Catholic Exchange » Tom O’Toole

Running the Rosary

Tom O’Toole — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Almost since its inception, the rosary has been an “in motion” devotion, for along with the accounts of recitation while tending sheep or in front of the Blessed Sacrament, stories abound of the rosary being said while riding or walking from town to town.

Into a Groove

While no one doubts St. Dominic prayed the mysteries while sprinting from some angry Albigensians, or St. Louis de Montfort shouted the psalter while racing away from the irate French freethinkers, running was not a typical way of reciting the rosary until recently. But since the running boom of the late '70s, running has become a popular means of exercise in our country, with many Catholics praying the rosary as they run.

Bishop Tom Paprocki (nicknamed the “Running Reverend” by Chicago reporters) started distance running in the mid-seventies as a student at Mundelein Seminary. There he would do a three-mile jog around the lake. However, his running decreased once he became a priest, until in 1994, when one of his six brothers challenged Tom to run with him in a marathon.

“Like a lot of people, I was under the false impression you had to start running 15 miles a day to enter a marathon,” Paprocki stated. Instead, he enrolled in an 18-week marathon preparation course which not only showed him how to increase his mileage safely, but covered related topics like proper rest and nutrition. Paprocki, who as bishop gives advice to everyone from Francis Cardinal George to the average parishioner, proved he took advice well, too, completing his first of many marathons in 1995. And by combining pledge-raising with his marathons, he has raised almost $100,000 for local charities along the way.

As with many Catholic marathoners, Paprocki’s mobile prayer life developed as his distance increased. “At first, running was a time to think about problems, or free my mind,” he recalled. “Later, I’d use some of the time for prayer. Finally, I figured that running was a great time to say the rosary. They both get you into a groove; running into a physical pace and the rosary into a spiritual one.”

Follow Me

While many are drawn to Christ through praying the rosary, Jeani Allaway is truly a soul who has literally experienced the Joyful, Sorrowful and now Glorious Mysteries in her life. A devoted mother of four, she didn’t begin running until she was in her forties, completing her first marathon in 1993. However, heartbreak came in April of 1997, as Jeani was diagnosed with a serious blockage on one side of her brain and was told she would have to undergo four, five-hour procedures and a fifteen-hour surgery. Even with all that, prognosis for a full recovery looked grim.

But if St. Paul went into spiritual battle with the armor of God (cf. Eph 6:13-17), the undaunted Jeani Allaway strode into surgery bearing the hardware of Mary. She wore a scapular around her neck, had a miraculous medal pinned to her gown and a rosary wrapped around her wrist, and held a one-inch statue of Mary during the entire operation. She came through remarkably well and was released from the hospital in a mere twelve days. As soon as she got home, Jeani went running. Meanwhile, Tom, her flabbergasted husband, decided to follow her.

But this run was different. Tom, who had been a Presbyterian the first thirty years of their marriage, saw in Jeani’s miraculous recovery and dogged determination something he did not see before. He joined RCIA that week and the following Easter was received into the Church. “I guess you could say he followed me in another way, too!” Jeani says, smiling.

“I love to pray the rosary when I run,” Jeani confided. “You can be so preoccupied with life’s worries, but when you go out to ‘run the rosary,’ they just don’t seem that important anymore.”

Multiplication Is the Key

In 1982, there was little doubt Alberto Salazar was the top dog of distance runners, having not only won four marathons in a row (including the prestigious New York and Boston races), but being the US record-holder at 5,000 and 10,000 meters. His faith life, however, was a different story. “I was…the average Catholic,” Salazar told me. “I told people I had faith, but everything else was second place to running. I could usually fit in both Mass and my 20-mile runs on Sundays, but if there was a conflict, the 20-mile runs would win. Intellectually, I knew that God, my wife and child were most important, but in my heart, running was my god.”

But when a series of serious injuries kept Salazar out of the winner’s circle for twelve years, Alberto regained his Catholicism and signed on for one last race, the 53.75-mile Comrades Ultra Marathon in South Africa. While some in the press laughed at him for being too old, and many in the crowd booed him as a “brash American,” the jeers miraculously turned to cheers, when, after briefly dropping out at the 30-mile mark, Alberto resumed running, now praying the rosary out loud. “The crowd saw that I was humbled and could actually see there was a higher force working within me,” Salazar recalled “and not only did they start to cheer, many even began praying the rosary with me,” spurring Salazar on to victory in his final competition.

