5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 8 February 2026
The late Jesuit Superior General, Pedro Arrupe, once commented beautifully:
“What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”[1]
Where is my passion? It is the question to which Jesus constantly invites us. At the very outset of the Gospel, in his very first encounter with the disciples, the conversation begins with, “What are you looking for?” (Jn 1:38). It is the question that Jesus puts before us time and time again. And just as we think we may have answered it, it is posed to us again. Life changes, our circumstances change. And so, the question may never be answered in quite the same way.
As I have shared before, the texts of the gospel are fascinating not because of the answers they may provide, but far more because of the questions they put before us, the questions that resist their answer, that keep probing us, goading us. It is the questions of the Gospel that, in fact, provide the scaffolding of our journey of discipleship. They keep our discipleship of the Risen Christ from stagnating, from becoming complacent, lukewarm.
Just as Jesus’ call of the first disciples begins with a question, so does his final time with them. And the question that he puts before Simon Peter, and before each of us, is, “Do you love me?” (Jn 21:15–17). Again, it is a question that we can never fully answer. Yet it is the question we need constantly to hear, “Do you love me?” In this Jesus is saying to us, only if you love will you understand me; only if you love will you know me; only if you love me will everything I have taught you and shown you make sense; only if you love me and follow me will you life change. ‘Love, and do what you will,” wrote St Augustine in the 5th century.[2] In other words, what we love will determine how we act. This is why our Christian faith is never simply about obligations but rather about the place deep within us of desire, passion, and love.
Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.” Salt only matters if it keeps its flavour. Light only matters if it is allowed to shine. And what determines that flavour, what fuels that light, is what we love — what animates our life from the inside.
So, we ask ourselves honestly: With who or what am I in love? Where is my passion? Because it is this that animates my life. It is what gives my days their colour and creativity. It is the salt in my life — what gives it flavour. Our motivation is deeply linked with our intentionality: what we intend for our life, what we want our life to become. And that intentionality shapes our choices.
Those choices, as we know from experience, can be either dark or luminous. They either lead us to freedom or take us into captivity — sometimes very quietly, very subtly. They either open us out to others or imprison us within ourselves. They either draw us out into beauty or slowly spiral us into distortion. Isaiah makes this very concrete today. True light, he says, shines when we loosen the bonds of injustice, share our bread with the hungry, and shelter the oppressed. In other words, our light shines not through performance or perfection, but through love made visible — love that responds to the real hungers of the world. When we fall in love with Christ — not an idea of Him, but a living relationship — our choices slowly change. Our speech becomes more truthful. Our anger less destructive. Our relationships more reverent. Our freedom more real.
This is where vocation enters. The 20th century American author Frederick Buechner, defined vocation as “the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”[3] In other words, our vocation is born at the intersection where the passion of our hearts meets the hunger of the world. This is about how we live, how we love, how we speak, how we respond to suffering, injustice, and beauty. When what we love is aligned with God’s wisdom — the wisdom St. Paul says is revealed by the Spirit — our lives begin to make sense not just to us, but for others. And this requires memory. To remember the past is to entertain the future. When we remember who we are, whose we are, and how God has been faithful to us, we become capable of choosing life again — here and now. Augustine was right: Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. May the Lord gently re-order our loves, so that what seizes our imagination also leads us into freedom, beauty, and joy
[1] Arrupe, Pedro, S.J. “Fall in Love.” Attributed address to Jesuit alumni. Text believed to originate from an Ignatian spiritual reflection by Joseph Whelan, S.J., and later popularized under Arrupe’s name. Jesuits.org. https://www.jesuits.org/stories/falling-in-love/. Accessed 7 February 2026.
[2] Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on the First Epistle of John 7.8, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 7, translated by. H. Browne (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 497.
[3] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: a Theological ABC (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 95
