The True Finish Line
June 15, 2025
“You know that while all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, only one receives the prize. In that case, run so as to win! Athletes deny themselves all sorts of things. They do this to win a crown of leaves that withers, but we a crown that is imperishable. I do not run like one who loses sight of the finish line. I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. What I do is discipline my own body and master it, for fear that having preached to others I myself should be disqualified.” –1 Corinthians 9:24-27
As we continue the Jubilee Year of Hope, this weekend we celebrate the Jubilee of Sports. Sports have always enjoyed the esteem of the Church. As Pope Francis addressed the International Conference on Sports and Spirituality last year, “The Apostle Paul more than once compared the spiritual life to an athletic competition . . . whose prize is Christ himself. The discipline and self-control of athletes, as well as their spirit of healthy competition, have often served as images of Christian life and virtue.” Sports teach the virtues of discipline and endurance, teamwork and cooperation, and stewardship and care for our bodies. Catholic parishes and schools have long served their communities by offering opportunities to participate in sports, especially for youth and the poor. Sports also offer a way toward inclusion and solidarity. Special Olympics was founded by a Catholic, Eunice Kennedy Shriver—President Kennedy’s sister—and her son Timothy Shriver is currently the organization’s Chairperson. He states that Special Olympics uses sports to “educate the public about people with intellectual disabilities, change perceptions, challenge stereo types, and address barriers to inclusion.” Many saints have used sports as a way to build strong, healthy relationships with God, nature, and neighbor, such as St. John Bosco, St. Teresa of the Andes, St. Luigi Scrosoppi, St. John Paul II, Blessed Chiara Badano, and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
However, something does seem to be askew about our current sports culture. Sports have become “big business” in our nation, leading to a “win at all costs” mentality that actually harms athletes physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Athletes, even young athletes, are injured, used up, and discarded when no longer profitable to the organization. I’m a big fan of sports and of Michigan’s teams (especially the Detroit Lions), but sports fandom has increasingly gone off the rails. It has become increasingly common online to see over-the-top abusive language or violence by sports fans. If I find that I’m in such a bad mood when my team loses that it negatively impacts my relationships in my marriage, with my children, and amongst my friends and co-workers, it is a reality check that, as St. Augustine warned, my loves have become wrongly ordered.
We can see another challenge to what St. Augustine referred to as well directed love— “loving things in the right order”—in youth sports culture. Earlier this year, Fr. Joshua Whitfield wrote an article in America magazine entitled, “Soccer vs. Sunday Mass: How youth sports are undermining religion and hurting our kids.” Fr. Whitfield writes from a unique perspective as pastoral administrator of a large Catholic parish in Dallas (the heart of Cowboy country!) and as a husband and father of five children (he’s a former Episcopal priest). I would encourage everyone, especially parents, to read his article online. In the article, he questions if our current youth sports culture is truly beneficial to our young people. He quotes the writers of the book Overplayed, who have “become increasingly concerned about the toll that current youth sports culture is taking on children, young people, and families. Families’ dollars and time are stretched and stressed. Children are suffering overuse injuries and burning out at younger and younger ages. They’re being asked to perform beyond appropriate developmental stages. They’re failing to develop some of the intrinsic values that adults assume sports will teach them. Parents are damaging their relationships with their kids and with each other. And far too often, as we struggle to navigate this new terrain, we’re driven not by love but by fear.” This diagnosis aligns with some of the things that I have witnessed both as a father and throughout my career as a lay minister.
Sports are a wonderful part of human life, but it makes a very poor religion. When I was serving in North Muskegon around the year 2000, I was told that my faith formation classes had to be on Wednesday because “Wednesday night is church night in North Muskegon. Games are not scheduled, and coaches don’t have practice. There are no dance classes or recitals.” I don’t know if that is still true there, but I would doubt it. In our era of travel leagues, multiple teams, individualized coaching, etc., no time is viewed as more sacred than sports, even Sunday mornings! A couple years ago, the bishop in Grand Rapids ordered all parish gymnasiums closed (no games, no practices) on Sundays throughout the diocese when the priests were reporting seeing more of their parishioners at the Sunday afternoon basketball or volleyball game than at Saturday evening or Sunday morning Mass. For St. Agustine, God is the summum bonum, the highest good, and love for God and communion with God is what the rest of our loves and passions should be scheduled around. When our participation in or passionate fandom for sports takes the place of our participation in the weekly Eucharist and our passion for Holy Communion with God and neighbor in love, we have lost sight of our true “finish line” and our priorities need to be recalibrated.
May this Jubilee of Sports be an opportunity for all of us to give thanks for the gift of sports and the virtues they inculcate, put our passion for sports in the right perspective, and always put our first priority on worship and communion with the one God who is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.