Wake Up the Echoes

When a person is or becomes Catholic, one has an obligation to carry out certain duties and do certain things that one might not otherwise do in order to faithfully live out the message and calling of the Church. People are more aware of some of these requirements than others. One that seems to get overlooked a lot involves sports. Now, people have always played sports, and even the Church continues to recognize it's importance in our lives. But what some people seem to neglect is the centraliy of rooting for Notre Dame to the Catholic faith.

When most teams play, there's money, prestige, pride, reputation, careers, etc. on the line. But when the Irish play, it's more than that -- the status of the entire Church militant is caught up in those 11 men in the gold helmets on Saturday. Notre Dame really is the athletic anthropromophism of the Church. When most teams lose, it's just a let down -- when the Irish lose, it's a source of Great Tribulation among the faithful.

I know, I know, there are people out there who don't believe me (including my co-blogger here at IVA). So, as proof, I turn to the prophecies of an oft-forgotten tome, St. Kevin's Ludi Ecclesiae:

And the Lord God said "I will send my servant into the wilderness, and there I will erect for him, in what would otherwise be a cornfield, two goal posts. And hither and yon between these goal posts the servants of the Lord shall run, and they shall be an inspiration to those who have faith in the Lord."... And in time the Lord God will send to his servants in the wilderness an alchemist from the north, and he will lead the servants of the Lord, and teach them the arts of the forward pass, with which they will confound the enemies of the Lord and gather to themselves a multitude of yards on one play. And the servants of the Lord, in running between the goal posts that the Lord God had erected for them did amass the best record, and neither armies nor navies nor private nor public schools did prevail against them. ... And the servants of the Lord, in their thanksgiving for the greatness of the Lord, erected a great shrine to Him behind their mighty goalposts, and all did gaze upon it in wonder. But woe unto thee of little faith! For the overpowering dominance that once the servants of the Lord, with their golden hats in the wilderness, did once enjoy will be slackened, and there will be a great draught upon the land, and for seventeen years and more the land they sowed shall be taken from them and ruled by others. False prophets will come and say "I am he" and "I know the difference between a pass-option and a horse's rear end" but they are not to be believed and sorrow and calamity will follow in their wake. But the Lord will not forsake his servants, nor will He forget the promise that He made unto them, that they should run hither and yon between the goal posts that He did erect in the wilderness for them. Thus, the Lord God will send a Magi from the northeast, and he will instruct the servants of the Lord in the ways of dynamic offense and lift up their spirits with new effectiveness and zeal and record-setting yards-per-game. ...

Thus, it shall be the sacred duty of all Christians to support the servants of the Lord in their endeavors. The Lord God sayeth: "Thus shall you observe the acts of the servants of the Lord as they run hither and yon between the goal posts that We did erect for them: thou shalst gather around thee a throng of the faithful, and you shall share amongst yourselves victuals and beverages, both fermented and not, of every kind; thou shalt have caps and cloaks and garments of every kind, as well as banners and gonfalons and every kind of colorful hanging, emblazoned with the symbols of the the servants of the Lord; when you have thus gathered, thou shalst follow the progress of those running hither and yon between the goal posts with great attention, and lift up to heaven your shouts of praise or tribulation -- when the servants of the Lord doth gain six points, thou shalst throw thy hands over thy head and shout "touchdooooooooown IRISH!" and give unto your companions many high fives. Likewise, when their opponents or the officiating crew doth render an injustice unto the servants of the Lord, though shalt throw thy popcorn at the television and curse the names of those offending ones, and the Lord will avert His eyes from them and their children and their children's children, and affliction will be their lot. But those who root for the servants of the Lord and keep these instructions shall be blessed, and the Lord will forsake them not."

So, there you have it. You should root against USC today not just because they're perrenially overrated ecause of a cream puff schedule, nor just because they're obnoxious jerks, nor just because their med school is one of the nation's top developers of abortificants, but because rooting for Notre Dame is the upstanding, Catholic thing to do. Let's go Irish!

File Under: Catholic_Stuff