But perhaps Salazar’s race in 1994 points to a new rosary-running reality in 2006. As St. Alphonus Liguori states, “It is preferable to say [the rosary] with others rather than alone.” I live in a town where the local public high school has won 30-plus state cross-country championships under Coach Joe Newton, a devout Christian whose favorite movie is Chariots of Fire. Here, it is not unusual to see groups of dedicated young men and women running around town almost any hour of the day. If we could have similar groups of rosary runners chanting the mysteries as they ran their miles, there’s no telling what good they would bring to their city, their country, and the world.

So if you would like to take up this apostolate and “run” with it, start a Rosary Runners group within your school, church group or runners' club. Not only will it shape up your troupe physically, but I have the feeling that these mobile forces of the Marian army will inflict great damage on the devil’s diabolical divisions as well. As Saint Paul reminds us, “Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one” (1 Cor 9:24-25).

“Every day unbelievers and sinners cry. ‘Let us crown ourselves with roses.’ But our cry should be, “Let us crown ourselves with roses of the Most Holy Rosary’” (St. Louis De Montfort).

Tom O’Toole is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and lives in Elmhurst, Illinois. His book Champions of Faith: Catholic Sports Heroes Tell Their Stories is available through Amazon.com. To purchase an autographed copy, or to have Mr. O’Toole speak at your function, contact him at tacotoole@aol.com or through his website at www.fighting-irish-thomas.blogspot.com.

Feeling Blue: Sam (and My Son)

Tom O’Toole — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Reminiscing recently at the grave site of a dear (if unique) friend, my mind kept wandering back to the present, and my troubled thoughts about Gary, my son, who was about to join the Navy. And suddenly I saw the connection.

Hangin’ Out in the ‘Hood

People often wondered how a recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame became friends with a man like Samuel Principato, Sr., so we’ll cover that part first. Unlike many of my classmates who had six-figure jobs upon graduation, I was attempting to become a Catholic journalist and was living in a broken-down boarding house above a pizza restaurant — neighbors with drug dealers and prostitutes as well as one cranky ex-con.

To summarize a man like Sam in several paragraphs seems impossible, but for the sake of a story, Sam was born to a loving but loud Irish mom and a proud but headstrong Italian father. Dad left home when Sam was quite young, and in his early teens Sam followed suit. Living on the streets, he married his girlfriend, only to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter when he accidentally killed her in a lovers’ quarrel. Released from prison five years later, Sam married the first girl he got pregnant because he desperately wanted kids.

As you probably guessed, Sam’s luck did not get better. Sam’s second wife divorced him and he lost custody of his son and daughter when he was sent back to prison after being convicted as the lookout man in a safe-cracking job. After leaving jail the second time, he was beaten to within an inch of his life with baseball bats by a rival mob, and was run over by cars twice, but survived all of this only to succumb to his lungs collapsing from a forty-year, two-pack-a-day Camel Straight habit — at age 52.

Underneath It All

But even tough guys shed tears if you listen long enough, and after I got past his cigarettes and incessant cursing, he cried while telling me how he missed his first wife, idolized his absent father and wished to be reconciled with his two children.

I married and moved out, but Sam would still invite me over to talk and watch mobster movies like The Godfather and GoodFellas. And although Sam never did reunite with his children, and his short life could definitely be called a tragedy, something miraculous did indeed happen. So at the funeral lunch, when the only positive stories relatives could tell about “Skippy,” was how happy he was when he was six years old and received a sailor’s suit, I decided to update them on Sam’s quest for salvation.

“Toward the end of his life,” I told the crowd, “Sam not only started watching and believing shows on Blessed Faustina and the Little Flower (instead of gangster or porno flicks), but he practically adopted my nine-year-old daughter, buying Therese gifts or cards out of his meager disability money every time she came over.” But to my surprise, instead of being overjoyed, the crowd just stared. Did they not believe me, I wondered — or was it still not good enough? “If you don’t listen to his swears, you won’t hear his prayers,” my young daughter had once commented, and at that moment I realized how true her statement was.

Instead of dressing Sam in his beloved dago t-shirt, black leather jacket, jeans and his “cool” scruffy beard, Sam appeared in the casket as Mr. Rogers, groomed and clean-shaven while wearing a dress shirt, slacks and a pale yellow cardigan sweater. Now, six years later, while gazing at the tombstone, I noticed above the words “Samuel Principato, Sr., only son of Salvador Principato” (an inscription Sam had personally picked out to honor his father), that Mom had later engraved “First Born of Dorothy McCarthy” figuring she could once again get the last word in now that he was dead.

