Bearing wonderful fruit
If someone feels that God is asking him to become involved in reforming society, that is a matter between him and his God. We all have the duty to serve God where we feel called to do so. I feel called to serve individuals, to love each human being. I never think in terms of masses, of a group, but always according to persons. If I thought of the crowds, I would never undertake anything. It is the person who counts. I believe in face to face encounters.
The fullness of our heart becomes visible in our actions: how I behave with this leper, how I behave with this dying person, how I behave with this homeless person. Sometimes, it is more difficult to work with down-and-outs than with the people who are dying in our hospices, for the latter are at peace, waiting to go to God soon. You can draw near to the sick person, to the leper, and be convinced that you are touching the body of Christ. But when it is a drunk person yelling, it is more difficult to think that you are face to face with Jesus hidden in him. How pure and loving must our hands be in order to show compassion for those beings!
To see Jesus in the spiritually most deprived person requires a pure heart. The more disfigured the image of God is in a person, the greater must our faith and our veneration be in our search for the face of Jesus and in our ministry of love for him… Let us do so with a sense of profound gratitude and with piety. Our love and our joy in serving must be in proportion to the degree to which our task is repugnant.
St. Ignatius of Loyola