PARADOXICAL

In Sr. Faustina's Diary, part of entry #39 reads, "For your sake, I will bless the entire country."

This is the Lord Jesus consoling the nun after she prayed for her part of the country to be saved from punishment, referring to the city of Warsaw during WWII. The Lord responded to her request by being magnanimous; He opted to spare the whole of Poland instead of just one Polish city just because of one person's prayer.

This illustrates how the great power of goodness is often underestimated, foremost because it is hidden, often done in the secret confines of personal prayer.

I am oftentimes discouraged whenever I pray for big things and nothing happens, or so I presume. I should resolve hereon in to make myself be more aware of how big things happen because I made the right choice, because other people made the right choice.

The whole world is affected positively when a drug addict decides to forego of his favorite poison, or when a porn enthusiast quits. The world becomes a planet worth saving again in the eyes of God whenever someone prays for intentions outside of herself or bigger than himself.

Meanwhile, Henri Nouwen's take on this subject is particularly instructive:

"So many terrible things happen every day that we start wondering whether the few things we do ourselves make any sense.  When people are starving only a few thousand miles away, when wars are raging close to our borders, when countless people in our own cities have no homes to live in, our own activities look futile. Such considerations, however, can paralyze us and depress us."

"Here the word call becomes important.  We are not called to save the world, solve all problems, and help all people.  But we each have our own unique call, in our families, in our work, in our world.  We have to keep asking God to help us see clearly what our call is and to give us the strength to live out that call with trust.  Then we will discover that our faithfulness to a small task is the most healing response to the illnesses of our time."

I should never forget this.