The Ultimate Goal

I wrote this article at the beginning of 2011 around the time of Super Bowl XLV for iibloom.com.  Now, as the NFL regular season, NCAA FB regular season and MLB postseason, comes near, it is a good reminder of our ultimate goal.  Hope you enjoy.

For professional athletes, the goal of their career is to become a champion. For players in the National Football League, the Super Bowl is the goal. To hold the Vince Lombardi Trophy and forever go down in history as a champion. To wear an incredibly large, diamond-encrusted ring. To have “Super Bowl Champion” added to your name. But how does one become a Super Bowl champion?

For most, the road to the Super Bowl is a long one. Most have played football since their adolescence and made their way through the ranks playing pee wee football, middle school, high school and college football. Some even had stints in arena football, foreign leagues and on semi-professional teams. They have devoted themselves to countless practices, to weight lifting, running, learning, watching game tape, team work and being coached. They have put in endless hours getting better at what they do. They never give up, striving for perfection.

Now, as the players from the two teams heading to Super Bowl XLV prepare for the biggest game of their careers, their “football past” comes to a head. All of the hard work, the determination, the commitment, the struggle…will it pay off? Will they be rewarded for their work? Only one team, the players, coaches and personnel, will be crowned champions.

Let us now correlate this to our own lives and more specifically, our spiritual lives. If we want to attain the goal, which should always be Heaven, we must put in even more work than professional athletes. Unlike the teams in the Super Bowl, we all have the chance to be crowned! We must, each and every day, place our priority on our spiritual well-being. We can look to the example of these athletes, much like St. Paul wrote in the Scriptures, “compete so as to win.” The example that athletes give us, as to how commitment and endurance can pay off, is a great example to follow. However, instead of being committed to physical practices, weight lifting, running and watching game tape, we should be committed to the Sacraments, to prayer, to spiritual reading, to personal growth in virtue and so on. For us, our hard work is not for the temporal world. Our hard work is not for a perishable crown, a trophy, a diamond-encrusted ring, or history books. Our hard work will be the reward of eternal salvation with God the Father in Heaven.

It seems to me that the hardest thing in life (my “game” situation) is that I allow all the little stuff to prevent me from giving it my all, and I get side tracked from the priority of competing with excellence and I fail to train like I used to when I was an athlete. I sort of “let life happen to me” instead of living life. I think about this a lot and constantly have to remind myself to be diligent in my spiritual training. If only I gave my spiritual training the same effort I used to give my athletic training, maybe then I’d reach my ultimate goal.

How Does a Man Live Love?

Recently, I was having a conversation with some friends about various topics.  As we got into the conversation, somehow we got onto the topic of love.  I said something to the effect of “… a husband needs to love his wife.  He needs to live love.”  One of my friends asked me, “How does a man live love?”  He said, “We hear that all the time, but how does a guy actually do that?  What does he have to do to live love?”  It’s a valid question.  Actually, it’s more than valid, it’s essential.

We’ve talked previously about love being the greatest of all the virtues.  We’ve talked about love being a verb.  Let’s put these together.  If we possess the virtue of love (also referred to as charity), that means that we perform love 1. with ease 2. with joy 3. at every opportunity and 4. promptly.  Once we possess the virtue of love, it’s second nature for us to perform.  Notice that there is an action taking place – love is performed.  Okay, so we’ve said that love is a virtue and that it requires an action.  What is that action?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains it very clearly in paragraph 1822: “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”  Love isn’t something intangible that happens to come along every once and awhile, love is for God and others.

As a husband, I can live out love by first loving God and then by loving my wife (for love of God).  That means that I strive to do as God has done.  This isn’t a sentence full of meaningless words.  This means that all I do, everything I think and say, is geared towards and focused on God.  The greatest example of how a man can live love is by looking to Christ on the cross.  Self-sacrifice, service, humility, obedience.  Do these things for your wife and you’ll be loving her.

Practical application: how can I sacrifice for my wife as a sign of love?  The greatest gift, of laying your life down for a friend, isn’t necessarily what I’m hoping will happen here, but that’s the ultimate.  Sacrifice can be as simple as letting her choose the restaurant you eat at, or what TV show to watch or which song to listen to on the radio.  Putting your preferences last.

It’s possible, that for each guy, love means something just a little bit different.  In the end, it comes down to loving God and loving others.

Man up!