杏MAP导航

By Emil Sandberg 

This weekend, the Jubilee of Sport is celebrated in the Vatican with a series of events, a special Jubilee Audience, and a Mass presided over by 杏MAP导航 Leo XIV in St Peter鈥檚 Basilica on Sunday.

The event emphasises the importance for athletes, coaches, and sports enthusiasts to come together and reflect on the positive values of sports within a framework of faith and spiritual growth.

The point of view of an athlete

To tell me more about the importance of sport and its relation to faith, I sat down with Fr Chase Hilgenbrink.

Fr Chase is a priest of the Peoria Diocese in Illinois, where he is serving in his fifth year as Vocation Director, working with the youth, helping them discern God's will for their lives, and in particular, young men who feel called to the seminary and perhaps even to the priesthood.

Prior to his ordination, Fr Chase was a professional football player playing both in the U.S. and abroad.

鈥淲hen I was playing in South America, I just realised how amazing my life was, how passionate people were about the sport that I was playing,鈥� he said.

And yet, as he began to further his career, he recognised that 鈥淭he Lord was revealing to me that my sport was meant to form me in a particular way to prepare me for the greatness that Jesus was actually calling me.鈥�

鈥淚 started making undershirts that I would wear during the game. They featured our team's logo and my favourite verse from the Scriptures: I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.鈥� (Philippians 4:13)

鈥淪port has allowed me to be the priest I am today鈥�

During our discussion, Fr Chase recalled the late 杏MAP导航 St John Paul II, whom he said, helped him understand the answer to 鈥渉ow does this translate for the rest of my life?鈥�

鈥淚 heard John Paul II say that sports are the school of moral value,鈥� he said, adding that this means that 鈥渁n athlete on a daily basis, even going to practice and going to games and just living the life of an athlete, produces tons of moral virtues in his or her life. Whether that be discipline or teamwork or perseverance or sacrifice. You could name almost any virtue, and we could show how that is being modelled in sport.鈥�

Further emphasising the importance of sport, Fr Chase said, 鈥淪port has allowed me to be the priest that I am today: one who desires to live this life of virtue, one who desires to teach the life of virtue.鈥�

Fr Chase continues to share this teaching through sport by hosting events such as Catholic football camps. In these camps, he emphasises the importance of teaching moral virtues, highlighting his belief that athletics provides preparation for the rest of one鈥檚 life.

What you learn in your sport, he concluded, can help one become a better Catholic and a better Christian.