The Spiritual Legacy of the Steroids Era

Major League Baseball has a great TV ad explaining the dangers of steroids. A voice-over intones a litany of damages done to the body, while on screen a statue of an athlete crumbles apart--a striking image of the physical devastation wrought by these euphemistically dubbed "performance enhancing drugs."

In the face of Mark McGwire this week, we've seen the spiritual counterpart.

We've looked into the eyes of a man who cheated, broke one of his sport's most hallowed records by doing so, denied for years having done anything wrong, and now cradles a crumbled spirit that needs healing as much as his body.

I'm not judging Mark McGwire; Heaven knows we can all claim solidarity with him to some degree. In the game of life we have all at times played outside the rules, denied or tried to justify having done so, and faced the messy consequences of our own poor choices.

So while McGwire's body seeks to heal from the physical damage of these dangerous substances (if it hasn't yet, it will), we can and should join with him--as his brothers and sisters--in diagnosing and treating the spiritual wounds.

If I were to triage, I would place as a treatment priority not whatever weakness caused McGwire to choose steroids, but the one that led him to lie. The instinct to deny our sins deserves at least as much attention as the instinct to sin in the first place, if not more. Why?

As much as we try to be open to the grace of God working through us, we all sin--though hopefully less and less as we continue along our journey. Sin is a given in our earthly life, and will always be until we reach the Heavenly banquet. That's why Jesus sacrificed everything for us, and established a Church through which he could save us from sin.

Given the ever-present reality of sin, there is an essential quality we must all possess in order to be healed by Jesus--the humility to admit our sins, to repent, and to ask forgiveness. Anything is possible when we honestly admit our guilt and ask for the help we need to change. Nothing happens when we don't. In fact, we make the devil's work much easier when we look the other way or refuse to call his fouls.

That's why the overriding lesson that needs to emerge from the "Steroids Era" is not that it's evil to ingest dangerous substances or to cheat, as critically important as those lessons are. What needs to emerge above all else is that when we do wrong we need to stand up and say, "I did wrong, I'm sorry, and I want to change." When we do that there is forgiveness, redemption, and transformation of mind and heart.

Without that message firmly in place, the others miss their mark. What's the point of teaching that steroids and cheating are wrong, if we have not first laid the foundation of humility, contrition, and the infinite mercy of God that are required to properly process those other lessons?

Catholics are blessed with a rich tradition that lays that foundation. Part of that is the sacrament of Reconciliation, whereby we verbally confess to Jesus (acting through his ordained human instrument) that we have sinned, and are absolved and given his grace to grow closer to the divine image in which we were created. Another is the penitential rite at Mass, through which we admit to God and our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ that we have sinned, and ask for prayers and the grace of God to move forward.

In the words of the Confiteor (one of the options for this rite), we find perhaps the greatest lesson that needs to emerge from the steroids era, words that I pray Mark McGwire and all God's people take to heart:

"I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do. And I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.

"May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen."