In consideration of the ten, I will not destroy it. Ten righteous people would have been enough! Holy people more than compensate for all the crimes, abuses, envies, disloyalties, betrayals, injustices, selfishness... of all the inhabitants of a great city. Because of our union with the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God will look with special compassion on family members, friends, acquaintances... who may have gone astray through ignorance, error, weakness, or because they did not receive the graces that we have received. How many times will we have that friendly and affable bargaining with Jesus, similar to the one Abraham had with Yahweh! Look, Lord – we will say to Him –, this person is better than they show, they have good intentions... help them! And Jesus, who knows the reality well, will move them with His grace in consideration of our friendship with Him.
God welcomes the petitions of His own in the world with particular attention: the prayers of children, who pray with a heart without malice, and those of those who become like them; the supplications of the sick, to whom He brings closer to His Heart; those of us who have repeated so many times that we have no other will than His, that we want to serve Him in the midst of our normal daily tasks. Those who strive to be united to Christ truly sustain the world. And that union is not ordinarily manifested in striking external deeds. The events whose social prominence remains hidden for now are incomparably more numerous: it is the immense multitude of souls who have spent their existence wearing themselves out in the anonymity of the home, the factory, the office; who have consumed themselves in the praying society of the cloister; who have immolated themselves in the daily martyrdom of illness. When everything is made manifest in the parousia, then the decisive role that they have played, despite appearances to the contrary, in the development of the history of the world will appear. And this will also be a reason for joy for the blessed, who will draw from it a theme of perpetual praise to the thrice Holy God.
Saint Paul tells the first Christians that they shine like stars in the world14, illuminating everyone with the light of Christ. God looks down from Heaven at the earth and rejoices in those people who live an ordinary, normal life, but who are aware of the dignity of their Christian vocation. The Lord is filled with joy when contemplating our task, almost always small and without prominence, if we try to be faithful.
HCD