When Jesus preaches he adds an important element to the word spoken by Moses to the people. Those words are "with all your mind". This reminds us that we are gathered as body, mind, and spirit in the way we live our lives for the good of creation and the good of our relationships. It sees a sustained relationship between our love for God, our love for ourselves, and our love for others. How we pray, how we think, and how we act are called to proclaim the reality of the realm of God alive and active in our world.
There are probably three elements that emphasize this in the events of the world. The first is the GOP26 conference in Glasgow. What we recognize is that this conference should not be just about words but about action. As Pope Francis gathered with other religious world leaders they stressed three things: the need for actions to be in harmony with creation, that we are called to respect each other but most importantly we are called to be driven by the dynamism of love. "Love is the mirror of an intense spiritual life: a love that extends to all, transcending cultural, political and social boundaries; a love that is inclusive, concerned especially for the poor, who so often teach us how to overcome the barriers of selfishness and to break down the walls of our ego." It is this unselfish commitment to the common good which intends a culture shift for our common home. This is a culture that calls us to reflect on how our actions mirror our words.
It is also significant that this occurs on the days before all hallows where we honour all the saints who show us how our lives are called to bear witness to Christ. Yet more attention is paid to Halloween where the focus is on what drains us of life, what calls us to be like dead people walking and who is haunted by ghosts of ages past. The emphasis seems to be on what deadens us rather than what enlivens us with hope. There can be a sense of fatalism that predisposes us to disaster and an unwillingness to change. It is like horror besieges us at our gates rather than challengings us to stand in the breach against forces that seem to overwhelm us. Yet this is not what is proclaimed at the heart of the Gospel.
In the Word, we are called to examine how our whole life is called to become a love story that encaptures our hearts. There is a call in which we are incarnate people who set our minds on what brings life not death. That the ability to change is not beyond our strength or our ability. This is the imagination that the Church is called to prayer in union with the heart of God at the heart of creation. We are not called to be people who are abstracted users of resources but people who are stewards of the gifts entrusted to us not just for our time but for all time.
This calls us to be people who are open to the spirit of God which draws us together for the good of the whole. The need to examine how we live what we believe not just in our worship but in our lifestyles. This is a love that is called to embolden and strengthen us to be a compassionate presence for the common good. To discover the sacred underpinning of our lives which bears witness to God's creative action in the world. We become co-creators with God in allowing the reign of God to be on our hearts, in our souls, in our considered choices that sustain us and our world.
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