived according to the values of the gospel. Think of your own power to increase the good in the world. How can you help to “cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good”?
Suggested Reading
You are the salt of the earth.
Matthew 5:13
He told them still another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.
Matthew 13:33
Grasp life and carry it forward, use it productively, make it fruitful. God calls you to be fruitful! God calls you to transmit this life to others.
Pope Francis
The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.
Origen
It is not our job to work miracles, but it is our task to try.
Joan Chittister
The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual – for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.
M. Scott Peck
Every human interaction offers you the chance to make things better or to make things worse.
Barbara Brown Taylor
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
Howard Zinn
We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good – he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad – he and the world is destroyed.
Maimonides