BALANCE - RESPECT - REFLECTION - BEAUTY - PLAY

About the Mirenda Center

Neumann University opened the Mirenda Center for Sport, Spirituality and Character Development on October 17, 2009. Located on its main campus in Aston, PA, the Mirenda Center features more than 72,000 square feet of space including an arena, classroom, meeting and event rooms, exhibits, offices, and athletic facilities.

Built in part through the generosity of donors to the Grow to Inspire Campaign, the Mirenda Center is designed to encourage learning, reflection, and prayer. It provides an educational environment that interweaves athletic, academic, social, and spiritual development..

The Mirenda Center is named in honor of Dr. Rosalie M. Mirenda, President Emeritus of Neumann University, and her husband, Tony, by the Board of Trustees in acknowledgement of the Mirendas' many years of hard work, dedication, and commitment to the Catholic Franciscan identity and mission.

About the Exhibit

"Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a person courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration, and steels the will to endurance. It is not merely a physical development then. Sport, rightly understood, is an occupation of the whole person, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth…." (Pope Pius XII)

No matter what the level of competition, each athletic experience or moment has the potential to evoke a sense of awareness and contemplation not often realized by sport participants and spectators. Winning, losing, injury and mistakes carry within them the precious gift of inspiration. It is up to the individual to recognize it, respect it, learn from it, share it and find God in it.

Here at Neumann University, our goal was to create a forum that offers a unique perspective on sports that is seldom explored. We hope this exhibit empowers visitors to move forward on their spiritual journeys with a sense of awareness, appreciation and wholeness that is too often lacking in athletics.

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RESPECT

Respect in the Franciscan Catholic Tradition is sourced in the belief that we are all made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). When we serve one another, we serve the God who created each of us. Respect is critical in sports. An athlete needs to respect the officials, fans, opponents, and the rules and traditions of the game. Equally important is that the athlete honor the values inherent in competition. Respect in the athletic arena is often equated with sportsmanship. However, respect also involves a deep gratitude for the opportunity to compete and a willingness to accept the responsibility that comes with this privilege.

• During a PGA qualifying tournament, J.P. Hayes discovered that he had unwittingly used a prototype golf ball not approved by the United States Golf Association. Honoring the tradition where players police themselves, Hayes turned himself in. He was disqualified from fulltime status on the 2009 PGA Tour.

• THE LAST AMATEURS
  “Let’s remember one thing,” McDonell said finally. “These are good kids who are good basketball players. We owe it to them to do everything we can to let them decide the outcome.” Quote from a referee before a Patriot League Championship game, as recorded by John Feinstein in The Last Amateurs

• ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI AND CORTESIA
  St. Francis learned powerful lessons from his upbringing in knightly and chivalrous Umbria. One of these lessons is the value of cortesia. According to Dr. Lawrence S. Cunningham, by cortesia, St. Francis meant “a certain gentle way of relating to one another.” Franciscan Friar William Short explains further that cortesia is more than good manners; it is about being noble to all, especially the poor and vulnerable. An image of cortesia is illustrated by St. Francis kissing the leper. Cortesia lies in those unexpected moments of generosity.
• “God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God he created them; male and female God created them.” - Genesis 1:27
• “The gain is greater than we can imagine. No one knows the victory better than the one who has achieved it.” - Mother Mary Francis Bachmann – Anna Maria Boll, Admonitions of Mother Francis
• CLEMENTE’S SACRIFICE
  Roberto Clemente played eighteen seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He spent much of his time during the off-season involved in charity work. When Managua, Nicaragua, was affected by a massive earthquake on December 23, 1972, Clemente immediately set to work arranging emergency relief flights. His chartered airplane crashed into the ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico immediately after takeoff on December 31, 1972. Clemente’s body was never recovered.
• “IT IS NOT THE CRITIC WHO COUNTS.”
  “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
• “It is true that in England the terms ‘gentleman,’ ‘sportsman,’ . . . were regarded as intimately interrelated.” - Boxall
• “Sportsmanship for me is when a guy walks off the court and you really can’t tell whether he won or lost, when he carries himself with pride either way.” - Jim Courier
• Despite a flat tire, Chrissie Wellington won the 2008 Ironman World Championship. Rival Rebekah Keat offered up her own air canister so Wellington could repair her tire. “She's a legend,” Wellington said about Keat (who finished 6th), “what she did epitomizes everything that is good about the sport.” The Telegraph, October 14, 2008
• “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.” - Matthew 22:39
• While recounting Indiana State’s loss to Michigan State in the 1979 NCAA National Basketball Championship, Larry Bird said, “I’ve always been heartbroken by the fact that I wasn’t able to bring that championship trophy back to Terre Haute. I didn’t play the way I usually played… Hell… Magic was just too tough.” Seth Davis, When March Went Mad.
• JESSE OWENS AND LUZ LONG IN THE 1936 BERLIN OLYMPICS
  German athlete Luz Long qualified easily in the long jump event, setting an Olympic record. American Jesse Owens fouled on his first two jumps and needed to clear the third jump in order to advance to the finals. Long came to Owens and suggested he jump from a spot several inches before the line. Using the advice, Owens easily cleared and advanced to the finals and went on to win the gold medal. Long was the first to congratulate Owens.
• JOHN 8: 3-7
  Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. 2 So what do you say?" They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8: 3-7
• “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.” - Luke 12:48