A Turn of the Heart

Like Sam’s mother, I too had come to the grave heavy of heart and angry at my son. Angry at the people or demons who changed Gary from one who walked to daily Mass and weekly confession to one who doubted or denied almost every aspect of his faith, angry at Gary for calling his mother a “horrible mom” and me a bad dad (only the latter was partially true, for as a Catholic freelance writer I was sometimes a poor provider). I was angry at him for “escaping” to the Navy, whose wars he did not believe in and desperately did not want to fight, and angry at the Navy for accepting Gary despite knowing this to be true. But suddenly, Our Lady used a memory to turn my anger into laughter, and I again remembered my role.

I recalled the story of how Sam had chased a nun (whose first act of “charity” toward him was to tell everyone in the complex not to give or buy him cigarettes) out of his apartment with a baseball bat. Of course, “chase” was a relative term, for Sam was wheezing and attached to a 20-pound oxygen tank, but Our Blessed Mother’s message was coming in loud and clear.

Even if Gary’s choice of the Navy wasn’t made with the soberest of minds and purest of intentions, our job was still to support him the best we could. My wife and I had to continue to listen to him, hope he would take advantage of the career training and stay out of harm’s way, and, lastly, trust in the words of St. Ambrose to St. Monica about her son Augustine, that “God would not reject the prayers and tears of so loving a mother.” And I laughed again when, in my mind’s eye, I saw Mary dressed in her traditional colors, herself laughing as heaven’s new arrival, clothed in Levis, dago-T and that trademark leather jacket, strolled up and joked, “Hey Mary! Tell Gary's dad that at least the Navy wears blue, too!”

© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange

Tom O’Toole is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and lives in Elmhurst, Illinois. His book Champions of Faith: Catholic Sports Heroes Tell Their Stories is available through Amazon.com. To purchase an autographed copy, or to have Mr. O’Toole speak at your function, contact him at tacotoole@aol.com.

Sports and the Catholic Fan

Tom O’Toole — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden…and persevere in running the race that lies before us” (Heb 12:1).

Do Fans’ Prayers Count?

For many a Catholic or Protestant participant, praying for one’s self before, after or even during a sports contest has become commonplace. But given the popularity of both professional and amateur sports in our country, should the Christian fan also be encouraged to pray for his favorite team? And, even more to the point, can a fan’s prayers actually influence the outcome?

To answer this question, one must start by asking whether fans have any impact on the game itself. Certainly, even the most cynical of sports critics readily admits to the “home court” advantage, that even though fans do not participate directly in the game, their cheers can inspire extra effort from their chosen charges, not to mention make it more difficult for the opponents to perform. Of course, while some may claim that much of what the home fan offers is either nasty putdowns or mere noise, this evidence encourages Catholics to wonder whether fan influence can not only be enhanced by the prayers of those at the ballpark, but extended to the petitions of the faithful who follow the team via the airwaves as well.

While movies such as Remember the Titans and Glory Road accurately depict how teams helped small towns to come together to eliminate racism, for Catholics, the movie Cinderella Man (ironically directed by Ron Howard, the same man who gave us the astonishingly anti-Catholic film The DaVinci Code) best illustrates the power of intercessory prayer in sports. In it, the wife of boxer James J. Braddock enters a Catholic church to pray that her husband quit this violent sport — only to find the church jammed with people who have drawn hope from Braddock’s gutsy underdog performances, and are praying the rosary for his success in the upcoming heavyweight bout.

Football Theology

But as inspiring as the story of Braddock’s rise from Depression-Era rags to Heavyweight Championship riches is, the story of Notre Dame football is certainly the greatest and most enduring story of fans praying for their team. As both a sports journalist and a graduate of the university, I realize that many Catholics and non-believers question this theory, not only men like Murray Sperber, professor of English at Indiana University, who has written volumes ridiculing this notion, but even the late Coach Ray Meyer, himself a graduate of Notre Dame but best known as the long-time basketball coach of DePaul, who joked on the day of the game that after Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps went to morning Mass to light a candle for the Irish, he would go to a later liturgy and blow it out, then relight it for DePaul.

In Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football, Sperber chronicles how Fr. John O’Hara (president of ND from 1921-1933) and their famous coach Knute Rockne founded its “football theology.” In both sermons and written bulletins, O’Hara encouraged this connection of the faithful to football, even using calculations and charts which drew a direct correlation between the number of students receiving daily communion and the team’s chances for victory, while Rockne, after his conversion to Catholicism in 1925, scheduled few Catholic colleges so as not to divide the fan base. Spurred on by victories over Georgia Tech and other teams in anti-Catholic, pro-Ku Klux Klan states, O’Hara’s plea for prayer for the team from the nation’s Catholics was wildly successful, culminating with Notre Dame’s road win at highly favored Ohio State in 1935. Dubbed “The game of the half-century,” Notre Dame scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, including two in the last two minutes, and O’Hara was flooded with literally thousands of fans’ letters, many who claimed it was their rosaries that turned defeat into victory. This game also contributed to the practice of Catholic grade school teaching nuns leading their students in prayers for an Irish victory every autumn Friday. To Sperber, however, this was the final straw, for it gave “fans the illusion of power over their team’s destiny.”

Our Lady of Victory

While O’Hara’s direct correlation between communions and victories cannot be counted as doctrine, it is certainly closer to the truth than Sperber’s contention that those countless prayers meant nothing to the Irish’s success. When former Irish coach (and devout Catholic) Lou Holtz used to kid that “I don’t think God cares who wins a football game — but I think His Mother does,” he was actually speaking from experience.

College football is the number one spectator sport in our country, and as one of two Catholic universities (along with Boston College) who play Division I football, Notre Dame is for millions of enemy fans their only witness to the Catholic faith each autumn week. And while Boston College has enjoyed much gridiron success, Notre Dame’s greater fame is largely due to her name. When he founded Notre Dame and promptly built the Golden Dome, Father Edward Sorin made sure that everyone knew that Notre Dame was Our Lady, and, as our Lord’s number one fan, not acting on her own initiative but influencing His decisions nonetheless, Mary became the Fighting Irish’s number one fan as well, praying that the team’s play always reflect favorably on her Son.

Just as Notre Dame’s early victories gave hope to a Catholic immigrant population at a time when many Americans were not friendly toward our faith, praying for Notre Dame (and other Catholic teams) should once again be encouraged, especially among our young (and our young at heart). For with so many “Culture of Death” role models vying for their attention, following the exploits of a bunch of lads who lift their helmets in salute of Our Lady after every game, win or lose, may not be such a bad idea after all.

And thrice they cried like thunder

On Our Lady of Victories

The Mother of the Master of the Masterers of the world

– G.K. Chesterton: “The Arena”

© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange

Tom O’Toole is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and lives in Elmhurst, Illinois. His book Champions of Faith: Catholic Sports Heroes Tell Their Stories is available through Amazon.com. To purchase an autographed copy, or to have Mr. O’Toole speak at your function, contact him at tacotoole@aol.com.

The Cease-Fire of Prayer and Fasting

Tom O’Toole — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

“May He be prayed for continually; day by day shall they bless Him. May there be an abundance of grain upon the earth; On the tops of the mountains the crops shall rustle like Lebanon” (Ps 72:15-16).

Vicky Moussaed, 17, and her family, have lived in Furn El Chebbak, Lebanon, all of their lives. Although they had to “change houses” due to the bombing, they have never considered leaving Lebanon because it is home and they are “proud to be here.” And despite the turmoil, Vicky, her parents and her two younger sisters “have never missed a Sunday Mass.” Yet as solid as her Catholicism was, war would soon bring Vicky's conviction to another level.

“Our youth group, the University Christian Outreach (an organization authorized by Lebanese Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir), had planned a mission trip before the bombing began, but when the war started, we then decided to turn it into an intercession time for Lebanon,” Vicky stated, adding that Pope Benedict's call for prayer and fasting for the situation later confirmed their intentions. And so when they found the UCO retreat center in Southern Lebanon (sponsored by Bishop Georges Bakouni) surrounded by soldiers, the group of 51 Catholics, four Orthodox and one Evangelical Christian were not deterred but even more determined, instead settling on a Carmelite Convent in Raachine, Lebanon, in which to wage their war of prayer.

For eight days, starting with the Feast of the Transfiguration, Sunday August 6th, the group fasted, attended daily Mass, said communal prayers, and, with few exceptions, prayed the Rosary on their own. Despite the fact the war seemed to be worsening that week, the group never wavered. And against all odds, just as they were preparing to leave the convent on August 13th, news of the cease-fire came.

“Did you ever doubt your prayers would bring, well, such instant results?” I asked Vicky.

“No, because prayer is powerful,” she stated simply. “Fasting saved a country in the Bible and will save ours also.”

“But was there something, perhaps a word you received in prayer, that raised your confidence?”

Vicky paused, then proceeded, “Before we went on our mission trip, I had a vision of Our Blessed Mother covering Lebanon with her dress, and we became sure she was watching over us and will give us peace if we ask.”

“But will it (the cease-fire) last?” I wondered.

“We know Jesus don’t turn down any request for Our Mother!” she shot back in imperfect English but perfect understanding. “Yes we are still meeting every Wednesday to continue praying for a whole peace. We hope and pray ‘your kingdom come, your will be done!’ All we ask of everyone is prayer and to give us (the Lebanese people) equality.”

“And what should be done with Hezbollah?” I asked.

“The majority of Lebanese do not think that Hezbollah is terrorist,” Vicky confided. But [most] think they should give their weapons to the government in a peaceful way through dialogue. War is not the answer.”

“But are you, given the circumstance, afraid of what the future might bring to your country?” I again inquired.

“For the future, I give it all to God. For fear, ‘fear not from those who kill the body but from those who kill the souls,’” Vicky summarized.

Knowing time was growing short, I asked if our young defender of faith and freedom had any advice for our worldwide Catholic Exchange audience.

“Yes. Pray without ceasing. This will remove time for Satan to work,” she declared.

And while he might have said it a bit more eloquently, Pope Benedict XVI couldn’t have said it any better.

© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange

Tom O’Toole is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and lives in Elmhurst, Illinois. His book Champions of Faith: Catholic Sports Heroes Tell Their Stories is available through Amazon.com. To purchase an autographed copy, or to have Mr. O’Toole speak at your function, contact him at tacotoole@aol.com.

Sports and the Catholic Faith

Tom O’Toole — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

As the author of a book on Catholic sports biographies that sits on the shelves of The Vatican library, I am often asked about the relationship between sports and faith. And while St. Paul’s classic analogy “Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.” (1 Cor. 9:24-25) certainly suggests a strong connection between the two, million dollar athletes who proclaim after key games that Jesus was the reason for victory continue to make critics uneasy.

Is Winning Everything?

For the evangelical Protestant, winning seems to be the crucial issue in the sports/faith relationship, for victory is what provides them with the soapbox to preach that Jesus saved them, or the game, or both. Catholics, on the other hand, have a sacramental view of sports. Just as Jesus’ body and blood are present both really and symbolically in the Eucharist, life is present both really and symbolically on the playing field. For although the action is, in some respects, “just a game,” real suffering and joy do take place there. And since the Catholic finds value in both, he gains grace from sports both on and off the field, in both victory and defeat. In fact, the lesson of losing is perhaps even more valuable to the Catholic Christian, for in defeat one is truly united to the suffering of Christ (cf. Col 1:23-24).

And so to paraphrase Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, shall we continue to lose so that graces may abound (cf. Rom 6:1)? Of course not! The first rule of sports (and faith) is always to persevere, never to give up hope until the last second ticks off the clock. Anything less is a forsaking of teammates, coaches and even fans. Accepting defeat while there is still a chance of victory is totally unacceptable to the Catholic, and can be compared to the difference between committing suicide and dying a martyr.

Learning Perseverance

I usually explain to them the uneasiness is due to the fact that the athlete’s understanding of sports (and the faith) is not Catholic.

Few, whether Protestant or Catholic, will argue with St. Paul’s statement that the discipline and perseverance learned in sports can be a great model for growth in faith. As Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Archdiocese of Chicago (who was once dubbed “The Running Reverend” for the many marathons he raced before becoming bishop) told me, “When training under someone, it is easy to see why the derivation of the world ‘discipline’ is so close to the word ‘disciple.’” Indeed, it is the first part of St. Paul’s statement, the part about winning, where the controversy starts to creep in.

A Blessed Opportunity

While I have witnessed many examples of true Catholic athletic diligence, perhaps no one embodies it better than Cammi Granato of the United States Women’s Hockey Team. Six times the United States faced the Canadian team in the finals of international competition, and all six times our northern neighbors sent the USA team home in defeat. Finally Cammi figured out what was missing: while both teams had equal talent, the Canadian girls were closer off the ice and thus trusted each other more on it.

So before the 2000 Olympics, Cammi made sure the US team was not only sharp in competition, but tight away from the rink as well. The other matches went as planned until the night before the gold medal game, and Cammi began to pray.

“I fully realized how much this one game could change my life,” Cammi recounted, “how winning gold would not only validate the team, but would bring me more opportunities to promote my faith and women’s hockey, as well as to endorse products. I was tempted to pray for victory, but instead I just thanked God for blessing me with this opportunity and giving me the joy to compete, and then I just asked Him to allow me and my team to play our best, and I left the outcome in His hands.” Team USA won that game 3-1, and Cammi, voted the most inspirational athlete of the games by her countrymen and women, was chosen to carry the American Flag in the closing ceremonies.

© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange

Tom O’Toole is a Catholic freelance writer who lives in Elmhurst, Illinois. His book Champions of Faith: Catholic Sports Heroes Tell Their Stories is available through Amazon.com. To purchase an autographed copy, or to have Mr. O’Toole speak at your function, contact him at tacotoole@aol.com.