https://zenit.org/articles/giving-the-best-of-yourself-the-vaticans-new-document-on-sport/

I was thrilled to find this wonderful document about the Christian perspective on sport and the human person. I have long believed that sports are crucial to the school day, that contests help promote schools AND that occasional games on Sunday’s, outside of Mass times, are a wholesome and appropriate activity for youth. Please enjoy the following short excerpt taken from the document:

“The Church has been engaged in dialogue with sport from the earliest years of its existence. It is well known that St. Paul used sports metaphors to explain the Christian life to the Gentiles. In the medieval period, lay Catholics played games and sports on feast days, which accounted for a good deal of the year, as well as on Sundays. Such play found theological support in the writing of Thomas Aquinas who argued that there can be “a virtue about games” because virtue has to do with moderation. A virtuous person, by this account, should not be working all the time, but also needs time for play and recreation. The humanists of the Renaissance and the early Jesuits made use of Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of virtue when they decided that students needed time for play and recreation during the course of the school day. This was the original rationale for the inclusion of play and sports in educational institutions in the Western world.”

The beautiful document is worthy of a read by of us! Enjoy!