I consider sport as a great gift of God, which is shaping and inviting us to grow as people, thus opening the possibility of being His instruments. We do not just swim, for example, because through doing it with others we can develop virtues.  We can also develop the ability to bear witness of our faith recognizing that this gift was given to us not accidentally, but to be active partners of God in this world.

Just as there are spiritual phrases that we use to encourage ourselves, it happens the same in sport. Some slogans  -Just do it, Impossible is nothing, Harder is better and many others-challenge and invite us to go further in our sport practice looking for the valued goal, winning. Some of those mottos suggest the idea that the power to achieve what we want depends exclusively on our physical and mental skills, as if we were the only builders of our life (and dreams).

A few weeks ago I returned to my hard training sessions for my first Ironman. The moments of physical pain have been inevitable and often the coach encouraged me saying "no pain no gain".  Such phrase has always struck me… What is the goal of physical pain? Is it simply good to achieve a sport "gain"? Then, will we be more agile and have the ability to go further? From the point of view of faith, pain is a means –not easy but healer– that helps us grow and purifies us  in order one day to be closer to the goal of meeting God. We accept suffering permitted by God who is Love; this is a mystery.  It is not just a mystery, but a mystery of love and faith helping us to cope with suffering.

If God gave us sport as a means to grow as persons, and, at the same time, to be better instruments of Himself, we can give meaning to the inevitable "sport pain". We will become better persons shaped in His image, fusing the inseparable team, body and soul? I reflected on this for a few workouts, then I remembered that a two years old neighbor was suffering with cancer, so I offered in  that moment my pain for him.  This resembles the practice of removing the focus in our imagination from something  bothering us, and redirecting it to other images. In our specific case it acquires another dimension, almost as if the pain would be relieved by the warmth feeling of love.  In that moment, we understand that we can transform the inevitable sports pain, in a wonderful gift of love redirecting it to a new and beautiful destination.

Pain exists, it is real and shows our fragility. But you do not win because of the pain: it grows, improvement is exceeded, but the only gain that lasts, which is incorruptible and makes us more complete persons is love. By offering that sports pain, somehow, we  participate with the person who is suffering next to us, and we free us from ourselves, who sometimes are selfish and deceitful; we obtain  the wonderful possibility of  changing.

St. John Paul II affirmed at the beginning of his Apostolic Letter “Salvifici Doloris”,  Declaring the power of salvific suffering, the Apostle Paul says: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church". (…) The joy comes from the discovery of the meaning of suffering, and this discovery, even if it is most personally shared in by Paul of Tarsus who wrote these words, is at the same time valid for others. The Apostle shares his own discovery and rejoices in it because of all those whom it can help—just as it helped him—to understand the salvific meaning of suffering[1].

The number of athletes is increasing, but it’s even more impressive the lack of love in the world of sport, and

if we are created and we go in search of the God who is Love, why do we not offer the pain of so many hours of training? God  constantly gives us the possibility to practice love, so many people are thirsty for love and consolation. We need  to offer everything  we do, in fact if we do not do out of love, nothing is gained.  Without love there is no gain. As St. Paul says, “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish line; I have kept the faith; all there is to come for me now is the cro

wn of uprightness which the Lord, the upright judge, will give to me on that Day; and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his appearing.”[2]

That day I finished my training thinking about what I could do with the inevitable pain that I would continue to experience while practicing the Ironman in September.  I thought until there is a reason to offer my pain, my pain will have  meaning: No Love, no gain.

PS: Obviously it was not me who wanted to think about all of this, but our wonderful and delicate loving God gave me the chance to encounter in sport my path of spiritual growth. In my search of meaning regarding the destiny of pain in sports, He gave me the extraordinary opportunity of meeting Joseph, my very young neighbor  (suffering from cancer) in order to love him.  I could even  hug him  from my athletic path. Then I realized how many more suffering children I could think of while I was swimming or cycling..

Colomba Serrano, founder of  “+Alla del deporte”

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[1] John Paul II,  Apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris on the Christian meaning of human suffering. LEV 1984.

[2] St. Paul,  Second letter to Timothy - Chapter 4.

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