A Pep Talk From Coach Paul | October 29, 2015

October 29, 2015

Don’t you just love being on the winning team? Don’t you feel different inside when your beloved football or baseball team has a winning record? It makes you feel good to know that your team is ranked, and if they are in the top 10 (cough cough, like Notre Dame this week!!), you might just get a little righteously smug. What about when you are on the correct end of an argument, you know those moments at parties, when someone consults Google on their phone, and Google agrees with you? That feels great, doesn’t it? There is something so fulfilling in being on the right side, in being a champion, and having the confidence that comes from that upright position. We all want to thrive and we all desire to be our best. That coincides with our universal call to holiness and trivial things like winning a sports game or rooting for the winning team can mirror or reflect that deep desire in all of us.

In today’s first reading, Coach Paul is giving the Romans a spiritual pep talk and speaks to that same longing in us to win!

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Can’t you just picture feisty Coach Paul at half time with his team feeling already defeated, battered, bruised, and ready to give up? He was probably one of those guys with that vein in the front of his forehead that popped out whenever he got all riled up!! I’m sure he stood on top of a bench or two when he wanted to make his point very clear. His words and his tone both pumped them up AND frightened them a little bit (or a lot). If you didn’t know Paul personally, you might think he was a crazy angry dude, but those that did know him knew that he was just extremely passionate about his message. For him it was life and death and a matter of utmost urgency. Maybe he was a yelling in his star players’ face kind of guy because his star players needed the push, and the closeness of yelling in their face moved them into action. He rode his teams hard, but was one of those sensitive coaches that also praised his team with lots of love, hugs, and I’m sure a few tears too. His teams had a healthy fear of disappointing him and a deep deep respect for his experience and his integrity. He pushed them to their limits and celebrated their successes. He never asked his team to do something that he was not willing to do himself. His locker room speeches have actually been recorded for all time and for everyone to read.

This particular one is one of my favorites. Read it with the above visuals and feeling and see if it doesn’t get under your skin in a good way.

Brothers and sisters:

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He did not spare his own Son

but handed him over for us all,

how will he not also give us everything else along with him?

Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones?

It is God who acquits us.

Who will condemn?

It is Christ Jesus who died, rather, was raised,

who also is at the right hand of God,

who indeed intercedes for us.

What will separate us from the love of Christ?

Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine,

or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?

As it is written:

For your sake we are being slain all the day;

we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly

through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor principalities,

nor present things, nor future things,

nor powers, nor height, nor depth,

nor any other creature will be able to separate us

from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Being a Christian is hard sometimes and burnout, fatigue, defeat, and laziness can creep into our game plan and take our hearts out of it. Whenever we feel like that in our spiritual life, which if I’m being honest, is right now for me, read Romans 8:31-39 and hopefully Feisty Coach Paul’s words will remind each one of us that we are not only already on the winning team, but we have already won!! Nothing can separate us from that reality, not even sin or laziness or not feeling it or even when we try to quit the team. Let Paul’s pep talk enliven our game today and let’s get our hearts and heads back in there because our star player is Jesus and he has already won. At the end of the day, we can rest in the knowledge that God is for us and that IS the winning team. Now don’t make Feisty Coach Paul have to throw a chair across the locker room or anything crazy like that, just get out their and be who you were created to be, because that is enough.

P.S. Just like no matter what kind of record the Fighting Irish have, they are still Our Lady’s team and that makes them champions without even having to play.

Reading 1 ROM 8:31B-39

Brothers and sisters:
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He did not spare his own Son
but handed him over for us all,
how will he not also give us everything else along with him?
Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones?
It is God who acquits us.
Who will condemn?
It is Christ Jesus who died, rather, was raised,
who also is at the right hand of God,
who indeed intercedes for us.
What will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
As it is written:

For your sake we are being slain all the day;
we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly
through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor present things, nor future things,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Responsorial Psalm PS 109:21-22, 26-27, 30-31

R. (26b) Save me, O Lord, in your mercy.
Do you, O GOD, my Lord, deal kindly with me for your name’s sake;
in your generous mercy rescue me;
For I am wretched and poor,
and my heart is pierced within me.
R. Save me, O Lord, in your mercy.
Help me, O LORD, my God;
save me, in your mercy,
And let them know that this is your hand;
that you, O LORD, have done this.
R. Save me, O Lord, in your mercy.
I will speak my thanks earnestly to the LORD,
and in the midst of the throng I will praise him,
For he stood at the right hand of the poor man,
to save him from those who would condemn his soul.
R. Save me, O Lord, in your mercy.

Alleluia SEE LK 19:38; 2:14

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel LK 13:31-35

Some Pharisees came to Jesus and said,
“Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you.”
He replied, “Go and tell that fox,
‘Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow,
and on the third day I accomplish my purpose.
Yet I must continue on my way today, tomorrow, and the following day,
for it is impossible that a prophet should die
outside of Jerusalem.’

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you,
how many times I yearned to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
but you were unwilling! 
Behold, your house will be abandoned.
But I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say,
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”