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BALANCE

Balance is about wholeness. When one is whole, one is holy, even saintly. Being a person of balance means to be integrated in mind, body and spirit. The successful athlete recognizes this by paying equal attention to training, skills and practice as well as aspects such as stress, nutrition, sleep and relationships. These must be balanced to positively affect the performance of the athlete. Perspective plays an important role in living a balanced life. Perspective means “to see through; to see clearly.” It allows us to truly see ourselves and our situations, helping us to deal with injury, change and loss. Balance requires healthy relationships with others as well as with God’s creation.

• “There are three things we should do every day.... Number one is laugh.... Number two is think. And number three is have your emotions moved to tears.... If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day.” Jim Valvano, 1993 ESPY Awards
• CARE OF CREATION
  American Indian Chief Seattle wrote, “We are a part of the earth and it is a part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers… man belongs to the earth…. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself…. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator.” Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth
• FLOW
  Psychologist and author, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, uses the term “flow” to “denote the holistic sensation present when we act with total involvement.” We experience flow when our actions are balanced, things seem to come easily and we are enjoying ourselves. “People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.” Happiness then is a result of the quality of our lived experience.
• “Where there is discord may we bring harmony.” St. Francis of Assisi
• “Christian spirituality is a holistic one in the sense that it recognizes the dynamic interrelation between our spiritual and psychological selves, between our quest for holiness and our desire for wholeness.” Wilkie Au and Noreen Cannon
• BEING PERFECT
  In the movie Friday Night Lights, Coach Gary Gaines addressed his players at halftime saying, “Being perfect is not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn’t let them down because you did everything you could.... Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentlemen - you're perfect.”
• POPE JOHN PAUL II’S THOUGHTS ON THE VALUE OF SPORTS
  “Sports are not merely the exercise of muscles, but the school of moral values and of training in courage, in perseverance, and in overcoming laziness and carelessness. There is no doubt that these values are of greatest interest for the formation of a personality which considers sports not an end in itself but as a means to total and harmonious physical, moral and social development.” - Pope John Paul II, “Address to European Olympians”
• At the 1992 Summer Olympics, Jim Redmond burst from the stands to aid his injured son, Derek. “The two of them… inched their way to the finish line so that Derek could say he finished the race. The crowd… roared as loudly as it would for any champion.” Mitch Albom, “The Heart of the Games” Video from Derek Redmond's race: http://bit.ly/1w6WnIa
• Wayman Tisdale, former NBA star, became a successful jazz musician. Tisdale had part of one leg amputated because of bone cancer. In his first post-amputation record, Tisdale triumphantly sings, “When life tries to get you down, it’s the perfect time for a rebound.”
• “The goal of moral education, says Duns Scotus, is the harmonic balance between these two desires: a balance of my good and the good of others. This balance requires that, at times, I give way to another.” Mary Beth Ingham, C.S.J.
• “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one.” - 1 Corinthians 12:12
• TRUSTING GOD IN DARKNESS
  See the blackness as a sign of God’s love. God is freeing you from yourself. No matter how well you traveled before, you did not travel well enough. Now God must lead you by the hand and guide you in the darkness. You would never have succeeded in reaching this place by yourself, no matter how good your eyes and your feet. St. John of the Cross
• PERSPECTIVE
  The way we see things is not necessarily the way God sees things. With reflection, putting things in their proper context provides clarity and wisdom. Author Pat Conroy puts his losing senior basketball season at the Citadel in perspective in his book, My Losing Season,“ Winning is wonderful in every aspect, the darker music of loss resonates on deeper, richer planes…. Loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted but clear-eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass. My acquaintance with loss has sustained me during the stormy passages of my life…. Though I learned some things from the games we won that year, I learned much, much more from loss.”
• WHOLENESS
  The notion of wholeness in the spiritual life means that we live a balanced, holistic life. It means that we attempt to integrate all of the different parts of the human being—body, mind and spirit. The balanced person tries to harmonize all of these parts. There has been a growing realization that psychological growth is intimately connected to spiritual development. One cannot mature as a human being without developing spiritually. A Christian Spirituality is deeply respectful of the body, connecting sexuality and spirituality. This is evident in the book Song of Songs from Hebrew Scriptures where our relationship with God is compared to the relationship between a bride and groom on their wedding night.
• “Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.”- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• RELATIONSHIPS
  Spirituality is essentially relational. We enter into a connection between ourselves (mind, body and spirit), others, and all of creation. Christian Spirituality, in particular, is grounded in the “profoundly relational mystery” of the Trinity. According to theologian Michael Downey, “The doctrine of the Trinity affirms... that God’s presence to us is utterly reliable and constant... and emphasizes community rather than individuality.” Healthy relationships include not only the relationship between ourselves and others, but also our relationship with all of creation. We are called by God in the Book of Genesis to be stewards of all creation (Gen.1:28).
• “I came to bat about 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times…that means I played seven years without hitting the ball.”-Mickey Mantle
• KEEPING LOSS IN PERSPECTIVE
  “Some of God’s greatest gifts are his refusals,” remarked Theresa Grentz, coach of the 1992 U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team, when asked by a reporter, “How will you deal with this (gold medal) loss personally for the rest of your life?” Grentz, a basketball standout on Immaculata University’s national championship teams of the 1970s, remembered that remark from one of the sisters who tought her at Cardinal O’Hara High School.
• "There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
• JOHN WOODEN
  John Wooden, UCLA’s head basketball coach, won 88 consecutive games and ten National Championships (seven of them in a row). Balance was instrumental in Coach Wooden’s development of his “Pyramid of Success.” This well-respected tool highlights the integration of the mind, body and spirit.
• Told she would never walk again after surviving the deadly 1992 Notre Dame swim team bus crash, Haley Scott DeMaria defied the odds and, after years of recovery, returned to the pool. "Once my physical healing was as complete as possible, my emotional and spiritual journey began," says Haley. The recipient of the 2015 Institute for Sport, Spirituality and Character Development Award, Haley's story exemplifies the importance for athletes of balancing physical, mental, and spiritual well-being in walking the path towards success. 

