‘Olympify’ the games

WORLD attention will be riveted on the London Summer Olympics that will run from July 27 to August 12.

The London Olympics organizers have chosen as slogan, “Inspire a generation,” and I think it’s truly apt, since the world seems to be sinking in gloom, what with all the problems, political, economic and social, we are having in many countries at the moment. We need a lift, at least in spirit.

Let’s pray that the games can truly inspire a generation, and ignite an impulse that would spring all of us to a new beginning, more able to cope with the challenges, both old and new.

We are facing some uncharted oceans and unmapped territories in world developments today, and it’s good that we confront these challenges with a sporting attitude, well-grounded on what is already known and yet very open and hopeful to what is still to be known.

The Olympic Games can contribute a lot to build this kind of attitude. But for this, we have to realize that we need to spiritualize the games. The games just cannot left in the purely physical and material sphere. It has to be animated by a proper spirit.

This is the real Olympics, when the spirit behind our pursuit for the “citius, altius, fortius” (faster, higher, stronger), the general Olympic motto, is the spirit of God, and not just any spirit.

Let’s remember that games, sports, fun and competition are all human acts, and as such they just cannot be left at the mercy of market forces and merely worldly values, for example, and much less, other lower and darker motives like vanity, pride, urge to dominate others, etc.

This is what it means to ‘Olympify’ the games. It is to root the spirit of competition on the spirit of God. It is this spirit that makes everyone winners, never disfiguring our natural strengths but purifying and elevating them to the supernatural order. Victors and losers share the same spirit of love—for God and for others.

It’s the spirit that brings out the best in everyone, irrespective of the scores and our human system of ranking. There’s always something that can represent the best in us whether we win or lose in a game. We need to understand this point very well.

That’s because everyone is expected to do everything for the glory of God. This is what equalizes everyone of us, no matter how we place in a game. Sad to say, this truth of our faith is not well understood and appreciated by many of us yet.

There are those who think that winning is the end-all of the games. This kind of thinking is to fall into a very limited and distorted vision of life. What are we to do then with the losers who will be the great majority of the players? Just try to pursue that line and immediately see the absurdity.

No, it cannot be just winning. It is rather in participating in the games, doing one’s best even if his best does not make him a winner, and offering all of it for God’s glory and for the common good of all men.

We need to inculcate this understanding of sports in everyone, and especially among the young still in school. We need to understand that games and competition are a reflection of both the personal and social character of our life based on love of God and others. They are meant to reinforce that character.

Indeed we have to be most careful in handling where our thoughts, desires and feelings are when we win or lose. In any of these possibilities, we can be either at our best or at our worst depending on the motives we have in pursuing the games and in accepting the results.

Win or lose, we should love God and neighbor more every time we play. We should be wary of being held captive by impulses of our unpurified and spontaneous feelings and emotions that usually are self-centered and attracted only to material and worldly values.

This tendency of our human flesh as shown in our feelings and passions in reacting to whatever results of our games and competition is behind the highly anomalous situations of commercialism, envy, body cult, etc., that we also sadly see today.

We need to humanize and Christianize our sports by infusing it with the proper spirit. Thus, in the family, schools and other venues, ‘Olympifying’ our sports, giving it the proper spirit, should be consciously held as the goal, and never just the winning.