Have you guys been watching the Olympics? Some of you probably saw the opening ceremony as well. I wrote a commentary about that. You’ll get it if you sign up for our newsletter. In this homily, I want to talk about how God is present in the Olympics.
I want to start by beginning when the Olympics first began about five years before the first Olympics in Athens, which was over 100 years ago. There was a French Dominican priest and at that time he was a parish priest and they had a grade school. He came up with a motto for the grade school. The motto that they came up with was faster, higher, stronger. He wanted the kids’ faith to be like that, to be faster, higher, and stronger. When the first Olympic ceremony happened that priest happened to be friends in that network of whoever founded it and so they took that as their motto. They don’t use it a lot anymore but it’s faster, higher, stronger.
I want us to think about that for our spiritual lives. Are we doing that in our spiritual lives? Are we growing faster, higher, and stronger?
There was a young man who went to the Olympics many years ago who is from the United States, New York actually, and he and his brother were both in the Olympics. During their time of going over there to prepare in the Olympic village and getting prepared for everything, they would talk about their time and said the Olympic village was crazy. There was a lot of stuff going on there. His brother would knock on his door every morning and he would say, “Hey we’re going to Mass today; if we don’t mom is going to kill us.” They would both go to Mass together. His name was Joseph. Joseph said that he competed and even before the Olympics he’d been to over 50 countries. He said, “It was so awesome to go to Mass in all of these different countries and all of these different cultures and experience the universal Mass. He said that even if you didn’t know the words you knew when you were praying the Our Father. He knew when the priest picked up the bread and wine and they were transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Universal. He said that when he competed for his final time in the Olympics, after he stood and received the medal and walked off that podium, his whole life changed because he realized at that point, he had achieved his dreams, and he had no more meaning in his life. He had no more purpose. He’d done the greatest he could do in that sport.
Suddenly, he found himself in despair because he didn’t know now what he was supposed to do. He’d done this great thing and now he found himself empty. That Joseph, young Joseph, would become Father Joseph Fitzgerald. Father Joseph Fitzgerald is the representative from the United States, the chaplain for the Olympics and he’s in Paris now. He’s observing and preparing how we can provide ministry when we have the Olympics in Los Angeles in four years. He’s kind of come full circle in that life and he’s discovered his calling; he’s discovered his purpose. Once he was despairing and now, he’s Happy and Joyful.
He says many Olympic athletes go through that after they reach their goal and step off that podium. It’s like, what do you do now?
We hear in the Gospel today, Jesus says, “Do not work for food that perishes, work rather for the food that brings eternal life.” All these things in our lives are worth whatever in competition or in sports. These are all things that come to an end at some point, these are all glory moments that are perishable. Jesus is inviting us to work for food that is not perishable.
The interesting thing is work. How do we work for that food? That is where I want to tie back to the Olympics. When Olympians train for what they’re doing, they’re constantly growing, they’re constantly growing stronger, they’re going faster, higher. Stronger, they’re constantly growing.
As disciples, we too are called to be constantly growing. I want you to think just about when you receive the sacraments. A lot of Catholics, after they’re Confirmed, they stopped growing. They stop getting any kind of formation or receiving any kind of knowledge or growing in their faith. Think about that whenever you were Confirmed, did you stop growing? We are called to continue to work at our faith.
At St. Matthias and in every parish, we try to provide opportunities for you to grow in your faith. One of the things we do, we have Tuesday Night Teaching and that’s the time for all of us to come together and grow in our faith. The difficult thing is that I have to nudge you to do this because we only have about 30 people coming and they’re awesome programs. Each one of us should have some growth in our faith. I invite you to come on Tuesday night if you haven’t. If you’re not able to come, try to find out a way to do that at home. A lot of people are doing that “Bible in a Year,” or the “Catechism in a Year.” We’re called to be consistently growing in our faith and working with Christ.
The other thing is most of us do have jobs and that’s supposed to be in some way, to be building up the Kingdom. A lot of times we think well, this is just my work, this is what I do over here, and then practice my faith here. Your work is supposed to be building up the Kingdom of God and maybe it’s something so abstract that you think how that can be building up the Kingdom? The fruit of that labor is that you provide for your family, and provide for the needs of the church that can be used for the Kingdom. Many of you when you bring the Offertory forward are offering from the work that you have done, and that is being offered to God and is allowing the church to do great things.
The cool thing is, if you want to do something different, if you have a special project that you would love to do for the church, I invite you to do that. If there’s a ministry that you don’t have at St. Matthias, start it up. Really try to find ways to be involved in our parish because we need you. We need each and every one of you to be working to build up the Kingdom of God so that together as a parish we can grow higher, faster, and stronger.
