THE Olympic chaplaincy team is a welcoming space during which to “meet people as they’re”, certainly one of its 120 sports chaplains, the Revd Ben Harding, has said.
The multifaith team of chaplains, based within the Olympic Village, are offering pastoral support to athletes, coaches, staff, and supporters of the Paris Olympic Games, which end on Sunday. The Paralympic Games start on 28 August. The chaplaincy was first established for the Seoul games in 1988. This yr’s group of chaplains is the most important to assemble since then.
Mr Harding, who’s an Anglican and the Chaplain of Trinity Church, Lyon, described the multifaith centre as “a spot of listening, a spot of worship, a spot of fun, a spot of welcome and a spot of resource”, and said that his ministry was “a chance to talk to individuals who will see them as people — just to satisfy them as they’re as people”.
It was also a chance for athletes to “meet, learn from, and hopefully encourage Christians who face persecution at home”, in addition to to ask questions, including about how competitive sports and faith can work together.
“Under the pressure of international expectation for competitors and athletes, there is typically just that moment where people stop and they consider what is significant and re-evaluate their lives a little bit bit.”
Many Olympians this yr have been more vocal about how their faith has supported their journey to the Games. This includes the British swimmer Adam Peaty, who, after losing his Olympic title within the 100m breaststroke by 0.02 seconds, told the BBC: “I’m a really religious man. I asked God just to indicate my heart, and that is my heart. I couldn’t have done more.”
Simon Poole, from Christians in Sport, supports elite athletes in navigating the highs and lows of top-level sport. He can be certainly one of the leaders of an independent Evangelical church, Town Church Bicester.
“Competing on the Olympics is like experiencing ten funerals for each one wedding. In elite sport, each one person’s victory is on the expense of many others’ agony of defeat.”
The charity doesn’t collect data on the variety of Christians competing on the Games, and the identities of those with whom they work is confidential — but this small group of athletes has grown over the past few Olympic cycles.
“During the Olympics, we’ve got the privilege of supporting quite a lot of elite athletes as they compete at the best level,” Mr Poole said. “The reality is that winning on this stage may be just as destabilising as losing. Because even the high of an Olympic Gold fades away all too quickly, together with the razor sharp focus of giving all the pieces to realize a goal, and it could possibly get replaced with an emptiness and lack of purpose which many athletes have spoken about.”
Ben HardingThe Revd Ben Harding within the Olympic village
He continued: “For the Christian athlete nonetheless, the everlasting perspective and lasting victory given through Jesus completely transforms sport. It is when a Christian athlete grasps their fundamental identity that they’ll reply to each success and disappointment with remarkable maturity, and say: ‘Whether or not win gold doesn’t define me. Instead, I can provide because of God due to what he’s done for me, and I can provide thanks that he’s called me to compete to the very best of my ability knowing that the consequence doesn’t define me.’
“This isn’t straightforward or easy, but through Christ’s sacrifice, and God’s work in athletes by His spirit, it is feasible to say for the rightly upset or delighted Christian athlete.”
The US Episcopalian Molly Reckford, and her rowing partner, Michelle Sechser, finished sixth within the lightweight women’s double sculls final last Friday. Two-time defending world champions Emily Craig and Imogen Grant of Great Britain took the gold.
Ms Reckford, 31, and her siblings, were baptised at Christ Church, in Short Hills, within the diocese of Newark, which she still calls her home church. “The community at Christ Church in Short Hills could be very close with my family, they usually are really our clan in a variety of ways,” she told the Episcopal News Service last month. “Christ Church has all the time been an enormous a part of my life.”
Her father, Sam Reckford, is the diocesan chief financial officer. Her grandfather, the late Bill Spencer, was also twice an Olympian, competing in the lads’s biathlon on the 1964 and 1968 Winter Games.
Ms Reckford, who doesn’t often discuss faith within the skilled space, said that the Olympics did offer spiritual opportunities for the athletes. “One of my favourite places within the Tokyo village was this beautiful monument that was a tree, and you can write the name of a loved one who had passed away and tie it to the tree.” She wrote the name of her grandfather, who died in 2020.
“I believe certainly one of the things that Episcopalians are inclined to be present about — and definitely something that I feel very strongly personally — is a secure place, the importance of allowing everybody to have their very own religion and practice in their very own ways. . . One of the the reason why I loved that space within the Tokyo village was that it felt very holy without feeling exclusive in any way.”
On Sunday morning, representatives of the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths gathered outside Notre-Dame de Paris for a special interfaith service to have a good time fraternity on the Games.
The service included prayers, readings, and periods of silence. Chaplains from the Olympic Village multifaith centre spoke about how sport could “bring out the very best of humanity” and serve communities.
The Auxiliary Bishop of Paris, Bishop Philippe Marsset; the President of the Protestant Federation of France, the Revd Christian Krieger; and the national Orthodox hospital chaplain, the Revd Anton Gelyasov, represented the Christian faith. They were joined by the Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia; the president of the Association of the Mosques of Paris, Najat Benali; the co-president of the Buddhist Union of France, Lama Jigmé Thrinlé Gyatso; and Shailesh Bhavsar, representing the Hindu community.
The Bishop of Digne, the Rt Revd Emmanuel Gobilliard, who’s the Holy See’s special envoy to the Paris Olympics, told Vatican News: “I believe that is probably the most beautiful option to express a standard prayer; it means that you can say something necessary and delightful.”
Faithful challenged to affix Rosary Olympics. An app has been released by the Christian-based Hosana network to encourage users to “compete” in what it calls the Rosary Olympics, in parallel with the Olympic Games in Paris. The app challenges users to hope the rosary with “increasing intensity” throughout the duration of the Games, which finish on Sunday. The aim is “to channel the identical dedication athletes show into our prayer life, honouring the Virgin Mary with each heartfelt prayer”.
