by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM                          Ireland                        20.10.2023

Did you know that Earth and Heart are the same word with the letters mixed up a different way? I discovered this fact the other day when I was playing a word game and I thought,” How appropriate!” Isn’t it right that heart is at the centre of the issue when we come to the care of our common home and address the issues that will affect us all around climate. We need the scientific knowledge to be able to measure, know the appropriate actions to take, but if we do not put our heart into it, the head knowledge alone will bring us nowhere.

Personally, I am not in favour of climate activists who disrupt public events and damage property, but I do understand their passion. Without that dogged, dedicated commitment to a cause, no change will happen. This is a lesson we often learn from young people who are dreaming a dream and not burdened with the ennui of mid-life. It is also a lesson we have learnt over and over again from the lives of the saints. Saint Frances stripped off his clothes to convince his family that he was going to embrace Lady Poverty, St. Therese of Liseaux went to Rome to plead with the Holy Father to be allowed to enter her contemplative community when she was only sixteen. Our own Founder, Mother Mary Martin certainly had a passionate commitment to the medical care of mothers and babies from her time in Nigeria as a lay missionary.

I suppose the question for me today is where do I put my heart? There is a tendency in a lot of us to drift along, potter through life in a familiar regime. But as missionaries we are constantly being called to look outwards, bringing hope and light to the dark areas of our world. Like today’s young people we must keep alive our passion for a better world. This means putting our heart into the earth’s cry for help.

Help me, God, to be passionate today!