I didn't address directly the "how" of it, but you have. God has a design, which is flexible enough to include us and our shenanigans, and he is engaged in the here and now keeping things moving generally in the right direction. That would be on several levels, our innate design, the operation of reason which is a part of our nature, but further by the various means by which he broadcasts his principles into the culture. The Church, with all its flaws is a key part of that.
And then there is the more direct means, by which his spirit moves in the hearts of men, to which some respond and some do not in the immediate term, but which over time brings his weight to bear on events whether or not people recognize his movements. Some are as you say more willing vessels than others, and some are more readily moved to action than others.
There even is a division of labor in this area; you have the people who transmit the word into the culture who may or may not fully understand the significance of what they are saying, and who may or may not fully reflect what they say in their own lives. As disappointing as this can be, it is important nonetheless that they are engaged in this part of the work.
Then you have the people who actually act on it, who may or may not be recognizably religious in nature, and often are not. But they are the ones who act, and actually make the word real in flesh and blood terms.
In faith, I believe this is an unimpeachably true statement, marron. God's plan must be flexible, because it definitely includes us human beings -- who He created in his image, with reason and free will.
Yet it seems to me we humans have just never gotten this "free will" business exacly right. (Adam blew it big time in the Garden.)
But I think your larger point is that there really does exist a community of being in the universe: perhaps something like God-Man-Society-World. In this hierarchy, God's law rules at each and every ontological level. But all the levels are required to express the total Being of the universe, and also the total being of any man, if he could but understand himself and his significance to the larger project of which he is a participant, to the reality beyond his own immediate inner world.
I agree this sort of thing requires whatever institutional support it can get. But such support should never be funded by the political state. (Not that you suggested such a thing.)
You wrote: "Some are as you say more willing vessels than others, and some are more readily moved to action than others."
God calls whom He wills; He calls them presumably for their fitness to take on the tasks that are needed, according to their unique abilities. And all of these called are equal in His sight. Or at least, that is the message of faith that comes through to me. A person of faith is a person of faith, though faith may express in different ways.