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REFLECTION

Reflection means “to look again.” We are urged in the midst of our busy lives to stop and “look again” at the people, places, experiences and moments in our lives. God is present in all things. To find God in sports entails pausing and re-examining our athletic experiences. Reflection enriches our knowledge of self and provides awareness of our own gifts and weaknesses. We look to the models of both Jesus and St. Francis of Assisi who balanced their lives of service with time in prayer. Reflection itself must be held in balance. As spiritual writer Fr. Adrian van Kaam explains, it is good unless it leads to an unhealthy dwelling on the experience. Reflection is most healthy when we look again at our life experiences with gentleness and compassion.

• INTRODUCTION TO POETRY BY BILLY COLLINS

I ask them to take a poem
And hold it up to the light
Like a color slide
Or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
they begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

• “The man who has no imagination has no wings.” - Muhammad Ali
• “Direct your attention and affection with your whole being to the one thing you are asking of the Lord, so that you are not so much praying as becoming yourself a prayer.” Murray Bodo, O.F.M.
• “There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.” Victor Hugo, from Les Miserables
• FULLY AWARE
  “It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another....I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back—up the hill—to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look…. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? --every, every minute…. No… I should have listened to you. That’s all human beings are! Just blind people.” - Thornton Wilder, Our Town
• WE ARE ALL MEANT TO SHINE
  “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
• REFLECTION
  Reflection means “to look again.” We are urged in the midst of our busy lives to stop and “look again” at the people, places, experiences and moments in our lives. God is present in all things. To find God in sports entails pausing and re-examining our athletic experiences. Reflection enriches our knowledge of self and provides awareness of our own gifts and weaknesses. We look to the models of both Jesus and St. Francis of Assisi who balanced their lives of service with time in prayer. Reflection itself must be held in balance. As spiritual writer Fr. Adrian van Kaam explains, it is good unless it leads to an unhealthy dwelling on the experience. Reflection is most healthy when we look again at our life experiences with gentleness and compassion.
• AWARENESS
  “Spirituality means waking up,” says spiritual writer Fr. Anthony de Mello. Cultivating awareness is to be attentive to the beauty and grace that surrounds us. Brother Lawrence in his work, The Practice of the Presence of God, considered the importance of sensing God’s presence in all things. For Brother Lawrence, God was present in the simple things; the greeting of a stranger, the eating of a meal, or the washing of dishes. Awareness is crucial in sport. An athlete needs to be attentive to such things as an opponent’s defense, a teammate’s dejection, or signals from the body of overuse or injury. A defender with good awareness knows where their player, the ball and the goal is at all times. Awareness of such things can contribute to better performance.
• Pro-bowl safety, Troy Polamalu (43), celebrates the Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl XL victory. Polamalu, known for his strong commitment to his faith comments, “As Mother Teresa said, God calls us not to be successful but to be faithful. My prayer is that I would glorify God no matter what.”
• “The unexamined life is not worth living.” - Socrates
• “Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back... play for her.” - Mia Hamm
• The Thinker by Auguste Rodin embodies the very notion of reflection 
• “To be aware of a single shortcoming in oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in someone else.” The Dalai Lama
• A golfer must be aware of many things while making a putt. This is called “reading the green.” The golfer takes into account the slope of the green, the thickness of the grass, the pace of the ball, etc.
• CARPE DIEM
  The students slowly gather round the trophy cases filled with team pictures and Mr. Keating says: “They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, those boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Hear it? Carpe Diem. Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. Dead Poets Society
• “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.” - Meister Eckhart.
• RECOGNIZING REAL COURAGE
  In 1973, John Cappelletti, a Monsignor Bonner graduate, received the Heisman Trophy. Cappelletti credited his success to his younger brother, Joey, who was dying of leukemia. Aware of his brother’s courageous struggle, Cappelletti reflected in his acceptance speech, “They say I’ve shown courage on the football field, but for me it’s only on the field, and only in the fall.... Joey’s courage is ‘round the clock.” The bond of the Cappelletti brothers later inspired both a book and a movie.
• RELIANCE ON THE SPIRIT
