Making the World a Better Place

Quotes of the Day for September 29, 2026 – Thoughts on making the world a better place

“Many of our wealthiest citizens are deeply involved in various schemes to “make the world a better place.” Almost without exception, they are schemes that the general population would prefer to forego. The “better world” is “their” better world, not ours.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“We can make the world a better place but usually not the way we think we can. It may sound trite nowadays to hear or say the words ‘change yourself and you’ll change the world’ but it is true. Striving to make the world a better place, despite how loving and nice this sounds, is actually a wrong-headed notion though it may be well intended. It is God’s job, not ours, though He will do it through us but we have to be willing participants in His goodness. So first, we have to get the order of things correct. Our primary focus should be to have union with Christ to get our hearts right. When our hearts are right, we will think and act right and then God will make the world a better place through us. That’s why Christ commanded us to love another as He loved us. Having this as our primary focus will make the world a much better place.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

“… God entered into the world of human sinfulness once and for all in the person of Christ, that He both suffered on the Cross because of human sin, but in the process, as the eternal Son of God, He absorbed all of that sin, death and evil, nailed it to the Cross, and thus overcame it from within. We were “bought with a price” [1 Corinthians 6:20]. As a Christian, I would say that there are no real “answers” to the human misery around us, but that Christ is our “Yes” to life that comes from God, “for all the promises of God find their Yes in Him” [1 Corinthians 1:20]….We need to cling to Christ with faith, hope and love. We especially need to be alive in the Church, for in the Church we will preserve our sanity and our basic humanity. We will learn and receive the grace to lead lives worthy of our calling as disciples of Christ and to strive to make the world around us a better place for our children and for our neighbors.”  (Father Stephen Kostoff)

“Psalm 1 describes the stages of entrapment as motion: “walking, standing, then sitting.” Remember how the woodcarver Gepetto dressed Pinocchio and sent him off to school to learn how to be a good boy, only to have him influenced by the bad boys who enticed him to go with them to what they promised to be a better place? It’s not a trivial tale of mischief. This is a struggle for the soul of every human being. The Lord has created us with all the ingredients needed to go through life and emerge whole, holy and fit for eternal life united with the Holy Trinity. On the way we shall be invited to surrender that destiny and choose something much less—ultimate death without salvation. The frightening part is that it depends on us. Freedom is another precious gift that puts the responsibility on us alone.” (Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky)

“…we are to do the work of an evangelist. That means that we each are called to spread the Good News of the Gospel of Christ in some way. We do this by fulfilling our ministry. The word for ministry in Greek is “diakonia.” Each of us is equipped to offer a different “diakonia” or “service.” Each of us is equipped to spread the Gospel in some way. I do (I try to do it) it as a priest. Others are called to do it as teachers, as parents, as spouses, as friends, as architects, as coaches, etc. Each of us has a way to make the world better, to express love for others, to help make a difference in someone’s life. We all have that ability.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis)

“The tangled web of lies that constitutes much of our culture has a way of drawing us from the love of Christ. For example, I have written repeatedly about the modern narrative of “making the world a better place.” It has been a slogan, in one form or another, of virtually every program of mass murder in modern history. I have written carefully about it because it is among the more pervasive and widely accepted lies in the web that binds us. It provides cover for vast amounts of human activity in which we imagine ourselves to be doing “good” – but do so by false measures and in the service of a false vision. We have never been commanded to “make the world better.” Only God knows what would constitute “better.” We are commanded to do “good,” as measured by the teachings of the gospel.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Certainly, we must do what we can to “make the world a better place.” But to cure the world of its corruption and to free the world from its subjection to sin and death is not within our power. On this earth, we must endure rather than conquer. But we should not persevere in resignation but in hope of the transformation of ourselves and the world into the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1).” (Fr. Basil)

“There is a great need in this world for all of us to collective understand the necessity for personal repentance. It seems that more and more, people are demanding that those around them change, whether it is asking them to endorse something they are doing or not doing, or whether it is demanding something they feel entitled to…Rather than asking those around us to change their ways, if we want to make the world a better place, then we have to start by looking in the mirror and changing our own ways.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis)

“When we are always thankful, we are remembering that the world and the world’s system does not owe us. We are remembering that it is both God’s mercy and judgment that there is food on the table, that our children are relatively healthy, that we have a job, a home, or friends. None of these are guaranteed, and we will give an account to God for what we did or didn’t do with His blessings. When we forget to be thankful, we begin to think that it is the world and our place in the world that has brought about the relatively comfortable life we are experiencing. We begin to think that working for and fighting for a system, a government, a program is how we will make the world a better place or how we will keep the world from devolving into a worse place. When we forget to give thanks to God, God begins to feel distant to us; we start to think that maybe God doesn’t even care, that God doesn’t really matter that much.” (Fr. Michael Gillis)

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