Any Good Deed Done In Love Has An Eternal Quality

Our efforts may seem small and futile, but many Gospel episodes reveal the recurring motif that God has an eye for small people and small things. Think of the widow’s mite and the multiplication of the loaves and fish (Mark 12:41–44; 8:1–9). At Cana, dull water is turned into the best of wine (John 2:1–12); at the Last Supper, lowly bread and wine become the body and blood of the Lord (Luke 22:19–20). The life of each person, no matter how hidden, has its influence on all others (Romans 14:7). Any good deed, however small, that is done in love has an eternal quality, because love does not come to an end (1 Corinthians 13:8) and we will reap its reward at harvest time (Galatians 6:9). This grounds hope that our tiny contributions on behalf of our sick planet carry their own symbolic value. Julian of Norwich expresses this hope:

God showed me a little thing, the size of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand. I looked upon it and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And I was answered, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for smallness. And I was answered, ‘It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God’. In this little thing I saw three truths: the first is that God made it; the second that God loves it; and the third that God keeps it safe.

Brian Grogan SJ, Creation Walk:The Amazing Story of a Small Blue Planet