  Thomas Merton reminds us, “In prayer, you start where you are and you deepen what you already have. We already have everything, but we don’t know it.” St. Paul further comments on prayer and comforts us with these words in his Letter to the Romans, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. God does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.” Romans 8:26
• SELF-KNOWLEDGE
  Reflection leads to self-knowledge. Through time in self-examination, we learn about our gifts, weaknesses, strengths and shortcomings. The more we learn about ourselves, the more we learn about God and others. St. Teresa of Avila realized the importance of self-knowledge when she wrote, in her spiritual classic, Interior Castle, “We shall never succeed in knowing ourselves unless we come to know God.” As we grow in knowledge of self, our life is enriched and becomes more meaningful. Jesus too grew in wisdom and grace (Luke 2:52) and we are invited to do the same.
• PRAYER
  “Gratefulness is the heart of prayer,” according to Brother David Steindl-Rast. Prayer happens in traditional ways such as saying the rosary, reading scripture, meditating and sitting in silence. Prayer is also available to us in everyday, moments such as practicing foul shots, folding laundry, and walking to class. No matter how you do it, prayer is connection with God. God is always present to us, but we are not always present to God. Prayer is about intimacy, vulnerability, hungering for a deeper relationship with God and raising the heart and mind to God. The life of prayer is to realize God’s presence to us. Seeing Jesus frequently go off by himself for prayer, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray and he taught them (Matt 6:7-13): “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:
  Our Father who art in heaven,
  Hallowed be thy name.
  Thy kingdom come,
  Thy will be done,
  On earth as it is in heaven.
  Give us this day our daily bread;
  And forgive us our debts,
  As we also have forgiven our debtors;
  And lead us not into temptation,
  But deliver us from evil”
• WAKING UP
  Cultivating awareness is to be attentive to the beauty and grace that surrounds us. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a French 17th century lay Carmelite, in his work, The Practice of the Presence of God considered the importance of sensing God’s presence in all things. For Brother Lawrence, God was present in the simple things, the greeting of a stranger, the eating of a meal, or the washing of dishes. Awareness is crucial in sport. An athlete needs to be attentive to such things as an opponent’s defense, a teammate’s dejection, or signals from the body of overuse or injury. Awareness of such things can attribute to better performance.
• COACH K USES SELF-KNOWLEDGE
  “As they walked back from the other side of the court, I saw their dazed looks and I noticed that they were physically apart…. In a crisis situation like this, I instinctively realized I had to get them to snap out of the daze and I had to make them believe, positively, that they could win this game.… In a crisis, it appears to most people that there are no opportunities. But a leader’s job is to create opportunities.” Mike Krzyzewski, Leading with the Heart
• I PROMISE
  “I didn't think it would become what it became,” Tebow said at the 2009 SEC Media Days referring to the apology and promise he made to Gator fans after Florida’s crushing one-point loss to Ole Miss in 2008. “I wasn't even thinking about that too much after the game. I just know I was upset, heartbroken. Just felt like I let my teammates down, my coaches, the fans. I wanted to let them know ultimately that something good was going to come out of this. But I didn't think it would have this much hype, no.” Tebow’s Florida Gators went on to play undefeated the rest of that season and win the BCS National Title in 2008. One year later, Florida immortalized Tebow’s speech by having it engraved on a plaque placed outside the front entrance of Florida Field: “To the fans and everybody of Gator Nation, I’m sorry. Extremely sorry. We wanted an undefeated season. That was my goal, something Florida has never done here. I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. You will never see another player push his team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season. You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season. God bless.”
• After taking a moment to reflect, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski approaches his players in the final seconds of the Duke v. Kentucky 1992 NCAA Tournament game. Seconds later, Christian Laetner made one of the most famous winning shots in college basketball history.
• PRAYING
  Praying
  It doesn’t have to be
  the blue iris, it could be
  weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
  small stones; just
  pay attention, then patch
  a few words together and don’t try
  to make them elaborate, this isn’t
  a contest but the doorway
  into thanks, and a silence in which
  another voice may speak.
• Mary Oliver, Thirst
  “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” A grateful Lou Gehrig spoke these thoughtful words on July 4, 1939, the day of his retirement from baseball. A diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) shortened his playing career. Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 consecutive games ended due to complications with the disease.
• “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” - Buddha
• “Rising very early before dawn, Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.” Mark 1: 35

