What good is it?

Billions of people do not know Christ.

Hundreds of millions who call themselves Christian are outside the Church.

Millions of those who call themselves Catholic pay little heed to the teachings of the faith, unless it is convenient.

And some of those who vigorously assert the Church’s teachings on faith and morals seem to have little regard for the precepts of charity (and sometimes have dark things hidden in their own lives).

The perfect saints among us – who are thoroughly orthodox in thought, word and deed – seem so few.

(I cannot say that I can rightfully number even myself among those few – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, be merciful to me a sinner.)

When we consider these relatively few righteous saints in a world of billions who stand apart from Christ in one way or another, we might justifiably repeat the question of Saint Andrew in today’s Gospel (John 6:1-15):

“…but what good are these for so many?”

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ gives the answer later in this Gospel as he takes a few humble items and feeds a multitude, with baskets of fragments remaining.

Indeed, Christ can do wonders even with those fragments.

(I sometimes feel like I am one of those fragments.)

The saints among us – the few, the perfect – are mighty instruments in the hand of God, even in a world of so many who are far from God.

But it is the power of God Himself that conquers all.

So we should never despair or say of our faithfulness, “What good is it?”

May you and I – imperfect as we may be – open ourselves more and more to the truth, the love, and the power of Jesus Christ, our Lord and God.