2Timothy 4:7: I
have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith;
1 Corinthians 9:24: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
1 Corinthians 9:25: Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
I watched a great football game the other night. Two
college teams played a well-fought and surprisingly evenly matched contest. In
regular time, the one team came from behind with seconds left to score a
touchdown and tie the game. The players had to endure four overtimes before one
player, exhausted and pulling strength from sources he never knew he possessed,
grabbed the ball and ran it in for the game winning touchdown. It was amazing.
These young men played over four hours of football, played well every minute
and never stopped trying to make those precious points. It was exhilarating to
watch, and made me think about our path to heaven.
We are all like those players. They came into the game
physically prepared by spending hours in training and strength exercises. They
were in top shape because they fed their bodies well and rested before the big
contest. They were confident because they had good coaches who had prepared plans
for their games and taught them how to execute those plans, gave them game
books to study and memorize, and taught them to work as a team for ultimate
success. There really wasn’t a loser in this game because all the players did
their jobs, and did them well.
They are very much like all of us. We spend every day
training and preparing ourselves for what lies ahead at any given moment. We
spend every morning in prayer and reflection on God’s Word, which is the game
plan we follow in life. We feed ourselves the Bread of Life, study the
Catechism and Lives of the Saints to find plans that work for us, and spend
time with our parish communities to learn to help each other reach eternal
life. God is our coach, our priests and holy friends are our assistant coaches,
and all our fellow Catholics are our team. If we all do our jobs well, we
should all cross the goal line.
Some of us are like the players who did everything right
in preparing for the game, yet got injured and had to sit on the sidelines,
miss the rest of the game or maybe even the rest of the season, yet they are
never idle. They always find ways to help the coaches, work with the players,
spend time analyzing strategies and lend encouragement as they heal and prepare
to enter back into active play. We, too, get sick and weak and injured and have
to be sidelined for awhile, yet God asks us to support our teammates through
intercessory prayer and works of support: encouraging emails, notes of
appreciation, phone calls to cheer up our friends. We can spend more time in
study so that we can help our team members know and understand the faith.
Sometimes we do the best we can and come up short. I
watched extremely gifted kickers miss relatively easy field goals time and
again. They probably made those same goals every time in practice. Other
players had the ball in their hands and dropped it, some never caught the pass
at all, and others were pulled down by weight much stronger than theirs. So no
matter how hard these players trained, stuff happened. Sound familiar? The
point is that they never gave up, said it was too hard for them and left to go
play football on video games. Nope, they stayed in the game and tried again and
again. That is what God asks of us. Although it looks as though we are doing
everything right to get to heaven, we succumb to sin, fall into bad habits and
let the weight of the world pull us down into what might look like failure. But
there cannot be failure for us. We don’t get the option of playing life on a
couch. We must always remain active players to get across our goal line.
Some players are naturally gifted. They possess an inner
idea of the game that just comes out in everything they do. They are usually
trophy winners and first round draft picks. Others have come to the game with
less training and ability. They have a lot of catching up to do, yet they
succeed by sheer determination and hard work. The saints are like that. Therese
of the Little Flower and Bernard of Clairvaux were born holy and devout. As
children they hungered for God and entered religious life to go on to become extremely
effective coaches and game planners for the rest of us. Augustine, however, was
thirty years old before he gave up his worldly life to come to God, and Teresa
of Avila, although a nun, was 40 years old before she gave up her attachment to
fine things and left everything behind to help reform the Carmelite Order. What
do all four have in common? They are all Doctors of the Church, the A-team so
to speak. We can surely see ourselves in one of them. Either we always had a
burning passion for God’s will in our hearts, or we came to it later on. But
one thing is clear about all of us. We want to be holy, and holy is defined as
totally accepting God’s will as our own. No ifs, ands or buts. If a college
football player’s coach tells him to do something, he does it. If God tells us
to do something, we do it. We want to cross the line and enter heaven. God
knows how to make that happen. He created us. He knows our strengths and
weaknesses, and like a good coach, he will put us where we will be most
effective on the team.
One last point: only one young man crossed the goal line
to score the winning touchdown that night, yet he didn’t do it alone. It took
the entire team, coaching staff and fans to get him there. He was part of a
community that wanted success. Working all together for one purpose, to cross
the goal and make it happen, success came to all of them. That is the way we
must live our Catholic lives. We may be blockers who open spaces for those who
will run ahead of us, we may be kickers who bring home the point, we may be sideliners
who cheer and encourage. Whatever role we play, whatever position God has
assigned to us, with prayer, study, use of the Sacraments and participation at
Mass, we will do as St. Paul exhorts us and “win the prize that will last
forever.” Fight team, fight!
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