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BEAUTY

“Beauty is a central spiritual insight of Francis and his followers,” says Franciscan scholar Sr. Mary Beth Ingham. An awareness of beauty in nature, in other people, in actions, in relationships helps us to be better aware of God at work in our lives. In fact, beauty has the power to transform and heal our lives. As we witness beauty with wonder, we witness the Incarnation; we are forced out of ourselves, urged to do good and reminded that God is with us. Beauty is evidenced in sports. It is witnessed in a beautifully executed play, a graceful pass or an awesome display of athleticism.

• At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Nadia Comaneci became the first Olympic gymnast to score a perfect 10. Amazingly, she earned seven perfect 10’s, won five Olympic gold medals and is credited with popularizing the sport around the world.
• “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Special Olympics Athlete Oath
• “There is a special quality in beauty,… that tames even the strongly opposed heart…. It was not a slip of the tongue for Dostoyevsky to say, ‘beauty will save the world,’ but a prophesy. After all, he was given the gift of seeing much.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Beauty Will Save the World: The Nobel Lecture on Literature
• In 1956, Australian John Landy forteited the opportunity to be the first to break the four minute mile because he stopped to help an injured runner. A witness to this historic event recalled, “John Landy did the most incredibly stupid, beautiful, foolish gentlemanly act I have even seen.”
• BEAUTY IS THE WORDLESS SERMON
  “Beauty is a wordless sermon on the mystery of the Divine Presence in our world. The appearance of beauty and our ability to receive it is a revelation of God in our lives. Beauty is one of the faces of God. It is God’s memory of all that is holy and good, faithful and true. It has the power to heal, restore, comfort. Beauty is God’s way of reminding us of our own beauty.” Macrina Wiederkehr
• BEAUTY FOR THE ANCIENT GREEKS
  The Greeks had two ways of speaking of beauty. One, proposed by Aristotle, was that beauty is the condition when all parts are in harmony with all other parts. The other, invented by Pythagoras and held by Plato, was that beauty is the eternal splendor of the one showing through the many. Some of the earliest poems in the West, The Odes of Pindar, praised the beauty and triumph of Olympic contests.
• AWE AND WONDER
  “I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. And You gave it to me. Awe is... a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand... for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence.... It enables us... to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.” Abraham Heschel, I Asked for Wonder
• Awesome! The Neumann University men’s ice hockey team celebrates winning the Division III National Championship in March 2009

