Football
Coach – Spiritual Coach
The
following is a recent note that I wrote to our former high school
football coach, Art Davis, who is now 85 years old.
Dear
Art,
Thanks
for the greetings. I hope you were able to make contact with my
brother Tom.
I
got to thinking about the similarities
of what we both do.
You
were the football coach at Barstow High School. The BHS varsity
Football team, under your direction, won for the first time, the
California State Championship (CIF), division AA, 50 years ago in
1969.
You
are a football coach. In a certain
sense, I might call myself a spiritual coach,
as a Catholic priest in the diocese of Perugia, Italy.
You,
as a coach, know well what it takes to win football games. It takes
lots of preparation, discipline, perseverance and knowing and
following the rules of the game, etc.
I
too try to help those entrusted to me to do lots of preparation,
discipline, perseverance and following the rules of the game, the
rules that guide us to win eternal happiness, not just the happiness
of winning the California State Championship. You know well that if
you do not practice what you tell your players to do, the players are
not convinced of your instructions and thus do not give 100% of
themselves in the proper preparation and during the game. So too if I
tell those entrusted to me to live the Ten Commandments, and
they see that I do not live the Ten Commandments,
they are not convinced so as to have the strength to be able to live
the Ten Commandments.
You
know well what happens if your players are not well prepared
physically and mentally. So too if the souls entrusted to me do not
persevere in sincere pray with their Maker, it is impossible to live
the Gospel. I think we know all too well how
many Christians today say with their mouth the Our Father, “THY
will be done”, but live, “MY will be done”!
The preparation of spiritual muscles is very similar to the
preparation of physical muscles, in that the more you exercise and
live the virtues, such as faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice,
fortitude and temperance, the more they become habitual and easier to
live.
If
some of your players have an attitude that they already know it all,
you know well that they are no longer listening to you very well!
From my experience, I can tell you, that the great majority of
Christians today feel that they are self-sufficient and they believe
to already know it all and are no longer seeking the truth and morals
outside of the interpretation of their own heads! They are no longer
seeking the truth from what God has revealed to us throughout human
history which we call Divine Revelation! This is why I read the
recorded documents of Divine Revelation, including the Sacred
Scriptures, everyday and, as a Catholic, I read the proper
interpretation of these documents, from the documents of the Catholic
Church. With much patience, our mortal enemy, Satan, has led the
great majority of Christians and Catholics into subjectivism and
relativism, in which each person (and each independent Christian
group) becomes his (their) own god, as happened to our first parents,
Adam and Eve
after the temptation of the serpent :“But
the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be
like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:4-5)”.
You
know well that part of the mental preparation is also to not only
know well the game plan and the various plays to perform together as
a team, but also to help your players to
know well the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent.
The saints tell us that the greatest success of our spiritual
opponent, Satan, is to have convinced most Christians that Satan does
not exist, and that there are no consequences to our thoughts and
actions.
Not
only in the game of football as a team, but also in the eternal game
of deciding where we will spend eternity, we all affect each other,
whether we believe or not. Today there is
less prayer than ever before, more sin than
ever before, even worse, indifference as if sin no longer exists, and
so we have given much greater power to
“the father of lies”, Satan (Jn
8:44) to deceive us. “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light”
(2Cor 11:14).
We
are living in a world more full of falsehoods than ever before
- beautiful deadly lies from “the father of lies” (Jn 8:44),
presented as if they were the truth, hidden destructive deceptions -
such as the devil, hell and sin no longer exist!!! The great majority
of the pastors (spiritual coaches) today “are all
DUMB DOGS, they cannot bark” (Is 56:10), and thus do not warn the
sheep of the very sly wolf, in sheep’s clothing, along with his
very numerous collaborators! These poor pastors, who seek to please
men instead of God (Jn 5:44; Mt 6:1-6,
16-18; Gal 1:10), offer
misguided compassion and half truths (which are worse than lies!),
especially to speak only about mercy without “GO AND SIN NO MORE”
(Jn 8:11; 5:14)! They are not “good shepherds” but “hireling”
who leave the sheep and flee when the wolf comes (Jn 10:11-13). How
many times did you yell from the sidelines to your players about
dangers posed by the opponent?
You
and your players know well the consequences of the lack of
preparation and following the rules of the game.
It is amazing to me, and perhaps also to you, that we understand
these things regarding the outcome of football games, and practical
things of life such as getting a good job or having a good future and
home, etc., but the great majority of Christians, especially today,
totally put aside this common sense when it comes to spiritual things
and their eternal destiny! People know that one has to prepare well
to win football games or to get a good job and future and also the
very important need to learn from the experts what it takes to
achieve success in this life. But regarding eternal success, the
great majority of the players in this game of life, we human beings,
in which eternity is as stake, do not seek true spiritual experts who
are faithful to what God has revealed (not man). Most people are
willing to believe the opinions of those who say what they want to
hear or what they see on TV which is the easiest way for them,
including that we are only animals and thus we have no responsibility
for our actions and there is no heaven nor hell nor life after death.
Could you win a football game if your players operated like this???
If your players did not know in which end zone to score, they would
end up running the football in the wrong end zone! How
many Christians no longer know the goal of life and end up running
their souls into the wrong end zone, into everlasting separation from
their Creator?!?
