Pope Celebrates Jubilee of Sport: "Reflection of God's Beauty"

"We are celebrating the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, while we are living the days of the Jubilee of Sport . The Trinity-sport combination is not exactly in common use, yet the comparison is not out of place. Every good human activity, in fact, carries within itself a reflection of the beauty of God, and sport is certainly among these". Pope Leo XIV said this during the mass in the Vatican Basilica on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport. "This is why sport can help us meet God the Trinity - continued the Pontiff -: because it requires a movement of the self towards the other, certainly external, but also and above all internal. Without this, it is reduced to a sterile competition of selfishness". "Let us think of an expression that, in the Italian language, is commonly used to encourage athletes during competitions: the spectators shout: 'Dai!' - suggested Pope Prevost -. Perhaps we don't think about it, but it is a beautiful imperative: it is the imperative of the verb 'dare'". "And this can make us reflect - he added -: it is not just about giving a physical performance, perhaps extraordinary, but about giving yourself, about 'playing'. It is about giving yourself for others - for your own growth, for your supporters, for your loved ones, for your coaches, for your collaborators, for the public, even for your opponents - and, if you are truly a sportsman, this is true beyond the result".

"Dear athletes, the Church entrusts you with a beautiful mission: to be, in your activities, a reflection of the love of the Triune God for your own good and that of your brothers. Let yourselves be involved in this mission, with enthusiasm: as athletes, as trainers, as societies, as groups, as families", said Pope Leo XIV at the end of his homily.

Among those present at the mass of Pope Leo XIV were the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, and the Italian Minister of Sport, Andrea Abodi. Then the French judoka, Olympic champion Aurelien Diesse, and the former Italian national soccer team, now mayor of Verona, Damiano Tommasi.

In the Mass for the Jubilee of Sport, Pope Leo XIV wanted to mention "three aspects that make sport , today, a precious means of human and Christian formation ". First, he said in his homily, "in a society marked by loneliness, in which exasperated individualism has shifted the center of gravity from 'us' to 'I', ending up ignoring the other, sport - especially when it is a team sport - teaches the value of collaboration, of walking together, of that sharing that is at the very heart of God's life". "It can thus become an important tool for reconciliation and encounter - the Pontiff observed -: among peoples, in communities, in school and work environments, in families!". Secondly, he continued, "in an increasingly digital society, in which technologies, while bringing distant people together, often distance those who are close, sport enhances the concreteness of being together , the sense of the body, of space, of effort, of real time". "Thus, against the temptation to escape into virtual worlds, it helps to maintain a healthy contact with nature and with real life, the place where only love is practiced," Leone emphasized. Thirdly, he added, "in a competitive society, where it seems that only the strong and the winners deserve to live, sport also teaches how to lose, putting man in comparison, in the art of defeat, with one of the deepest truths of his condition: fragility, limits, imperfection." "This is important, because it is from the experience of this fragility that we open ourselves to hope. The athlete who never makes a mistake, who never loses, does not exist. Champions are not infallible machines, but men and women who, even when they fall, find the courage to get up again," Prevost concluded.

" It is no coincidence that, in the lives of many saints of our time, sport has played a significant role , both as a personal practice and as a way of evangelization," said Pope Leo XIV in the mass in the Vatican Basilica on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport. "Let us think of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, patron saint of athletes, who will be proclaimed a saint on September 7," he added. "His simple and luminous life reminds us that, just as no one is born a champion, so no one is born a saint." "It is the daily training of love that brings us closer to definitive victory and that makes us capable of working to build a new world," the Pontiff emphasized.