Today is Halloween. All over our country both children and adults are dressing up in costumes to celebrate and have fun. Many times children dress and costumes to pretend to be their favorite character from a story or TV show or movie. Somehow if you dress up like your hero then it gives you a sense of being more connected to that special person. Halloween means all hallows eve. It is the eve of all hallows day. November 1. November 1 is the feast of all saints. The hallowed ones. The holy ones. The ones who are close to God.
Entities scripture we are told our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to be close and connected to God. He is our ultimate love. Jesus is our ultimate hero. What do we do to be connected to God? Moses tells the people that following God‘s ways, God‘s laws, is the way to be connected to God. Moses states that the greatest of these is to love God with all our mind heart soul and strength. The desire to love God is what should drive all that we do that should be the guiding principle and goal of our lives.
Jesus is asked in today’s gospel the question by the scripture scholar related to the greatest law. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy and his reply. Jesus I can directs the human heart to loving God above all else.
So on this Halloween day we have our fun and we have our heroes, but we remind ourselves that we should direct our activities to being connected to God. We should direct our activities to that which brings us closer to the Lord.
So it begs the question, what do we do to draw closer to God? We worship, we pray, we reflect upon scripture. In our daily living what else do we do? How do you draw closer to God? st Paul tells us that we should put on the spirit of Christ. He uses an image of clothing. This is particularly appropriate for us to think about on Halloween. How do we dress ourselves up in God like attributes? As we are weak this day let us say to ourselves I will put on kindness. I will put on forgiveness. I will put on patients. I will put on sacrifice. I will wear today the things that belong to God
If we do this we will have the best Halloween ever. We will truly enter the ranks of the hallowed ones. We will be holy. We will be close to God.
Catholic Bible Study / Scripture Reflections 