What
happens if each one of your players decided the rules and goal of the
football game by themselves? This is
what most Christians do today! Who establishes the reality after
death, me, because I believe I am God, and if I believe that hell
does not exist, then it does not exist?!? One of the most common and
fundamental attitudes, or rather philosophies of life, that does not
lead to God now and for all eternity, is “Ignorance is Bliss”.
This easier philosophy of life does not help us to discover the Truth
of God (but of the world) which truly sets us free (Jn 8:32), nor
help us to win the football game, and does not facilitate the
discovery of the pitfalls and traps laid by our mortal enemy who
“disguises himself as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14). Is this
not also how your football opponent seeks to do as well as giving
false signs and indications to deceive your team in making the wrong
strategic decisions. I recently said to a Catholic priest in my
diocese who never offers to his parishioners the Catechism of the
Catholic Church: “What religion do you
represent???”
Do
you teach the rules of football to your players for their true good
or to hurt them? Does God give to His
beloved creatures the Ten Commandments for our true good or to hurt
us?
You
know well that if your players take the easiest way, you will never
win a football game. How is it that so many believe the numerous easy
lies all around us and that they can take the easier way offered by
the mass media and by those around us and still believe all will go
well after death for all eternity?!?
You
and your players know the goal that you are seeking - the California
State Championship, division AA! How is
it that the great majority of so-called Christians do not diligently
seek to understand the goal of life -
where they come from, where are they going and the fundamental
meaning of life, which many of us learned as children in our
catechism: “to know, to love, to serve God, and to be happy with
God in heaven for all eternity”?!? How is it that people today only
listen to those in agreement with themselves and the comfortable way
they have chosen in life, a Christianity without the cross? Like you
might say in football, so too in the spiritual life: “No pain, no
gain; no cross, no crown”!
Dear
Art, it would be a great blessing to Christians today if the
spiritual coaches, the pastors, would do as you have done, so as to
help the many souls entrusted to them to learn well the rules of the
eternal game, to prepare, to discipline themselves in seeking and
doing God’s will in season and out of season, and to follow the
rules of the game and to know well the tactics of the opponent. The
advice of St. Peter is very needed today: “Be
sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a
roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of
suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world”
(1Pet 5:8-9). Eternal happiness lasts forever and is infinitely
greater than the California State Championship! Our spiritual
opponent, Satan, has convinced a great number of people that there
are no consequences for our thoughts and actions and that heaven is
automatic and hell does not exist, and everyone can make up his own
rules as he goes, instead of seeking the rules of the One who created
us and who loves each one of us immensely!
Coach
Art Davis, I hope that the spiritual
coaches around the world might learn from a successful football coach
as yourself and that they do not
believe the many beautiful lies and half truths which tell people
that they do not have to do what all good football players must do to
win: to prepare with much prayer and discipline, to follow the rules
of the game in the Gospel and the Ten Commandments, and to open their
eyes to the deceptions of the opponent, their mortal enemy, who
convinces them that the spiritual opponent does not even exist, and
that you can do as you please since God is love and merciful. If you
tell your players during a football game that you love them and that
the opponent loves them and helps them score and that the umpire
always has mercy and overlooks every foul and mistake, what will
happen in this football game? Why do the great majority of pastors
and parents do this today???
You
know well that you do not win a football game by chance. You know
well that there are very concrete consequences due to neglecting the
proper preparation and the rules. You
might say that in football there is automatic ACCOUNTABILITY, you
lose the game! Today there is very
little true accountability applied to our leaders, both in politics
and especially in the religious realm, until
after death when
it is too late to change the eternal consequences! If
your players make a mistake in football, you correct them and you
tell them to not repeat that mistake! Most spiritual coaches today
tell us about mercy and love, such as Christ offered to the women
caught in adultery, but very few today offer the last words of Christ
to the women, “GO AND SIN NO MORE” (Jn 8:11; 5:14)!
All
the best Head Coach Art Davis, in your football games here on earth,
as well as your own personal game of deciding where you will spend
all eternity! Let us pray for each other
and for your players and my players (souls)
so that we will make the right choice and fight the good fight so as
to enjoy not just a fiftieth anniversary of one great victory, but
that we might enjoy and celebrate a victory that will last for all
eternity in unspeakable bliss and happiness with our Creator, where
“no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him” (1Cor 2:9; Is 64:3;
Jer 3:16)!
Rev.
Joseph Dwight
P.s.
Perhaps
someone might find interesting an article that I recently posted
which begins with this paragraph:
The
saints tell us that the Catholic Church is the soul of the world.
Above all what sustains the Church is
the Most Holy Eucharist (Vat.
II: LG 11; CCC 1324). Even
though the great majority of the baptized Catholics have lost their
faith in the Eucharist, Satan knows very well what the Eucharist is
and that it is the Eucharist above all which “restrains” Satan
(2Thess 2:3-4). Satan already deprived the Protestants of the
Eucharist 400 years ago, just as Satan did for many disciples of
Jesus (Jn 6:66) 2000 years ago. Thus we are finally quickly arriving
to the great prophecy to which Jesus referred to (Mt 24:15) in the
Book of Daniel: “And from the time that the continual burnt
offering is taken away, and the abomination that makes desolate is
set up, there shall be a thousand two
hundred and ninety days.” (Dan 12:11;
7:25; 9:27).
Italy
Will Soon Lose the Eucharist