• “Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God, and, struck with awe, they said, ‘We have seen incredible things today.’” - Luke 5:26
• At the 1932 Olympic qualifying tournament, Babe Didrikson won six gold medals and broke four world records. In a span of three hours, the 21-year-old competed in eight events, winning five and tying for first in another. In later years, Didrikson became known as one of the greatest women golfers of all time.
• SACRAMENTALITY
  The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola urges seekers to “find God in all things.” The English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” This line of poetry captures the Catholic ideal of sacramentality, i.e., to see the Infinite in the finite, the Extraordinary in the ordinary.
• LOUISVILLE EPIPHANY
  “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut,… I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people…. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun…. Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts… the person that each one is in God’s eyes…. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.” Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
• GRACE
  St. Francis of Assisi lived with the deep conviction that God is truly present to us in the beauty of the sun, moon, wind, rain and animals. Francis saw God’s love expressed through all of creation. All of the beauty of creation is a gift to us saying, “God is here.” This is evidenced in St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer, The Canticle of the Creatures: “Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor.... Praised be You through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.”
• “When a culture loses its sense of beauty, the loss of truth and goodness cannot be too far behind.” - Hans Urs von Balthasar, as quoted by Mary Beth Ingham, C.S.J.
• “I said to the almond tree, ‘Sister, speak to me of God,’ and the almond tree blossomed.” - St. Francis of Assisi
• IN PRAISE FOR ATHLETIC BEAUTY
  Describing the experience of every fan’s sense of the beautiful in sports, Stanford University literature professor Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht writes, “He does not know why watching sports irresistibly captures the attention and imagination of so many people like himself. It is a fascination in the true sense of the word—a phenomenon that manages to paralyze the eyes, something that endlessly attracts, without implying any explanation for its attraction. For this ability to fascinate, sports exerts a transfiguring power.”
• The awe-inspiring bicycle kick, made famous by Brazilian soccer phenom Pelé in the 1970s, inspired millions of children to take up soccer. Pelé is regarded by many as the greatest soccer player of all time.
• Before she passed away from brain cancer in 2015, Lauren Hill fought bravely to play the game she loved and raise millions to fund child cancer research. The grace with which she handled herself was perhaps even more inspiring than her love of basketball. “What keeps me going is remembering why I’m here," Lauren said in late 2014. "I told (God) I’d take every opportunity to speak for the kids who can’t speak.”
• UNIQUENESS
  Encountering beauty, especially beauty in another person, can truly be healing and life-saving. The beauty of each individual is foundational for Franciscans and is characterized in haecceitas, meaning the dignity, uniqueness, giftedness and irreplacibility of every created being.
• After overcoming polio, which crippled her as a child, Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics. Winning the 100m dash, the 200m and anchoring the 400m relay, Rudolph was named “the fastest woman on earth.”
• HEALING
  An experience of beauty has the ability to transform and heal. Beauty can move us out of our selfishness or “un-self” us. Thomas Merton teaches as we “forget ourselves on purpose,” we are urged to do good in the world and inspired to make our world even more beautiful. “When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children… we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose.”

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PLAY

Sport at its best allows us to play. The English word sport, from the Latin word deportare, means to “carry away.” Play lightens us up, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul. True play promotes freedom, creativity and joy. In Man at Play, Fr. Hugo Rahner defines play as “an activity that is undertaken for the sake of being active, meaningful but directed towards no end outside of itself.” The Judeo-Christian notion of Sabbath allows for moments of leisure and prevents the seriousness of work from dominating and defining us as “human doings” rather than ”human beings.” St. Francis of Assisi, known affectionately as the “Fool for Christ,” modeled this much-needed playful spirit in the world.

