8th Grade Advancement

8th Grade Advancement
Henry Motsch
St. Francis de Sales School, Class of 2026

I am honored to have been chosen to give this Salesian Reflection.  I know that many of you could just as easily have been standing here. Even if you weren't chosen, that doesn't mean you have to wait for a formal moment like this to let someone know how much they have meant to you. But I am grateful for the chance to do so with all of you right now. 

When I started preparing this reflection, I knew I wanted to talk about the brotherhood we share here at St. Francis. I searched for a quote that would capture it, and when I found this one, I knew it was the one: "Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength." That also connects to our school motto, Suaviter et Fortiter, gently but firmly.  Over my time here, I have seen that lived out in real and powerful ways. I want to share two of them with you. 

THE FIRST INSTANCE 

The summer going into seventh grade was a hard one for me. I did not want to come to St. Francis. I had a plan: keep my head down, wait two years, and rejoin my grade school friends when they eventually came here too. I was not interested in starting over. 

But somewhere over that summer, the plan quietly fell apart. I found myself looking forward to things I had not expected to look forward to. And then cross country started, and every single day we went out on runs together.  Miles have a way of doing that: bonds get built whether you plan for them or not. By the time the school year began, I had already forgotten what I had been trying to hold onto. 

THE SECOND INSTANCE... 

...comes from this year. Many of us took Honors Biology. It was hard. There were moments when people were struggling, and the easy thing would have been to look the other way or just give them a hard time about it. And yes, sometimes we gave each other a hard time. But we also grabbed each other. When someone started to go under, someone else would pull them back up. I saw that happen in Honors Biology. I saw it in other classes too. I think it happened in classes I was not even in. That is what real strength looked like this year: not carrying a heavy load by yourself, but refusing to let your brother drown. 

THE FAITH CONNECTION 

St. Francis de Sales wrote that we walk with God in two ways. The first is like a child holding his Father's hand, matching his steps to God's, going where God leads. The second is like a child who is simply carried in his mother's arms, no longer walking at all, just resting and trusting completely. 

I think that is exactly what the brotherhood here looks like. Most of the time, we walk alongside each other, hand in hand. We show up for each other at practice, in the classroom, in the hallway. But there are harder moments, when someone cannot walk on their own anymore, and that is when the brotherhood steps in and carries them. 

That is not just friendship. St. Francis de Sales would say that’s holy.  That is why we are here at St. Francis: to build each other up, to hold each other's hand on the good days, and to carry each other on the hard ones.

CONCLUSION 

So I want to leave my fellow eighth graders with a challenge. Go out and show your true strength, not measured by how much weight you can lift, but by how many hearts you can lift. 

Whenever you see someone who looks like they are carrying something heavy, just ask them: How are you doing? That one question, asked sincerely,  can change someone's whole day. Maybe their whole year. 

Go show your true strength, help others, make connections and live the brotherhood. 

May God be praised!