In second grade my teacher taught me the Hidden Angel game. Undoubtedly Sister Mary Sharon taught me many other things during our hour of religious instruction on Saturday afternoons, but this one I specifically remember. Game rules were easy: do a good deed without anyone seeing you. Nothing was said about being caught in the act of dusting, drying dishes, polishing shoes, or cleaning out the junk drawer. I guess that was OK if you were modest about any praise received when the good deed was discovered. I think I played this game once a week usually by dusting furniture. After a while my mom thought I dusted to make up for something bad I did. Well, it was that too. My seven-year-old morality thought two for the price of one would be OK: generous, hidden self-giving and reparation.

Surprisingly I never forgot the Hidden Angel game. I imagine I probably never forgot anything else Sister Sharon or other Sisters of Notre Dame taught on Saturday afternoons. The words of the Baltimore Catechism and the instructions of the tall Sister in black—years later I discovered she was short—stuck like Velcro or Elmer’s glue. To this day I can recite the involved answer to “What is the Immaculate Conception?” that surprised the occasional priest visit to the classroom. I know the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit—but don’t ask me to slow down the recitation. I only know the fruits as charityjoypeacepatiencebenignity…

Let me get to the point of this blog. Whatever holy thought impressed you as a child and has stuck with you is a gift God placed in you, because God needed that quality in someone, and you were first on the list of recipients.  I use the gift of “doing some little thing that needs to be done” as the way I live the charism of the Sisters of Notre Dame. Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbring, our foundress, was known for her acts of thoughtfulness. Isn’t it the little things that make someone’s day? Those kind acts make us second-graders again, and the reign of God belongs to such as these.