By Rev Tanaka Mashiche SJ
Pedro Arrupe’s poem, Fall in Love, at a first glance can sound like a motivational poem that the
world is now accustomed to. If one really reads it, it is deep desire of searching for God in one’s
life mission and purpose that makes one happy and content.
Fr Pedro Arrupe was a Spanish Jesuit priest who served as the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus.
Searching for God is one of the most practical things for us as Christians. God is love.
The love that God give and expect from us is the most practical aspect of Christian life.
In a world where people fall in and out of love and conditional love, Arrupe is encouraging us to
be amazed by the love of God that we find in encountering other human beings and environment.
Pedro Arrupe is calling us to find God in all things. How can we practically fall in love when
driven by counter gospel values such as individualism, consumerism, competition and
corruption? How can we fall in love with gospel values when we use other human beings and
environment as means to an end, but not as Christ.
Pedro Arrupe is encouraging us to align our lives with values that last, leave an impression that
lasts in our hearts, and drive us into action. The greatest man ever to be driven by love is Jesus
Christ who said to his disciples and us that there is “No greater love than this that one die for his
friends.”
Jesus came for salvation for all and his mission did not exclude anyone, as it was all
encompassing despite gender or race or nationality. Being in love with God does change
everything! It emboldens us to do things we never would have imagined, empowers us to do that
which we could not have conceived, enables us to delight in the journey, and sustains us through
it all.
When one is in love, he or she is interested in the person or career, they are in love with
passionately. One is motivated out of love not benefits but out of love and interest and is easy to
motivate.
The people or friends that one surrounds themselves with are those who enables that person to
reach the goal they want to achieve. The books and movies they read or watch are the ones that
helps the person to capture the magination that propels them to reach their goals.
The call by Pedro Arrupe is that of Magis.
Magis is a call for more, and this more is a more to love. Once driven by mediocrity of love then
it is easy to be a mediocre Christian, human being therefore, the call to remain and staying in
love.
Staying in love is staying in the lane of Christ who showed us the greatest example first by
washing the disciple’s feet and then by dying for us on the cross. A selfless love that amazes the
one who loves because you are open to new encounters of Christ through other people. God
unconditionally and unmistakably loves us. Once we have a firm foothold in that love, in our
world that is beautiful and broken, we discover a call to let that love shape what we do and us.
Moreover, when it is God’s love, freely and abundantly given to us, that is flowing through us,
we are able to pass it along just as graciously. “For where your treasure is, there also will your
heart be.” Christ reminds because what is in our hearts is what moves us most into action. What
am I in love with? Where is my treasure?
For me, the challenging part of this is the fact that it is so easy to tell myself, in my head, “Of
course my treasure lies with God!” and to feel secure in that without really doing the hard and
sometimes uncomfortable work of diving into whether or not that is actually true. So how do I
get beyond the blanket statement that is sometimes more delusion and self-congratulations than
anything else is?
I think one way is to, in a sense, flip Fr. Arrupe’s equation. Rather than first asking ourselves
whether or not our treasure is in God, maybe we should first look at what we do with our
evenings, how we spend our weekends, etc.
Yes, falling in love with God will affect everything, but how we spend our time on a daily basis
also reveals what we are in love with and where our treasure is. One of the great gifts of
Ignatian Spirituality is its invitation and challenge to us to examine our day in order to seek God
and to ask ourselves whether we are recognizing and responding to the work of the Holy Spirit in
the lived experience of our daily lives.
Is a good portion of my day spent on selfish thoughts and actions, drinking too much alcohol,
watching YouTube videos either that have no inherent value or that denigrate or objectify
others? If so, that tells me something about where my treasure lies.
Alternatively, am I spending my day in prayer cultivating healthy habits and relationships, and
seeking to serve and care for others? This prayer challenges us to find our treasure in God, but in
a way that moves beyond simple intellectual assertions. Allowing our actions to reveal to us the
trajectory of what we really believe and value can be a helpful, important, and yes, challenging
first step in recognizing where our hearts are, what we are in love with, and where our treasure
really lies.
English