Opening School Mass for Pius X College Chatswood – 11 February 2026
In 1986, an extraordinary film was released, Babette’s Feast. Babette, a French Catholic, is a Parisian chef who gets caught up in the riots in the French capital in 1871. Her husband and son are killed in the fighting. Babette is assisted to escape to Denmark where members of a strict Protestant sect take her into their remote village. The founder of the community has died, but his two daughters engage Babette as their cook. The mysterious woman assumes the nature of a servant. They have no idea who she is, or what has bought her to their home. Having been in the village for 14 years, Babette wins 10,000 francs in the Lottery, and asks the sisters to let her provide a feast in honour of what would have been their father and the Pastor’s 100th birthday. She spends all her winnings on buying food and wine so that she can provide a banquet for the community who saved her life. On the night of the meal the members of the community are anxious about the food and wine they will be served. They have never had such rich fare before, and have never tasted alcohol. They decide to eat Babette’s feast but to draw no attention to it. Babette remains unseen throughout the dinner, but despite their resistance, her meal has a dramatic effect on the diners. Babette pours all she has into the meal. The sisters who’ve come to rely on her expect that with her newfound fortune Babette will abandon them. Having become poor, however, she remains faithful to them until the end. Babette may not give her physical life for her people, but dies to her old life and is reborn in the nature of a servant.
The gospel is constantly calling us to such a life of giving. As today’s gospel indicates we are to go beyond our instinctive reactions, our impulses, and keep moving beyond ourselves always in concern for others. And if this be our guiding principle in life, everything else follows.
The late Jesuit Superior General, Pedro Arrupe, once wrote words that still speak powerfully today:
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what breaks your heart, and what fills you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.
At the beginning of a new school year — with new hopes, new friendships, new challenges, and new opportunities — those words invite us to pause and ask an important question: What am I in love with? Where is my passion? Indeed, this is where our sense of vocation is sourced. The writer Frederick Buechner once said that vocation is “the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” In other words, our vocation is born at the intersection where the passion of our hearts meets the hunger of the world. We might keep this in mind as we discern our future, but that place of intersection happens every day — in our classrooms, on the playground, in staff rooms, in moments of care, learning, struggle, and growth. It’s about how we live, how we love, how we respond to injustice and beauty
This is why St Augustine, in the 5th century, could say, “Love, and do what you will.” In other words, what we love will determine how we act. This is especially important in a school community. What we love will shape how we speak to one another, how we treat those who are different, how we respond to pressure, success, failure, and conflict. The choices we make can either bring light or darkness. They can open us to freedom or slowly close us in on ourselves.
So today, we ask honestly: What gives our life flavour? What lights us up from the inside? Our motivation is deeply connected to our intention — to what we want our lives to become. And that intention shapes the choices we make each day, often in small and quiet ways. When love becomes action — when kindness is chosen over cruelty, inclusion over indifference, courage over silence — then our light shines. Indeed, when we fall in love with Christ, not just as an idea but as a living relationship, our lives slowly change. Our words become more honest. Our anger less harmful. Our relationships more respectful. Our freedom more real.
Pedro Arrupe was right: Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. As we begin this new year may the Lord gently reorder our loves, so that what captures our imagination also leads us — together — into freedom, compassion, and creativity.
