Reflection: praying about sport

Fr David Stewart SJ writes: This month, Pope Francis has asked us to join him in a prayer for, and about, sports - that sports may be an opportunity for friendly encounters between peoples and may contribute to peace in the world. Do we ever think about sports as a topic for our prayer? Maybe, only when our favourite team is about to participate in a big match or prestigious tournament!

Maybe the only time we ever might link our prayer and whatever sport we follow, or play, is at that moment, and it's commonplace to spot a player making the Sign of the Cross or raising his arms heavenwards at that point. Leaving aside the awkward question of what happens if an equal number of players and supporters for each team prays to God before a game, yet only one side can win, suggesting that God favours one side over another, we can reflect on whether sports and prayer are totally separate concerns. The Universal Intention this month offers us just that opportunity.

One journalist, active some years ago, famously wrote of the "magnificent triviality" of sport. He captured a core truth and, perhaps inadvertently, points us towards a very good reason for not excluding sports from our prayer. It is, indeed, frequently magnificent and each of us, unless we have no sporting interest at all, will have our own idea of that magnificence - a sweetly-struck bending free kick in football, a sweeping three-quarter attack and try scored in rugby, a hole-in-one in golf. We can readily think of many more examples and we can conjure them up in the imagination

To read on see: www.pathwaystogod.org/my-prayer-life/praying-pope/praying-pope-august