I want to tell the story of something that happened to me recently which made me reflect a great deal. On Sunday afternoon, along with two other American seminarians, I went to Scholars Lounge, an Irish pub in downtown Rome. We went because the football team that I root for, the Washington Commanders, was playing in Spain and it was the only game of the season that I would be able to see live due to the time difference. On the screens, however, they were also playing Ireland-Hungary, a soccer match that also counted as qualification for the World Cup; what’s more, the Irish side needed to win to make the playoffs. The bar was full of fans. Ireland was losing 2-1, but tied the game in the 83rd minute. In the five minutes of extra time, thanks to the last punt of the keeper, Troy Parrot scored the third goal and secured the victory. Obviously, the bar exploded in a moment of total delirium. The bartender then played “Fields of Athenry” at full volume over the speakers, while all of the Irish people embraced one another, jumping up and down.
After having witnessed this scene, a debate began among us: it is clear that one of the greatest things that a soccer player can experience is to score a hat trick in a comeback bringing their national team to victory, and yet to us, two Biblical images came that were more real.
I felt a deep sense of urgency to take my own conversion more seriously and to “cheer on” the conversions of my brothers.
The first is where Saint Paul describes the spiritual life as a race: “Do you not know that in a race at the stadium, everyone runs, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to win it! But every athlete exercises self-control in all things; they do so to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one” (1 Cor 9:24–25). Athletes strive to win a crown that fades away, but we strive for a crown that lasts forever. The other is the parable of the lost sheep: I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance (Lk 15:7).
Returning to the seminary for Eucharistic adoration, I felt a deep sense of urgency to take my own conversion more seriously and to “cheer on” the conversions of my brothers and of those they encounter. I discovered that the joy of the game is genuine only if it corresponds to the spiritual race we are running. I now see a growing desire within me to strive to be awake, to be the instrument God uses to save sinners, and I ask that He save me.
How wonderful it is that there is a joy which, because of its immensity and duration, is not even comparable to the joy of winning a soccer match!
