But that is selling ourselves short. It's making light of the small, ordinary things we do, because it is those small, ordinary gestures that are done day after day that hold our poor, wounded world together with the Divine Glue of kind faithfulness.
Mother Teresa put it this way:
"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Nothing is small for our good God, for he is great and we are small. That is why he lowers himself and cares to do small things, in order to offer us an opportunity to show him our love. Since he does them, they are great things, they are infinite. Nothing he does can be small. Again: practice fidelity even in the least things, not for their own sake, but for the sake of what is great – that is, the will of God."
Our great God delights in small things. Didn't God, in the Incarnation, become the smallest thing of all, a tiny baby? Didn't that tiny babe, Jesus, when he grew to manhood, tell us that we will be judged by small things - giving a drink of water, or food, or clothing to those in need? Why should we ever be afraid to say to God "I am offering my very ordinary day to You - please show me Your Will for me today"?
Being faithful in small things is hard work. It is the fidelity of the man or woman who daily goes to work, not because he or she feels "fulfilled" in a job, but because that job puts food on the table. It is the fidelity of the young woman who is unmarried and pregnant who quietly chooses to have her child and, with the faithful support of not-rich parents and family, has that child and raises her with great, unexpected delight. It is the faithfulness of the volunteer who helps out at the Food Pantry on Tuesday or at Bingo on Wednesday. It is the faithfulness of the Gold Star parents of all ethnicities and races who pray to God to cover their child in the military, and, when that child is killed, continue to remain faithful to God with eyes streaming and hearts broken.
St. Paul said it so well in his letter to the church at Thessalonica: "You must never grow weary of doing what is right, brother and sisters." Driving to the hospital or nursing home to see a spouse or a parent when you would so much rather stay home and rest is faithfulness. Raising a child with profound disabilities and/or mental illness is faithfulness. Staying loyal to friends when they're in crisis and their lives seem a continual drama is faithfulness. Staying faithful to our day to day boring duties in marriage, priesthood, diaconate, single life, or religious life takes all the energy - and prayer - that we have in us.
But we know that God stays faithful to us and supports us and fills us with love and strength to be faithful. All we have to do is ask. All we have to say is "I can't do this again. I can't do this another day. Please give me Your strength and love to flow through me. Please do this for me and in me." It is the Power of God's own Holy Spirit in us that can accomplish the most impossibly simple small things in us if we only humbly ask. We ask God to give us the strength to remain faithful, not because we always want to remain faithful, but because we trust that God is accomplishing His Will for others and for the world with everything kind and faithful that we do.
Every time we do small things with great love, we are preparing the way of the Lord in someone's life. Someone's faith in a faithful God is being strengthened because we are faithful. Someone's agnostic or atheistic heart is being taught that love can be real. Remember, the Romans were converted to Christianity by what the Christians faithfully did for one another: "See how these Christians love one another." What we do may be small, but God accomplishes it in us, and everything God accomplishes has wonderfully infinite results.
Here is a lovely Prayer that encourages our faithfulness:
"Father, may everything we do begin with Your inspiration and continue with Your saving help. Let our work always find its origin in You and through You reach completion. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen."