January 28, 2026

Fr. John Riccardo

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.

It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).

I am one of the fortunate people who can say that my father was my hero. He was called home by the Lord ten years ago next month. He was hands down the greatest man I ever knew, and there isn’t a close second. The son of lower class Italian immigrants, he served in Word War II and because of that was able to attend the University of Michigan on the GI bill. There, he met my mom, and received his undergraduate degree and a masters in economics. One of the big accounting firms had a sign up list posted in the business school and he grabbed the last spot. It was the only job interview he ever had in his life. They told him he was the absolutely least qualified of all the people they interviewed. He was, however, they said, the hungriest, so they hired him.

He quickly became known as an incredibly hard worker but even more as a man of impeccable integrity and humility. The man to whom he reported left for the automotive industry after several years and said on his way out the door, "I'm coming back for you.” A few years later he did just that. My father gradually rose through the ranks of that organization and ended up succeeding his boss as CEO and Chairman of the Board. Dad retired at the age of 55 and spent the remainder of his life until he died 46 years later largely serving the Church in various capacities, both locally and internationally. He led Bible studies, “Life in the Spirit” seminars, and spoke to various audiences about Jesus and the life of faith. Pop, as I called him, was fond of saying, “The priorities in life are these: God first, family second, and then my work.” They weren’t just words for him; I saw them lived out every day, even when it must have been tempting to put them in inverse order.

I once asked my dad if he ever wondered if the Lord gave him the gifts he had and the career he had so as to make him a credible witness to those who are tempted to think faith is a crutch. He did. That’s not to say his career was merely an instrument for him, not at all. He loved to work and he loved especially the people he felt blessed to lead. It is to say, though, that there continues to float around in some circles the idiotic notion that faith is for losers, for those who aren’t athletic, attractive, successful, or the other things the spirit of this age says really matter. Pop didn’t need a crutch. He had it all, in the world’s eyes, and yet God was always, clearly, front and center for him. He knew everything he had was a gift from God and he lived in the constant awareness of knowing he was going to have to account for how he used those gifts. I can only imagine the reception he received as he left this life. I would have loved to see Jesus’ face as He uttered the words we all long to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Master!”

My father comes to mind as I pray with Paul’s words this week. It’s easy to get the wrong idea from what he writes, thinking that those first Christians came exclusively from the lower classes of society. We know better. Paul himself was utterly brilliant, schooled by the best of teachers in Israel. Even Peter, often thought of as a simple, even poor fisherman, is almost certainly not what we imagine. It looks more and more, from archaeological evidence in places like Magdala on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, that the first pope was more like a small business owner, who might have sent the deeply desired fish in that Sea into parts of the Roman Empire.

Paul’s point is to remind us that everything is grace, everything is a gift. As I type this and you read it, our very breathing is a gift from God. Those who foolishly forget this, or ignore it, or think they are independent and self-made men and women are simply living a delusion. True greatness is to constantly acknowledge God, to thank Him and to seek to put all of our gifts at His disposal. True greatness is to ask Him how He wants us to use our gifts, so as to help transform this world He created and loves, until the day He returns and recreates it. True greatness is humility, never boasting as if something is our own. True greatness is to put first things first, always, starting with God.

May St. Paul, and the prayers of all those we love and miss and who have finished the race and kept the faith, inspire us to be great.

True Greatness

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