God and sports
They do mix. In fact, they have to mix. God and sports, just like God and everything else—business, politics, arts, etc.—need to mix. But they have to mix properly.
One of our challenges today is precisely to discover the right formula or recipe for this blending, given first of all the nature of each of these elements (sorry for speaking in irreverent terms, as in God is just one more element in the equation?) and the conditions and circumstances of the parties involved.
At the moment, there is a lot of awkwardness in this topic. Much of it is left to individual and highly private interpretations. Clear standards and sure methods in this matter are largely unknown.
In fact, there’s still a lot of unexplored area to be mapped, and I must say the general interest is rather weak. And so the dominant atmosphere is indifference to God, and widespread albeit quiet neglect of the duty to relate things to God.
If ever there is some God-talk in a sports event, it’s because the winner was thankful for the victory, giving the impression that God was only for the victor and not for the loser. Of course, many people don’t like that, and rightly so.
Same in political exercises. References to God are sometimes shamelessly used to bolster a politician’s credentials, as if he is the only one anointed by God to win. And if he does win, the situation can be a lot worse in that a greater distortion of the truth can happen.
God is always for everyone. He can be found everywhere and in everything and in everyone. He is always relevant to any situation we might find ourselves in—whether we’re up or down, hitting it big or small, gaining or failing.
Much of the problem can be traced to ignorance of the doctrine of faith and morals which is already in an alarming scale. Even our so-called educated and cultured elite are a know-nothing when it comes to relating their activities to God.
Of course, the worse cause is the lack of consistency in the moral lives of people. Many may have a good theoretical knowledge of God but bringing it to practice is completely a different story. This is the more rampant situation.
We have to find a way to spread the truth about God and his relevance to any human affair and activity, not only in the remote sense but also in the immediate sense.
Of course, this has to be done without falling into fanaticism, fundamentalism, integralism and other isms that distort the proper relation between God and our sports and other human affairs.
We have to do all this with a certain naturalness that knows how blend the supernatural and the human elements, the spiritual and the material, the global and the local, the social and the personal. We have to know which can be said in public and which is better kept in private.
And for this, everyone can and should always play a part, taking advantage of any circumstance and situation he is in. The big-shots as well as the small fries can say something.
The Pope, the bishops and priests, of course, can say a lot of things. And the sports managers, players, referees, waterboys, the winners and losers, can also say something, or at least give some personal testimonies.
This is what we need these days—a certain acknowledgement of the role of God and religion in all our endeavors, respectful always of the nature and will of God and the nature and character of things, so that we don’t cause unnecessary division and conflicts.
And thus I was happy to learn that in the US very popular Super Bowl, a sports superstar by the name of Tim Tebow, whose parents used to be missionaries in the Philippines, came out to talk about the danger of abortion.
When he was still in his mother’s womb, a doctor advised the mother to have an abortion because of a certain sickness she was suffering at that time. The doctor was afraid the baby might turn out deformed.
But the mother did not follow the advice. The baby was born, healthy in fact, and the rest is history. Besides, many details of Tim’s life of faith are worth telling, since they are edifying. I’m sure there are also dark spots. But who doesn’t have any?
The important thing is to know how to relate things, good or bad, to God. We are all saints in the making. We have to be!
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@gmail.com)
