LET IT aLL sTART hERE
For Catholics who care...
Recently, I learned about "Pray 60", a campaign to encourage schools, leagues, and coaches to not schedule games or practices for kids until after 1pm on Sundays. (This is a play on the National Football Leagues "Play 60" exercise campaign for children.) I love the sentiment behind the efforts of this Grass Roots movement! I love how "Pray 60" wants to change the world one kid at a time by pushing back at the attempt to push God aside. I love how there are Believers out there willing to do all they can to stop the erosion of Faith. I love the energy and commitment Coach Thomas Cronin (of St. Joseph's Parish, Greenfield Center, NY) has shown in establishing this ministry. And I am offering this personal testimony on behalf of Cronin's declaration: "We love sports, but we love God more!"
When I was a young parent, if asked: What do I want most in the world? My answer was always: That my child be healthy and HAPPY! That is not an unusual response for a mother to have. Most parents, if they truly embrace their role, model a happy life worth living. After all, we are our children's first teachers. Right? But this inexperienced mom of the 90's, despite the "How To" self help books, knows now that hell is paved with good intentions and that I had somehow missed the forest for the trees. I was a huge proponent of the arts, education and of course sports! (I myself played basketball in school and later coached a Travel Basketball team.) Those activities were, I believed, a prescription for healthy childhood development. My 26 year old daughter has been the benefactor of Maria Montessori (Montessori School) and Rudolph Steiner's Waldorf School) ideology on learning. She attended one of the best private high schools in the northeast...and she can say she keeps company with our nation's first Catholic president; his name appearing in her high school's alumni catalog. She was a Scout, played basketball, soccer, was captain of her lacrosse team and had a chestnut gelding that she rode regularly. I had embraced the 90's cultural sense of what good parenting involved: Keep the kid as active as possible to build a solid college application and in the mean time... keep her too busy to get in trouble. So are you wondering where God was in all that? Actually, we were so busy there wasn't time for God. Yes, He was mentioned occasionally as an expletive. He made a cameo appearance at supper time; He came to comfort us at our bedside when saying a brief: Now I lay me down to sleep.... And we visited Him a couple of Sundays a month. 'Not a perfect Mass attendance, but at least we did what we could. I was satisfied with just satisfying the bare requirements of our Catholic faith. What I didn't realize was that our obligatory, spotty Sunday visits to church and CCD classes were too little exposure to the source of happiness I had hoped for my daughter. I didn't really show her how to have a relationship with God because I didn't understand how to have one with Him myself. And I was too busy and she was too busy. So it seems that I failed to live up to my responsibility as a Catholic parent and to the promise I made at her Baptism. I didn't get it. I didn't know that her Baptismal promise ought to have been taken as seriously as wedding vows. The Good News is that this doesn't have to become a common story. Every Sunday, in one form or another, the invitation to become a part of the parish body...Christ's body is extended. So trust the invitation, make time for God... set aside what you think you know is good for you and invite Jesus into the heart of your family. Learn how to pray. Pray without ceasing and don't permit outside sources to distract you from the time you and your family can spend learning about and giving thanks to God. A hundred years from now... no one will care how your child's team made the playoffs. A hundred years from now your grandchildren will enjoy the benefits of the Legacy of Faith you worked hard to preserve. And both God and you will be pleased as you gaze down on them from Heaven.
6 Comments
Bruce Blazo
1/15/2016 05:36:52 am
I wasn’t aware of this issue, when I grew up it was unthinkable to have any sporting events for youth on a Sunday. Not during worship time not even later in the day. My how things have changed.
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Carmel Ann Sperti
1/17/2016 05:56:32 pm
This is a great summary of the problem (and its roots in good intentions) and one way to address it. I'm going to share this and hope parents listen! Thank you!
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1/18/2016 04:45:04 am
"We love sports, but we love God more!" declares the campaign's website, www.pray60.info.
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1/18/2016 05:06:18 am
Amen and than you for your support. Watch for a new essay on The Piecing Together of One Body at 24 Hour Adoration
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Ellen Moran
1/20/2016 08:19:29 am
I hope this mission will help in our society,where sports have become a false god,for good or for bad,we can't go back,We can only represent,Christ in our life ,now. We ,who are haunted by our mistakes,all develop succinct vision with 20-20 hindsight as far as raising our children are concerned.I almost lost my son from a SIDS like episode first day home from the hospital.I just "happened"to get up and check on him and he was turning...blue.Fear began to rule my life,any time he sniffled,I was up like a shot.I was a nervous wreck,I couldn't sleep for fear,he would be lost to me.My milk dried up,I started smoking again,we moved back near family.
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