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Have you ever noticed that each year, baseball’s Spring Training coincides with the liturgical season of Lent? For about a month in early Spring, pitchers, catchers, coaches, and position players work together at getting into game shape and in preparation for the long season ahead. For the boys of summer, the practice doesn’t stop as the year progresses. Indeed, to play at peak level throughout the summer months, they must continually hone their craft and sacrifice together as a team to reach the coveted World Series.
Likewise for Catholics in Lent, we are called to sacrifice a bit of physical comfort and routine so to raise our spiritual awareness of God’s peace and presence in our lives. This challenge is not something Catholics should take lightly, nor should it be confined to a mere forty-day period. Daily sacrificing is the norm throughout the year to maintain a peak level of living our faith. So, you might look at Lent as our “Spring Training” to prepare us for the remainder of the year.
Each time we attend Mass, we are offered another opportunity to get into “game shape.” As the gifts of bread and wine – and the gifts of our time and talents and efforts and struggles – are brought before God ceremoniously, the priest invites the congregation into dialogue by stating:
Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours
may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.
To which we reply in one voice:
May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name,
for our good and the good of all his holy Church.
Read that first line again. What we offer is a sacrifice that is given to God in worship. But God, being God, doesn’t need our gifts! So why bother? The answer is in the second line: We benefit when we give of ourselves, and so does everyone else!
Like a solid baseball team, the Body of Christ thrives in a culture of service and sacrifice. We work hard to help the other, recognizing that in doing so, everyone benefits. So, the Church – and in particular, St. Anthony on the Lake – needs pitchers and catchers and fielders and runners; we need catechists and food servers and childcare helpers and people taking turns to clean our shared spaces.
With both Lent and Spring Training just around the corner, we encourage you to take some time to prayerfully consider how you can offer your service and sacrifice to glorify and thank God, to improve your own spiritual health, and to help the team win.
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