The race and the struggle of Lent
“Do you not know that, though all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, only one of them gets the prize? Run like that: to win. Every competitor is self-disciplined in all respects, but they compete in order to win a wreath that will wither, whereas our wreath will never wither. So I do not run without a goal, nor box buffeting the air. I punish my body and make it serve me so that, having been a herald to others, I should not myself be disqualified. I want you to be quite clear, bothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. And all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, since they drank from the spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and their corpses were scattered over the desert.“
1 Corinthians 9: 24 – 10: 5
The preparation season for the great fast of Lent, commencing today on Saint Valentine’s Day, sets in with Septuagesima Sunday. Septuagesima Sunday hit us early this year, some weeks ago at the end of January. It is the Sunday when the liturgy instructs us each year through the reading given above from Saint Paul the Apostle’s first letter to the Church at Corinth – one of the occasions when Saint Paul…
“(…) is using sport as a metaphor for discipleship, exhorting early Christians to exemplify Greek athletes‘ qualities of self-control, discipline, and perseverance.“
Matt Hoven / J.J. Carney / Max T. Engel: On the Eighth Day. A Catholic Theology of Sport, Cascade Books 2022, p. 15
Lent is a race, a marathon to be run. The prize for winning this race, as with winning the track course of life, is an “incorruptible one“ (1 Cor 9: 25). It is a season for boxing not against air or sandbags but against our own vices and bad habits by practicing the countering virtues and good habits that are able to checkmate them. A chance to turn towards God with a couple of acts of penance offered up, being fed spiritual food and spiritual drink from the rock that is Christ while pilgrimaging through a desert.
“Athletes for Christ“
The metaphor of the “athlete for Christ“ was taken up by the church fathers of the patristic period, as the Catholic theologians Hoven, Carney and Engel explain in their book On the Eighth Day. A Catholic Theology of Sport. Saint Ignatius of Antioch told his disciples to “take blows yet win the fight“ like an athlete (ibid., p. 16); Saint John Cassian spoke of the monk as a “skilled athlete of Christ, like of lofty victor“ who “wins out over his rebellious flesh“ in his “struggle for perfection“ (ibid.); and Saint John Chrysostom “applied the metaphor to the broader education of lay youth“ (ibid.) when he said in his Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring up Their Children…
“Raise up an Athlete for Christ! I do not mean by this, hold him back from wedlock and send him to desert regions to prepare him to assume the monastic life. … Raise up an athlete for Christ and teach him though he is living in the world to be reverent from his earliest youth.“
Saint John Chrysostom, quoted in: Matt Hoven / J.J. Carney / Max T. Engel: On the Eighth Day. A Catholic Theology of Sport, Cascade Books 2022, p. 16
A strong connection between the ascetic and the athletic life is found in the very etymology of the word “ascetic“: It stems from a Greek term for “training“ or “exercise“ – askesis. The good and virtuous way of life is built through daily training, exercise, practice just like the growth of muscles and good athletic performances are.
“Train yourself for religion. Physical exercise is useful to some extent, but the usefulness of religion is unlimited, since it promises life both now and for the future. This is a saying that is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For this purpose we toil and struggle, because our hope is in the living God who is the Saviour of the whole human race, but particularly of all believers.“
1 Timothy 4: 7-10
Lent and athletics
Each year, probably due to the close connection between askesis and athletics, I tend to consider the season of Lent very suitable – not only for the three traditional key practices of fasting (strengthening in us virtues like chastity, temperance, and diligence), praying (making us grow in virtues like humility, mercy, and meekness), and almsgiving (building us up in virtues like generosity and patience; for all of these correlations see the book Introduction to the Spiritual Life. Walking the Path of Prayer with Jesus by the Catholic theologian Brant Pitre) but also – for raising one‘s level of sport practice along the way. Lent coincides with the beginning of spring, the return of life, after all.
On the one hand, fasting facilitates being physically active while physical activity makes it easier to bear the fasting regiment and re-enforces one‘s discipline. On the other hand, sport always possesses a playful and recreational quality. Thus moving our bodies more regularly and also more joyfully might add some spice and flavor to the desert season of Lent. There is a theory according to which “nearly all modern sports have their roots in the ‘play of medieval peasants‘“ (ibid., p. 20) that would take place during the Sunday afternoons after Holy Mass – on parish grounds that “served as sites for recreational soccer games and holy day stick-and-ball competitions“ (ibid., p. 19).
All our very finite and limited yet all the while extraordinary and amazing God-given bodily abilities concerning sports and physical activities – every sweaty run, every exhausting swim, every painful set of reverse crunches, and every cheerful ball game – point us both to the passion of Christ when the master athlete, “like a champion to run his course“ (Ps 19: 6), finishes his work of redemptive self-offering, giving His holy body and blood on the cross, and to the power of the risen Christ, to the new creation and vigor of life of the eighth day, to the glory of the resurrection, to the saints’ future super-agile resurrected bodies, thus to the complete Paschal feast ahead.
And as Pope Benedict XVI remarked, sport can be one of the means by which we “escape from the wearisome enslavement of daily life“ (ibid., p. 26) – escaping into the realm of freedom where we are free to “waste“ our energy. This kind of freedom is in itself akin to prayer, devotion, and love. Sport (and let us include in this context even just an easy-going spring walk) may not only help with fasting but also with giving ourselves bodily in prayer and worship with a certain lavish generosity. The body that is freed from a regime of “only tasks of absolute necessity, work, and sleep“ through practicing play and prayer receives the chance to learn to love and desire playing, praying, and singing psalms and hymns of praise more and more often.
“Sport is a derivative of play. Play is a basic human activity which appears across human cultures and the animal kingdom. (…) It is plain to see that modern culture has become overly serious, losing its ability for play and even limiting the ability to giggle or dwell in delight. (…) The simplicity of play is enjoyed for its innocence, absorption, enthusiasm, and delight. Its non-utilitarian essence counters our work-a-day world.“
Matt Hoven / J.J. Carney / Max T. Engel: On the Eighth Day. A Catholic Theology of Sport, Cascade Books 2022, p. 30-32
Today‘s notorious “athlete for Christ“ commemorated
“At Rome, on the Flaminian road, in the time of the emperor Claudius, the birthday of blessed Valentine, priest and martyr, who after having cured and instructed many persons, was beaten with clubs and beheaded.“
Roman Martyrology for the 14th February
Saint Valentine, holy martyr, patron saint of happy marriages and love, pray for us!