Observing God in All Things

“I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily, but when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?”   --Luke 18:8 from last Saturday's daily Mass. 

After the chilling events that took place in Paris this past weekend, I think Jesus would definitely find the faith of many shaken. It's a challenge to teach our children to "Be Like Bosco" and “Observe God in All Things,” and try to observe Him in events like these. 

The simple answer is God does not cause these actions—people do. People who have allowed the devil and sin to break their relationship with the true God and kill in the name of a false one.

Now contrast those events with a local story from last week's Tampa Tribune which can be found here. The story describes how a Plant City cross country runner saw another runner (from Plant High School, coincidentally) collapse near the final stretch of the state championship meet. The runner from Plant City did not think twice: he stopped and picked up his fallen competitor, helping him cross the finish line.

This young man ignored the impulse to compete and win a race he had been training for since last June. He ignored the impulse that caused dozens of other runners to keep moving past the fallen runner. Instead he listened to his heart, observed God in his competitor and picked him up to help him finish the race.

While we may seem helpless to prevent attacks like the ones that happened in Paris, and we are scared of others like it happening again, there are two things we can do: we can pray to God, and we can act with the same courage displayed by the Plant City student. If we do these two things on a local level, we can have an impact on global level.