The Olympics are happening in Paris!Â
When I grew up, neither streaming nor the internet existed yet, and the only chance you had to watch the Olympics was to decipher the complicated printed TV guide, calculate adjustments for time zones, and make slow-motion tweaks to the bunny ears to get a clear picture instead of colorful fuzz. If you missed it, you had to wait four whole years until the next Olympics. I remember being 8 years old and realizing that I’d be 12 the next time I could watch Olympic gymnasts. A lifetime! Imagine!Â
Still, pure magic surrounded the Olympics. The chance to be the best in the world! My young heart always swelled with red-white-and-blue love and pride as I watched Team USA compete, perform, and win.
Sports are far more important than mere entertainment. Sports are a profoundly human endeavor, a deep integration of body and soul, and a powerful catalyst for virtue. Scripture itself often uses sports metaphors to capture the shining hope and goal of Christian life.Â
Whether you are an athlete or not, you will benefit from these quotes about unifying the work of the body and the life of the soul.Â
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.
Train yourself for devotion. For while physical training is of some value, devotion is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
Remember that bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, as I have said, is also prayer by means of which you can please God our Lord.
+St. Ignatius of Loyola
The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.Â
+St Vincent de Paul
You cannot be half a saint; you must be a whole saint or no saint at all.Â
+St Therese of Lisieux
Faith means battles; if there are no contests, it is because there are none who desire to contend.
+St. Ambrose
I know well that the greater and more beautiful the work is, the more terrible will be the storms that rage against it.Â
+St Faustina
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.
Let us love God, but let it be with the strength of our arms and with the sweat of our brows.
+St. Vincent de Paul
When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.
+St. Francis de Sales
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even the youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on the wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.Â
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God
It is not the actual physical exertion that counts toward a man’s progress, nor the nature of the task, but the spirit of faith with which it is undertaken.Â
+St Francis Xavier
St John Paul II (then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla) skiing. Image in public domain.
Now, we need a special section just for the insights of St John Paul II. As avid sportsman who loved skiing, hiking, and kayaking, he delivered multiple addresses and letters on the spiritual significance of sports and athletes. You can find a very thorough collection of his sports-related work here.
The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it.
+Theology of the Body 19:4
The Church cannot but encourage everything that serves in harmoniously developing the human body. It is rightly considered the masterpiece of the whole of creation, not only because of its proportion, strength, and beauty, but also and especially because God has made it His dwelling place and the instrument of an immortal soul, breathing into it that "breath of life" by which man is made in His image and likeness.
+Address to Italian athletes, 1981
Sport is an activity that involves more than the movement of the body; it demands the use of intelligence and the disciplining of the will. It reveals, in other words, the wonderful structure of the human person created by God as a spiritual being, a unity of body and spirit.
+Address to the Italian National Olympic Committee, 1985
With this celebration the world of; sport is joining in a great chorus, as it were, to express through prayer, song, play and movement a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. It is a fitting occasion to give thanks to God for the gift of sport, in which the human person exercises his body, intellect and will, recognizing these abilities as so many gifts of his Creator.
+Jubilee of Sports Homily, 2000
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