While collegiate and professional sports are big business, the Olympics feel like a purer celebration of sport somehow. Athletics, in fact, have roots in the New Testament. “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win” (1 Cor 9:24) is but one example. God loves a good contest.
Truly, there is something noble about athletes who gather every four years to represent their countries. Sports, at its best, is an equalizer: Athletes are judged by how they compete—irrespective of skin color, political party, religion, net worth, or nationality. And as spectators, we are very much a part of this time-honored celebration. This holy moment. This sacred tradition. Let’s play.
—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “At Play in the Fields of the Lord“
by Christopher Heffron
