To the Band of Brothers: October 2, 2024

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Amadeus.” It’s a fictional biopic of the famous 18th-century Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It’s unique because it tells the story from the perspective of one of his greatest rivals, Antonio Salieri. A great composer in his own right, the movie portrays him as a bitter man because he lived his whole life in the shadow of the great Mozart. Salieri couldn’t understand how God would grace the flamboyant and mischievous Mozart with a talent much greater than his own. Salieri was religious, faithful, tempered, and hard-working. Despite all this, Mozart was simply better.

When I saw the movie, I remember feeling sorry for Salieri. If you do a quick search of his life’s accomplishments, you will see he was very prolific and held important roles in the world of music. He was a great composer. But the jealousy that plagued his heart kept him from truly enjoying the music Mozart was producing. If a composer is sincerely passionate about music and desires to create it so its beauty can be shared with the world, does it matter who writes it? Should Salieri have been so upset at God for having graced Mozart with the ability to compose such greatness? Would he have preferred that no one ever heard Symphony No. 40 or listened to the opera Don Giovanni? It seems to me the love of music should have tempered his pride.

As I sit at my desk and write these words, there’s a little bronze plaque in front of me. Engraved on it is one of my favorite phrases. It reads, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” The quote is from President Ronald Reagan. If you search for the phrase on Google, it gives you a few other names of individuals who supposedly said it. Apparently, Google doesn’t care much who gets the credit for saying it because it credits several. And, since everyone it refers to is already dead, I am pretty sure they don’t care either.

There is great wisdom in those words and Salieri would have been a lot happier if he had read them. It’s really simple. If you’ve ever been passionate about anything worth getting passionate about, you don’t care how or who, you care about it. Let me give you an example, Belen is passionate about the spiritual, academic, and moral formation of its students. That’s the goal. So, whether it’s a math teacher, baseball coach, a Jesuit, or a college counselor, what matters is that solving the quadratic equation, hitting the curve ball, going to confession, or getting into UF has made you a better man.

The first reading and Gospel last Sunday were exactly about that. 

The Book of Numbers (11:25-29) told the story of a time when God took some of the spirit that was on Moses and shared it with seventy elders. They began to prophesize. Then, there were two, Eldad and Medad, who were not present with Moses who received the spirit as well. They too began to prophesize. Aaron, Moses’s assistant, got upset at this and told Moses he should shut them up. Moses rebuked Aaron and told him not to be jealous. Moses said, “Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets!”

In the Gospel, something similar happens. St. Mark (9:38-43, 45, 47-48) relates the story of when John complained to Jesus that he found some individuals who were not of their group expelling demons in his name. John tells Jesus he tried to stop them, but they didn’t. Jesus responds, “Do not prevent them. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us” (v. 38-40). If you want to know what probably inspired Reagan (or the other 14 individuals, according to Google), it was that.

Let’s not worry about who gets the credit. As long as the work of God is being done, the benefit of our fellow man is being assured, and the holiness of the world is increased, we don’t care who gets the pat on the back because it’s not ultimately about us. Let our passion be the mission, not our ego, and truly appreciate the greatness of God as it shines forth from all men. 

Auspice Maria.