Third in a four part series.
The body is the central image of the Church. We are the Body of Christ, and the source and summit of our life is the Body and Blood of Christ made truly present to us in the Eucharist. Catholic athletes can use sports to contemplate that image.
The importance of teamwork is an obvious connection, in context of St. Paul’s writing on the body of Christ. A team is made up of individual members, but functions as a group to advance a common goal while also trying to defeat an opponent. The Christian life is similar. We have noble goals set before us, which are difficult to obtain because there is always an opponent working against us who does not want us to attain our goal. Yet there is goodness in facing opposition; Thomas Merton noted: “Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.”
While the importance of teamwork may be obvious, it can be overlooked when individual accomplishments are given too much emphasis. Professional sports offer many examples. I will offer two from the history of the World Series.
Bill Mazeroski is often remembered as “winning” the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates with a dramatic home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game, breaking a tie with the New York Yankees. Yet had his teammates not worked together to score the other runs (and prevented the Yankees from scoring more) Mazeroski never would have had that moment. If he and his teammates had not won three previous games, they would not have been in a position to win the series. If the team had not allowed the Yankees to have won three games, there would not have been a game seven!
On the negative side, Bill Buckner is often remembered as “losing” the 1986 World Series for the Boston Red Sox by letting a ground ball roll through his legs at first base--allowing the New York Mets to tie and eventually win the World Series--when the Red Sox were one strike away from winning. Again, if the Red Sox as a team had been able to score a few more runs that night, or had kept the Mets from scoring more, or had the Red Sox won more games earlier in the series, they would never have been in that position in the first place.
Games are won or lost by teams, not by individuals. While an individual player’s actions may seem to win or lose a game, the pivotal situation was provided by the entire team throughout the whole game.
While as Christians we ultimately contribute our individual efforts to an overall team effort, we still have individual struggles; we all battle personal opponents. Yet our personal battles all contribute to the greater good of the body. This is an essential truth to the sacrament of Reconciliation. All of our actions affect the greater body, even though they may not seem to. When we sin we make ourselves a weaker member of the body, and thus the body is weaker. That is why we have the chance to reconcile with the body through this sacrament.
Next: The Eucharistic Implications of Sports.
Please also check out my article "Healing Football's Spiritual Wounds" at www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=35654
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