There’s a temptation to look at all the bad news in the world and be overwhelmed by things that we can’t affect.

The devil loves it when we do nothing because we think our efforts will come to naught. Likewise, there’s a temptation when we hear of all the evil to seize up our lance and charge at every dragon. The devil would also appreciate our mistaking ourselves for the saviors of all, when all of us need saving.

Catholics are supposed to be salt and light to the world. God loves when we come to him and say, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.” We can only grow in faith by humbling ourselves, by allowing more room for God to act through our lives.

God’s grace always invites us into deeper communion with him and others, whether by our service to others, or theirs to us. But it is still always a proposal and never an imposition. When we impose our understanding of the only way to think, do, pray and act and be “in good” with the Lord, rather than to reveal love and thus God through our words, deeds and actions, we prove we love ourselves and the God we’ve made in our image. It’s a hard thing to accept, because it means wrestling with true humility — with the reality that we’ve bought into the lie that we can earn Heaven on our own. We can only receive and respond to grace, as the soil receives the seed, and respond to it constantly from that point forward.

If we don’t rely on God’s grace, we wither. If we don’t keep turning our heart’s eye toward God, we’ll become distracted by the weeds. If we don’t let ourselves become ever more gripped by God’s love, we’ll be destroyed by the birds of the enemy. If we don’t allow ourselves to be broken open and die more and more to the self, we won’t recognize the Lord in our midst. Things will only grow darker the longer we fear to be light. We all know that the only thing necessary for evil to persist is for good people to do nothing. We’ve tried to get along and go along for far too long, and it translates to looking like we’re doing nothing.

So do something today.

Call. Write. Speak up. Sign up for a 40 Days for Life. Pray. Fast. Give alms. Practice corporal and spiritual acts of mercy daily. Read the Scriptures. Go to Mass. Pray the Rosary in front of others. Consider adoption. Consider being a foster parent. Consider holding newborns at the hospital who need to be held. Consider donating to the local women’s shelter, or volunteering. Do something to fight back against the darkness, and if you don’t know what that might be, ask the Blessed Mother to point you to where you will find her son in his distressing disguise. She’ll help you to “do whatever he tells you,” and you’ll know what to do.