Fundamentally good

During World War II, an American soldier was marching through a French town. He noticed a little boy all by himself walking through the war-torn area.

The soldier went over to the little boy, took him by the hand, and led him to a convent down the road. He gave the little boy to the religious sisters who said they would take care of him.

After the war, the soldier returned to the United States and moved to an apartment in New York. One day there was a knock at the door, and when he opened the door, he saw a young man standing there.

“Are you Pat Harrington?” the visitor asked.

“Yes,” Pat replied.

“I was the little boy that you rescued in France during the war,” the young man said. “I just wanted to find you and say thanks!”

Isn’t that an amazing story? Typically, we think of war as filled with stories of tragedy and destruction. There is surely much of both of those.

We don’t often hear stories of unselfishness and kindness. We need to hear more of those stories. In the great World Wars that involved the United States, we helped to rebuild the very countries with which we had been at war. There is something fundamentally good about the soul of America.

Even today, our newscasts are mostly “bad news casts.” There are always stories about murder, mayhem and misery. Evil seems to fascinate us. Bad news does sell.

But I still dare to believe that there is something fundamentally good about us. We are made in the image and likeness of God. And God came to earth in the person of Christ to remind us of who we are, and to empower us to live like God. As someone so aptly put it: “God became human so that humans might become like God.”

We believe it. If only we could live it.

Also see

Christmas silence

Why I’m spending Christmas in Bethlehem this year

Opening up bricked-in doors

Getting adult children to Christmas Mass

A eucharistic Word: Christmas

Up on the Housetop

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