DON’T DROP YOUR BATON

I have always enjoyed watching a track meet on television. Many events are fun to watch, such as the hurdles, the high jump, and the pole vault. My favorite track event is the team relay, where four of the fastest runners compete, each running one lap around the oval. In this event, the first runner sets the pace, the second and third runners maintain it, and the last runner, with speed and endurance, finishes the race. Another important aspect of the relay is the hand-off. This is a make-or-break moment: one runner finishes, and the next grabs the baton and sprints off. Dropping the baton means you will lose the event.

My latest Lectio Divina meditation (Philippians 2:5) focused on a track meet with four other team members who had to hand off the baton to the next person.

My meditation begins with me at Inman Field in Vincennes, Indiana (where I actually participated in a relay track event and was embarrassed). A track relay event is like the whole experience of the Sacred; it has a bunch of handoffs. There are four other members of my team.https://www.vcsc.k12.in.us/athletic-facilities/

ADAM – Adam begins the race of seeking God because God created him to run it. Unfortunately for him, he dropped the baton God gave him.

JESUS — Humanity had to wait for Jesus to pick up the dropped baton and run with it. Fortunately for us, Jesus is a good runner and finished his heat by handing it off to the next runner, Peter.

PETER – Peter was the next runner but was flawed, having dropped the baton several times in practice. With the Holy Spirit as his coach, Peter found the courage to rise above his deficiencies and ran the race, although not at the fastest speed. Peter is the Church, and in each age, each individual can pick up the next baton and run the final lap.

ME — I get to run the last lap when I am allowed to be a member of the team and take the handoff from the Church. The Church coaches me and sustains me as I run to the finish line, Heaven.

REFLECTIONS ON THE RACE OF A LIFETIME

• When I use this example in my meditations, I think of how fortunate I am that God wants me as a member of His team (by His choice, not mine). I must agree to be on the team and to finish the race, even if I stop along the way because I am out of breath.
• All the team members are linked together as one team, one coach, one race.
• All of us want to win our lap of the race, even if we are out of shape and need coaching to get us ready to receive our crown of victory.
• Satan is on the opposition, talking trash about how bad I am and how I can’t finish the race because I am on the wrong team. He can’t stop me from running, but he can play games with my mind and heart.
• Because of the tools that Christ left me and passed on through the Universal Church, I have God’s own energy at my disposal if I ask for it. Contemplative practices and charisms are the exercises I do to keep in shape so I can hear my coach, the Holy Spirit, encourage me that, even though I am flawed, like St. Peter, I can make it to the end.
• Each individual, each human, gets a chance to get handed the baton for that last lap. Some don’t know they are in the race; some do but lack the skills to run or grasp the baton, letting it fall to the ground; others grasp it at Baptism and run to the best of their abilities for the prize. Faith helps us run and grasp the baton so we don’t drop it. Hope is that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can finish the race and reach the finish line, rejecting Satan and all his empty promises. Love is the inner strength, God’s own energy, that compels us forward, not because of our efforts, but because of the pure love God has for us.
• In this race of a lifetime, we can get out of breath many times and must stop and make all things new again in, with, and through Christ in the Cistercian practices and charism that help us be present to God each day.
• God won’t run the race for us, but he is jogging along beside us the whole way. Come to me, all you who are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you.
• All those in Heaven who have gone before us cheer us on in our lifetime to persevere, have courage, don’t stop, and never give in to Satan. They pray that we run the good race and fight the good fight. They are our Hall of Famers who give those of us still on earth hope that the Resurrection is real and that a great gathering awaits us when we die.