Thank God for Errands and Ordinary Time

The news hit hard this week.  Fortunately, as much as my brain wanted to sit with the stories and consume article after article, sifting through the various perspectives to discern what's what, school starts tomorrow, and we still need hair cuts, lunch boxes, to put finishing touches on projects, and all the ordinary things of every day like laundry and oil changes and dinner.

Saints understood that even in the midst of crisis, the ordinary needed tending. By responding to the ordinary with grace, those ordinary moments became sanctified. Love will keep us sane.  It preserved the martyrs of the church as they went to their death. It preserved Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) such that she could step onto the cattle car train to Auschwitz and allowed Blessed Mother Teresa to carry on her work with the sick and the dying.   We the faithful know this to be true from Doctor of the Church, Saint Teresa of Lisieux.

"Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word, always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love."  Doing little things with great love, allow us to do greater things with even greater love. 

Right now, the internet and the world needs a lot of little things, like little words, little smiles, little gestures, little helps. Why?  Because only by beginning to work at the little acts of kindness, can we begin to repair the aches and wounds of the world.