I thought I had overcome my addiction to athletics, but the Olympic games in Rio reawakened it, so I spent most of the last weekend glued to the television. It all started many years ago when as a boy I was selected to represent the school as a pole vaulter at the National Athletics competition at White City in London. I was not very successful, nor was anyone from our school, but I was intrigued to find that another Catholic school, St John Fisher from Purley in Surrey, swept all before them winning more medals than anyone else. I approached the priest who accompanied them and asked him how a school never renowned for athletics could do so well. His answer was simply, Franz Stampfl. Franz was one of the world’s leading athletic coaches of the twentieth century. He was simply a genius who trained over 360 Olympians. If you have ever seen the footage of Roger Bannister running the first sub-four-minute mile on the television, then you will have seen him falling into the arms of his coach, Franz Stampfl, immediately after breaking the tape. How such an ordinary school managed to obtain the services of such a great man I do not know, but he worked wonders, not just for those pursuing athletics, but for all other sports too.
When I was introduced to him, I had the cheek to ask him to come to our school to coach us too. I could not believe my luck when he agreed. When he finally came I never left his side so that I could learn from him. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, what I learnt from him was to help me immensely in my spiritual life later. After all, St Paul likens true Christians to athletes who should spend their time building up their spiritual muscles through daily exercise, just as athletes spend their time building up their physical muscles. That is why the word asceticism comes from the Greek word for an athlete. There can be no successful spiritual life without an ascetical life, so what I learned from Franz Stampfl was to be of immense value to me in the future.
The first thing that I learnt from him was that if something is really important to you, you will find the time for it. If you don’t, or won’t, it just means that despite what you may say, it is of no consequence to you. He used to say that if you are unwilling to find the consistent and daily time for athletics then please don’t waste his time because you are going nowhere. I can understand someone saying that athletics or sport is of no consequence to them, but how can a human being say that love and loving is of no consequence to them? Life without love is not only purposeless, it is dry, drab, boring, colourless and ultimately utterly worthless. Completely extract it from a person’s life and they will have nothing to give them hope. If love is offered to you everything else must take second place or you will miss out on the most important thing in life.
When I was a young man my cousin James told me that his girlfriend had suddenly dropped him. It seemed she didn’t love him anymore. When I tried to discover the reasons why I found that all his Saturdays were taken up with playing football and his Sundays recovering from his efforts. For the same reason, he liked to take Monday evening off, sitting in front of the television. On Wednesdays, he went to the gym to start getting back into shape again, and on Thursday evening he liked to treat himself to a night at the cinema. Apparently. she rarely came, because she didn’t like Westerns or war films. Friday night was taken up with pre-match training and of ,course, Saturday was match day, and although she sometimes came to watch him, she rarely saw him for long in the evenings, because he was usually detained in the bar with his friends, especially after away games. That only left Tuesday night, and one night a week is simply not enough.
If someone loves you and you genuinely love them, then you must have time together to give and receive what is more important than anything else on earth. It is exactly the same with the love of God. Without daily quality time for God in prayer, we simply cannot receive the only love that can permanently change us for the better. My cousin saw the error of his ways and now he has been happily married for fifty years. The same principle applies to the love of God. God is loving us continually, but if we do not find time for the prayer where we learn how to receive his love then we are going nowhere – nowhere that is, that really matters.
Those who took Franz seriously were taught how they must prepare themselves before their chosen event whether it was tennis, golf, football, rugby or athletics. They didn’t just have to warm up their bodies through a series of gentle exercises, but their minds too. At the highest level he would insist, “It is all the mind.” If you want to reach the top you must train your mind. Whenever you watch any sport at the highest level, you cannot but be impressed by the dedication of the participants. It is the quality of their single-mindedness that draws the attention. The moment they begin their preparation, it is as if they enter into a time-free zone where they are able to put everything out of their minds, in such a way that they can live and act fully in the present. If they allow anything from the past to disrupt their concentration, then it must be instantly dismissed. Nor must anything from the future disturb them either. Just a few moments indulgence imagining themselves receiving their trophy, or celebrating with their friends, could mean losing their prize.
It was imperative to carry this attitude of mind from the training ground into the event for which we were preparing ourselves. If we made mistakes, and we certainly did no matter how much we practised, they must be put behind us, instantly cast out of our minds. To dwell on them could be catastrophic, ruining the rest of our performance. “Stay in the zone at all times”, he would repeat, “never dwell on failures or you’ll make more and more of them.”
It should be exactly the same with our preparation for prayer. We need some sort of countdown to help us drop out from the hectic life that is so often forced upon us, to prepare to turn on and tune in to God. Just as different athletes find their rituals, we need to find our own. It may simply be lying down for a rest, having a cup of tea, reading some spiritual or inspiring book, listening to music, exercising gently or whatever helps us to relax. This is all part of the asceticism of the heart and mind that is going to help us enter into that time-free zone when we begin to pray. I don’t think that Franz had ever heard of the great Jesuit writer Pére de Cassaude, but he used to insist that we must learn to enter into what he called the present moment if we are going to advance in the spiritual life. It is here, he used to insist, that we must learn to rid ourselves of anything from the past or the future that can draw our attention away from fixing our gaze fully upon God.
In order to sanctify this place and consecrate it to God, the early monks first practised private confession so that no past guilt would disturb them. They even confessed the temptations that might induce them to desecrate holy ground. God cannot be encountered in the past or in the future, but only, as de Caussade saw so clearly, in the sacrament of the present moment. This is the only moment when time touches eternity, and prayer is the offering that makes it a holy place where the human and the divine first meet and mingle before being united.
Whenever you turn to God in prayer, whether it is in the set times that you have set apart for formal prayer in the morning or the evening, or for short prayer during the day, pause for a moment. Realise that it only now in this present moment that you can open yourself to receive the love of God pouring out through the Risen Christ, now.
God does not exist in the past or in the future, but only now in the present moment. God Is. In Him there are no befores or afters, he exists outside of space and time in Eternal Life. That is why the present moment is the supreme sacrament, because it is only in this now that you can contact him, receive his love and experience something of the eternal life that will one day be yours forever, here and now in this life.
I might have spent too much time in front of the television last weekend, but at least the Athletics that I watched reminded me of so much that the sport once taught me about the spiritual life. I hope it might be of help to you too!
