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  • Writer's pictureProfiles in Catholicism
    • Feb 14
    • 24 min read

Sports

Updated: Feb 15



A Message from the Editor

The Super Bowl was the most-watched U.S. program ever, averaging 123.4 million viewers. It was also the most spiritual game In history due in great part to  Mark Wahlberg promo ad for Hallow—the Catholic prayer app led viewers in prayer: “God, we take this moment just to give you thanks. We thank you for this time to come together as a family, as friends, and as a country. Help us, Lord, especially this Lent, to grow closer to You”. This ”was punctuated by Chiefs WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling shouting out 'Jesus Christ is King',


Taylor Swift was on TV rooting for boyfriend Travis Kelce and kissed him at the end of the game. Recently,  former president Trump claimed  that he was responsible for Taylor Swift’s success. Hopefully, this could affect the US President elections. Biden is seriously behind Trump in many polis and Taylor could help wins the election for  Biden ii she encourage Swifties add her other young followers to register to vote for him.  There are tens of thousands unregistered young people in the United States and if they register in large numbers, and vote for Biden, he could win the election.


If we would have followed Roman Law on the crime of l lying in court,  Trump could have a career in music as a countertenor/ The penalty for lying in court in early Rome was castration, The word testify comes from the word testiest which reflect this punishment,


Our primary prayer in each issue is by Francis Etheredge who is one of my three favorite authors - the others being Lawrence Durrell and Thomas Merton..

Here is a link to all of his books


Prayers

 

A prayer for women athletes

 

“Women in Sport”

 

Dear Mary, you were a child once, maybe once running around and

chasing other children and being chased, perhaps playing tag and running in and out of the washing lines or up and down the hills.

 

Did you race down, and tumble down, running and rolling down, or race back up, maybe not calling the loser a slug, but helping up who had fallen, heading back home for lunch, a clean-up and a rest too?

 

Dear Mary, you are renowned for appearing to the poor, not the fittest, fastest, or most agile of women, and yet there are those who

love like you, your Son, who were full of the zipping zest for sport.

 

Did these zealous women, train harder, faster and higher, competing

all the while to win medals of a glittering, temporary kind, and maybe they thought of St. Paul racing for an everlasting reward?

 

Dear Mary, you know how fashions have changed, once women were covered in cumbersome garments but now, the other extreme,

pray for a step-back from barely enough to suitably modest clothing.

 

Did the media pick out the fastest, most graceful, delightful of faces, noting how the second helped the lead who collapsed to cross the line, leaving behind a ruthless win and winning in her humanity?

 

Dear Mary, women are not a race behind but leading the course,

some live the active life to the full, singing and dancing, tennis and horse riding, yielding only to death after entering religious life.

 

Did women believe the lie that there is no nobility and purpose in

motherhood, so their hearts shrink while their influence seems to resound around the world, glamorizing singleness, only to regret all?

 

Dear Mary, did your family watch you play and then, calling you in, send you on an errand to the elderly, the housebound, those in need,

and were you happy in these visits and on these missions to others?

 

Did you feel cheated of your childhood, visiting here and there, or are you shockingly happy to be sung through time, rejoicing in your

Son’s love, calling you out of total obscurity to light a way to Him?

 

Dear Mary, pray for the call to be like you, whether running on the field, jumping the bars of achievements, raising the level of love’s

loving the gift of womanhood, or just being you, loving to love all.

 

Did it matter that no one recorded your fastest run, your highest jump, your longest leap, as you outstripped us all in the race to pass through eternity’s opening, as you ran home ahead of all mankind?

 

Dear Mary, turn our hearts and the hearts of all women, to the irreplaceable gift that each one is given, whether in the glory hall or the lowest place of all places where only the poorest are to be found.


Prayer for Athletes


O Christ, we fix our gaze on you, who offer every person the fullness of life. Lord, you heal and strengthen those who, trusting in you, accept your will.


Today, during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, athletes throughout the world are gathered here in spirit, above all to renew their faith in you, man’s only Savior.


And those, like the athlete, who are at the peak of their strength recognize that without you, O Christ, they are inwardly like the blind man, incapable, that is, of seeing the full truth, of understanding the deep meaning of life, especially when faced with the darkness of evil and death.


Even the greatest champion finds himself defenseless before the fundamental questions of life and needs your light to overcome the demanding challenges that a human being is called to face.


Lord Jesus Christ, help these athletes to be your friends and witnesses to your love. Help them to put the same effort into personal asceticism that they do into sports; help them to achieve a harmonious and cohesive unity of body and soul.


May they be sound models to imitate for all who admire them. Help them always to be athletes of the spirit, to win your inestimable prize: an imperishable crown that lasts forever.

Amen

by Pope John Paul II

 

 

Good and gentle Jesus,


In a strongly-worded press statement issued on Monday, Archbishop Max Leroys Mesidor of Port-au-Prince, president of the Bishops' Conference of Haiti, and Father Morachel Bonhomme, president of the Haitian Conference of religious, reiterated the Church’s firm condemnation of the kidnapping.


The abduction is the latest in a long series of crimes committed by armed gangs that have virtually taken over the country. 


None of the 300 gangs operating in Haiti so far has publicly claimed responsibility for the abduction, though local media alleged that a ransom of 3 million dollars has been demanded.


The Church leaders pleaded for the unconditional release of the nuns and and of all the hostages held captive in the island.


“In the name of God, whom you should fear, stop these despicable and criminal practices which defile this sacred land that God has given us!” they said.


READ ALSO


20/01/2024

by Eileen Quinn Knight, Ph.D. Profiles in Catholicism


A prayer for those in Zambia who have suffered and died from cholera


In your loving providence, God of mercy,

watch over the people afflicted with cholera

in Zambia but also throughout the world.

Give them strength and healing.

Enable doctors and nurses to serve them well.

Give government leaders the wisdom to direct healthcare.

Keep us all mindful of our brothers and sisters

who suffer, and let us be a kind support to them

Amen


Prayer for those injured and died from election violence in Pakistan


We pray for all the victims and perpetrators of violence in Pakistan.

We pray for reconciliation, an end to politically

Prayer for those injured and died from election

violence in Pakistan


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