The gold medal worth striving for
Near the Eiffel Tower in July, pre-Olympics
The Olympics will be winding down soon and it’s been cool watching athletes from around the world dazzle us with their amazing feats of skill and precision. You wonder how many times they had to practice something before becoming so adept at it, or better yet, to break new ground and have a skill named after them (Simone Biles apparently has five gymnastics moves named after her). I’ve enjoyed watching diving, sport climbing, artistic swimming and equestrian (Versailles ain’t a bad backdrop). I found it hard to follow table tennis because the ball moved so fast, and just watching canoe sprint made my back hurt. (Check it out on You Tube - that’s a core workout like none other!)
They say it takes 10,000 hours to become proficient at something, so I’m guessing to get to the Olympic level, it’s 10K to the 10th power! At any rate, when we watch the Olympics, we’re seeing the final product of years of sacrifice, self-discipline, focus and dedication. We see people with beautiful physiques and chiseled muscles, toned from years of perfecting their craft. When we look at the saints of the Catholic Church, we’re seeing something similar, just on a divine level, and they too are a beautiful site to behold.
The saints of the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church dazzle us in myriad ways, and just like Olympic athletes, they started off as normal human beings without any special abilities. But along the way something clicked and they found their mission and pursued it with reckless abandon. The important distinction is that the saints, who are “running so as to win the race” for Christ, depended on God’s grace vs solely on their own ability, making them infinitely more powerful and worthy of imitation.
Bill and I were blessed to travel to Europe this summer and it was a joy to visit two of our beloved saints - St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux. Spending time in their hometowns and immersing ourselves in their rich spirituality was epic, and I look forward to telling you more about it soon. It was also a joy getting to know two less familiar saints: St. Vincent de Paul and St. Catherine Laboure, contemporaries who served together in Paris.
So as the City of Light continues buzzing with Olympic fever for a few more days, I’d like to shine a light on a quiet street near Rue de Bac, where you’ll find the tomb of St. Vincent de Paul, after whom an Olympic-sized “move” was named: the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which cares for the poor and downtrodden in 150+ countries. He may not have gotten a gold medal for it, but he got something even better - the riches of heaven, and that my friends is the gold medal worth striving for!
Tomb of St. Vincent de Paul, which we visited during our trip to Paris