A for Effort! – Holy Hour 11-15-24

“Brothers and sisters, kneel before the Father. From whom every family in Heaven and on earth is named. That He may grant you in accord with the riches of His glory. To be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self. And that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you are rooted and grounded in love.

May His strength comprehend with all the Holy Ones. What is the breadth and length and height and depth? To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Well, 37 years ago today, I was ordained a priest. My anniversary day! I was thinking about ordination, and I was thinking about the passage I prepared for scripture today. It reminded me of a story from early on in my priesthood back in the 80s, when I was at Christ the Good Shepherd in Lincoln Park.

There’s still a school there. Father Redwick was the pastor, and it was a large school. It was the seventh or eighth largest grade school in the diocese at the time. They had three first grades, three fourth grades, all the way up through eighth grade, so there were a lot of kids. Fr. Redwick made it a point to hand out every single one of those report cards himself.

And the way they did their report cards back then was that you got two grades for every subject. You got your grade on the subject, whether you understood the material like Math or English. The other grade was an effort grade. Did the teacher think you were trying your best?

Fr. Redwick really didn’t care about your first grade. He centered on the effort. Because if you got an ‘A’ for effort, but you just got a ‘C’ in Math, it meant this kid’s trying as hard as he or she can. That’s the best they’re going to do.

But we know that kid tried real, real hard. And that’s what he centered on. What is your effort? How hard are you trying? How hard are you working for it? ‘The grades will come and go,’ he said, ‘but the ability to persevere and to try is something that has to grow in our life…That transcends the subjects you learn in class.’

It’s something that is with us all our life, and not just through this world, but in our faith and the practice of our faith as well. What effort do we put into the practice of our faith, and what grade will the Lord give you for that effort? That is what Saint Paul is keying on here in this letter to the Ephesians.

So I put it to you this way in the scriptures: The widow puts her coins in, but she gets an ‘A’ for effort, even though she’s giving less than anyone because it was the best that she could do. That’s what matters to Jesus; that we wake up every morning, that faith is an important part of our life, the guiding principle of our lives and the decisions we make that day.

You know, maybe some people are called to be hospital chaplains, and some people can’t get out of the house, but at least they could write a card or make a call to someone who is shut in. See what I mean? And that second person is probably working just as hard and giving it a forever, because that’s what they can do.

So my reflection to you is this: take stock in how much effort you put into the practice of your faith. If you know you can do better…well, then you should!”

~ Fr. Joseph Gembala