How big is your ‘spiritual footprint’? Many people are concerned with the growing size of our “carbon footprint” and the damage — real or imagined — that humanity is inflicting on our environment, now and for the future. But where is the concern for our ‘spiritual footprint’, the lasting spiritual effects we leave, during our lifetimes, here on earth.

By our very existence we impact the lives of others. John Donne wrote in 1624: “All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated … No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

How we will be remembered and to what extent we can and will make a difference is in large measure determined by our ‘spiritual footprint’. No matter what size our ‘spiritual footprint’ might be we can and often do make a difference. God seldom uses the great and powerful to do great things. As Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

Consider St. Joseph, a simple carpenter from Nazareth. Much of his life is hidden from us, we know little of his life before, during, and after the birth of Jesus. Yet, he has been remembered and revered for over two-thousand years. A simple man from an insignificant area of the world, who by his simplicity and devotion to God helped raise a child not his own, a child who would literally save the world. He lived his life in humble obscurity, giving it all up to God, and yet, we remember him, we celebrate and honor him for his enormous “spiritual footprint.”

Each of us has a role to play in bringing about the kingdom of God. Each of us has been gifted by the One Who Loves Us with the ability to make a difference in the lives of those around us. What is important is not that we have great power or prodigious abilities, but that we have great love and a “spiritual footprint” that encompasses those who are in need.

St. Augustine wrote: “The sun throws its light equally on the faces of the blind and the sighted, but only the sighted see it. Just so, the Wisdom of God, the Word, is everywhere present, even to the minds of unbelievers; but they have not the eyes of the understanding, with which to see.”

We are called to come to know the light of Christ, the Wisdom of God, and to understand and believe. We are also called to be beacons of the light by living as disciples of Jesus, and in doing so, increase the size of our ‘spiritual footprint’ here on earth.