• The sociologist, Peter Berger, in his work Rumor of Angels, says play is a “signal of transcendence,” an epiphany, the revelation of God in our world. Play frees us to become the people God has created us to be.
• PLAY
  Sport at its best allows us to play. The English word sport, from the Latin word deportare, means to “carry away.” Play lightens us up, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul. Play allows for recreation, renewing and re-energizing. True play promotes freedom, creativity and joy. In Man at Play, Fr. Hugo Rahner defines play as “an activity that is undertaken for the sake of being active, meaningful but directed towards no end outside of itself.” The Judeo-Christian notion of Sabbath allows for moments of leisure and prevents the seriousness of work from dominating and defining us as “human doings” rather than “human beings.” St. Francis of Assisi, known affectionately as the “Fool for Christ,” modeled this much-needed playful spirit in the world by not taking himself too seriously so that the lives of others could be lightened and refreshed. Trained as a troubadour Francis sought to bring to others laughter, joy and playfulness.
• “Always remember joy is not incidental to your spiritual quest. It is vital.” Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Hasidic Teacher
• The West Coast Offense was created by Bill Walsh for the Cincinnati Bengals. In Cincinnati, the Bengals had Virgil Carter, who was an athletic quarterback, but did not have a strong arm. Walsh devised a system of short, quick, timed throws. This evolved into the West Coast Offense which features short pass plays to replace the running game while still controlling the football. The quarterback takes a three or five-step drop, reads the defense and has his progression of receivers to look to. Ideally, all five receivers will release in the pattern giving the QB plenty of passing options. Walsh took the innovation with him to San Francisco where quarterback Joe Montana perfected it.
• FREEDOM
  Freedom is one of the most precious gifts given to us by God, yet we often don’t realize or utilize this freedom. In fact, appreciation of this freedom was so important to St. Ignatius Loyola that he crafted one of the most revered and practiced retreats in the Christian tradition: The Spiritual Exercises. This compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices were developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God.
• “The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.” Julian of Norwich, 14th century English mystic
• “Anywhere creativity flourishes, play is happening. We learn the same way we did as children: by playing with ideas. We learn things by suspending the idea that we are bound by limits – we open our eyes” - FISH! the guide Pike Place Market
• “Play is the answer to the question, ‘How does anything new ever come about?’” - Jean Piaget
• Lauren Shipman '15, a Psychology student at Neumann University, after winning the 2013 PowerHockey Championship with Philadelphia PowerPlay. PowerHockey is competitive floor hockey for people requiring the use of an electric (power) wheelchair. Said Shipman of the victory, "The enthusiasm of the crowd when time ran out was the best experience and, as we faced the stands during the playing of 'We are the Champions,' emotions reached an ultimate high. It is an experience that we will never forget and I’m extremely proud of my team."
• The Phillie Phanatic provides amusement and lightness to baseball fans. With pranks, hugs and dances, fans can laugh at coaches, officials, players and even at themselves. The Phanatic offers levity and perspective to what, at times, can be very serious competition.
• THE SPLIT-FINGER FASTBALL
  As a struggling young pitcher, suffering from arm injury, Bruce Sutter’s pitching career was in jeopardy. Letting go of his old way of pitching, Sutter learned to throw the split-finger fastball. Use of this adaptation rocketed him to stardom. He led the National League in saves for four straight seasons, culminating in closing out Game Seven of the 1982 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals.
• NO LIMITATIONS
  “When we play, we sense no limitations. In fact, when we are playing, we are usually unaware of ourselves. Self-observation goes out the window. We forget all those past lessons of life, forget our potential foolishness, forget ourselves. We immerse ourselves in the act of play. And we become free.” Lenore Terr, Beyond Love and Work “Wisdom was ever at play in God’s presence, at play everywhere in the world” (Proverbs 8:31 ). The experience of play is universal. Even in places of war, violence and poverty, the freedom to play is essential.
• “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” - Plato
• “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” - Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher
• CREATIVITY
  God created us by blowing the breath (ruah – Spirit) of life into the first human’s nostril (Genesis 2:7). The Holy Spirit is still at work as we are inspired to co-create with God; we are in-spirited. To create means to “bring something new into being.” This something new arises in an atmosphere of rest and relaxation often brought forth in a state of play. Play allows for the possibility of creativity, according to historian Johan Huizinga in his seminal work Humo Ludens. According to Huizinga, play allows for the possibility of creativity. He explains, the creator is at play in the “play-ground of the mind, …..the region of dream, enchantment, ecstasy, laughter.” The impact of a playful spirit in sports has led to significant innovations such as the Fosbury Flop, the West Coast Offense and the split-finger fast ball.
