Playing on the field of faith

I was invited to share a short reflection with a group of teenagers and young adults who are people of faith and discernment.  For the purposes of this reflection, indeed for the entire retreat which they are living this weekend, the young people chose the theme of The field of faith, basing their reflection on the homily which Pope Francis shared with the participants at World Youth Day as they were gathered on Copacabana Beach for the Vigil on the evening of July 27, 2013.

Reflection for the YEO retreat

Do you not realize 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 athlete concentrates completely on training, and this is to win a wreath that will wither, whereas ours will never wither.  So that is how I run, not without a clear goal; and how I box, not wasting blows on air.  I punish my body and bring it under control, to avoid any risk that, having acted as herald for others, I myself may be disqualified. (1 Cor 9:24-27)

You have chosen to base this entire retreat on the homily which Pope Francis shared with young people on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro last July.  Ever since his election, Pope Francis has been challenging the Church: the people in our pews, the priests, even his fellow bishops, to go outside of ourselves, to go even to the peripheries in order to find God’s people and to journey with them.

Long before he was a priest, Jorge Bergoglio was a man who loved the game of soccer.  In fact, soccer is to Argentina and many other parts of the world as hockey is to Canada.  It might help us to equate the image of a field of faith with the ice surface in a hockey arena.  Pope Francis told the young people on the beach that night that Jesus asks us to follow him for life, to be his disciples, to play on his team.  Some of you may very well have played on hockey teams, or ringuette, or football, or basketball.  No matter the sport, we might love to play, but we have to go to practices if we want to be part of the team.  Practices allow us to learn techniques, to strengthen muscles, to get to know the other people on the team: including their strengths and weaknesses.  We also learn how one person on a team might compensate for another’s challenges, or how certain people on a team might play better together than others.  Every member of a team is an integral part of the combined strength of the overall effort.

Training on the field of faith is much the same as training with a sports team.  Christ has always intended the Church to be a community of believers.  Each of us brings our own strengths to the field of faith, and these strengths which we call talents are combined, sometimes in mysterious ways, so that each of us helps to strengthen the entire community.  The life of this community is not aimed at making any one of us a star player, but is focused on the overall effort of all God’s people who are on the journey.

Like a sports team, we have to practice our faith.  We have to take time to learn how to play the game as it were.  This begins on the day of our baptism.  Some of us have been privileged enough to have wonderful models of faith, coaches on the field of faith who willingly give of themselves to teach us how to live our faith, and how to perfect our skills.  God sees our meagre efforts and rewards them by strengthening our belief.  He does this by rewarding us with peace, with joy and with the knowledge that he’s the one who is ultimately in charge.

There’s a danger to playing on a team, and that is that there is always a possibility that we might uncover weakness on the part of ourselves or of one of our teammates.  Often on the rink, such weakness can be fatal.  It certainly can become the source of ridicule in the locker room.  This temptation is just as present when it comes to playing on the field of faith.  Jesus knows the human heart even better than we do, so he cautioned the disciples: Whoever among you wants to be great should first strive to be a servant.  The true measure of heroes on the field of faith is the extent to which we are willing to be servants of one another, because it is in service that we find the secret to our greatest strength. 

• What strengths (or talents) do I bring to the field of faith?
• Who are the people in my life who have acted as coaches on the field of faith?
• Describe one moment in your life when you were aware of God rewarding your meagre efforts.
• When faced with the temptation to judge another disciple based on perceived weakness, how have I changed my perspective, and sought instead to be a servant of mercy and forgiveness?
• Am I ever tempted to want to be perceived as one of God’s star players?  What was the outcome?