• Jackie Robinson exuded freedom. He played with passion, energy and courage. As the first African American Major League baseball player, he wowed baseball fans and catalyzed the Civil Rights movement in the United States.
• Dick Fosbury sets an Olympic record in the high jump in 1968 with his unique, self-invented jumping style. This “flop” is now a common technique used by high jumpers around the world. In The Guardian article 50 stunning Olympic moments No 28: Dick Fosbury introduces 'the flop,' author Simon Burnton describes Fosbury’s persistence in finding a technique that would improve his personal best high jumps: “‘In 1963, I asked the coach if I could return back to the scissors style, and he didn't encourage me, but he let me make the decision,’ Fosbury told me. ‘In the very next meet, as I was attempting a new personal best, I felt I had to do something different to clear the bar and I tried lifting my hips, which caused my shoulders to go back, and I succeeded. I made a new height, I tried again, and successively I was able to clear six inches higher than my previous best, and that change made me competitive, it kept me in the game, and I converted from sitting on the bar to laying flat on my back’…
• “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
• EUREKA!
  Frequently we are most creative when at leisure and playful. While simply relaxing in the tub, ancient Greek scholar Archimedes made a significant scientific discovery. He noticed that when he stepped into the tub, the water level rose. He discovered that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. He reportedly proclaimed “Eureka!” (Greek for “I have found it!”) This common expression is used to celebrate a moment of creativity.
• JOY THROUGH PAIN
  St. Francis of Assisi wrote The Canticle of the Creatures during a period of discouragement. In the midst of this pain, Francis still experienced perfect joy. He knew that grace, a gift from God’s Spirit, was supporting him and sustaining him in his suffering. Franciscan Joy, a distinguishing trait of the Franciscan way of life, is not a naïve denial of human suffering. Rather, it is rooted in the awareness that God is always with us even in the darkest times.
• “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.” - Arthur Ashe
• DANCING FOR JOY
  In the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Samuel 6:14-23), the arc of the covenant, the symbol of God’s presence for the Jewish people, comes to Jerusalem for the first time. King David’s spontaneous response was to leap and dance for joy even though he was mocked by his subjects. David is caught up in the moment and joyful that God is finally present in the city of Jerusalem.
• “A new thought, a sudden insight is invariably accompanied by an intake of breath as the thought occurs, followed by the ‘ah’ of mental confirmation, which is an exhalation – both the taking in of the breath of life, the receiving, and the enlivened blowing out, giving to the world the spirit laden thought.” - Ainslie Clair Yardley, Ph.D.
• Former Philadelphia Flyers center Mike Richards spontaneously celebrates scoring a penalty shot against the Washington Capitals by grabbing a handful of snow from the ice and tossing it in the air. Philadelphia Daily News sports writer Rich Hofmann describes the goal which secured a 3-1 playoff series lead for the Flyers: “in this moment, there was an odd peace. It becomes such a simple, empty canvas during a penalty shot, just a shooter and a goaltender. The picture, after a night of gouging and crashing and careening and pow, is oddly pristine. At the moment the whistle is blown by the referee, it is almost still-life amid a hurricane: a man, a goaltender, a game that will be either ended by this shot or continue on uncertainly. And then Richards swoops in…As he celebrated, Richards appeared to reach down and scrape his glove along the ice as he glided and scoop up a small handful of snow and toss it into the air.
• PLAYING IN NATURE
  According to child advocacy professionals, playing in nature is important to healthy childhood development. This is a timely observation in an era of high obesity rates amongst children kept indoors by video games, computers and television. In his groundbreaking work, The Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv maintains that the children’s “mental, physical, and spiritual health depends upon it.” Louv suggests that frequent exposure to nature, such as hiking, climbing trees and planting gardens, facilitates a child’s creativity, freedom and well-being.
• JOY
  Joy is a gift from God; we don’t produce it. Experiencing joy, living abundantly, is God’s dream for us and the reason we were created. Joy is most deeply felt when preceded by struggle and despair, as exemplified by Jesus’ death and resurrection (the Paschal Mystery). Our response to joy is to play, dance, and be caught up in the moment. When we truly play we get a glimpse of the kingdom of God and we practice for what the kingdom will be. We see joy in sports in the spontaneous celebrations of touchdowns, game winning shots, and a fan’s reaction to a long awaited victory. Joy is also present in the deep relationships between teammates, achieving your personal best, and accomplishing more than expected.