I love the game of baseball. It was my favorite sport growing up and I played from a young age through high school. Consequently, I have been to many baseball practices and games in my day, and continue to attend as I help coach my own son who now plays baseball. I have also watched many games whether in person or on television. Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves was my first favorite baseball player as I spent the ages of 2-7 growing up in the Peach State. When my family moved to Western Pennsylvania, I became a Pirates fan, and despite their perennial failure as a franchise during my lifetime, I have never wavered in my love for the game.
Because there are so many aspects of the game of baseball, there is one area that I personally enjoyed above the others in competition. While I loved batting and base running, what brought me the most joy was “shagging balls” whether in the air or on the ground. The accomplishment of tracking down balls hit by coaches or in batting practice brought me great satisfaction. As a result, I have a lot of fond memories in the field of sliding stops or diving catches.
One of my least favorite baseball activities was the simple game of catch. Before every practice and every game, it is customary to grab a partner and loosen up your throwing arm by tossing the baseball back and forth until your arm is ‘warm.’ This usually takes about 10 minutes. For me, after just a couple of minutes of catch, I was ready to move on to things that were more fun like batting practice or fielding practice.
In reflection on these two baseball activities (my favorite and least favorite), an analogy can be drawn to the spiritual life. Playing catch and fielding can directly correlate to the active and contemplative life. In the active spiritual life of a Christian, we have been instructed to engage in the Works of Mercy in love to our neighbor (all people, especially the poor). This can often be very satisfying, because we can visually see the fruit of our labor when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those imprisoned, instruct the ignorant etc. Not only can we feel a sense of accomplishment when completing these tasks, but we can also receive the reward of gratitude from the person who we are helping. Fielding is similar in that we have an objective to track down balls put in play to record outs, and when we accomplish them, we can not only feel accomplished but also earn the admiration of our teammates and fans.
Playing catch, on the other hand, has very little sense of accomplishment and very little chance of receiving admiration. The only thing to accomplish is to loosen your arm up enough to save you from major injury. Catch is an activity of preparation, which is similar to the contemplative aspect of the spiritual life. Before we go out to be at the service of others, we need to loosen up the hardness of our hearts in the presence of our Lord. We must take time to pause in a seemingly fruitless activity in order to bear much fruit. The contemplative life is the heart of the active life of the Christian and is essential if we are going to act in true love to those in need. Everything that we do in our community must flow from our relationship with God just as our playing the game of baseball flows from our initial game of catch.
But the game of catch has taken on an additional meaning that has an even deeper analogy for the contemplative life. In popular culture, the parent playing catch with their child has become a form of quality time. The dad who has taken the time off from his work to take his son outside with his mitt has become a symbolic laudable trait that represents the importance of a parent to sacrifice their time to be with their kids. This game of catch accomplishes nothing practically speaking, but creates an environment in which a kid feels loved and cared for. It is from this familial environment created by this event and others like it, that a child is given the foundation to accomplish his/her dreams in life. Or more analogously: the child is given the confidence to go out and play the field and “shag balls” in their own life.
This is the essence of the spiritual life. We spend time in contemplation (or playing catch) with our heavenly Father which prepares us for going out to do His will (fielding). Our time with our Heavenly Father is the life blood of our spiritual life. But it does not end there. The will of the Father is not to stay in the active life. The active life will come to an end. All of our active life activities are meant to bring us back into the contemplative life. This is why Jesus tells Martha that her sister Mary has chosen the better part to sit at His feet and listen, because this is what heaven is. This life here on earth is a preparation for an eternity in God’s presence. So in reality, when we think the spiritual game of catch is the prep for the field of the active spiritual life, the field is actually the purification for the ultimate eternal game of catch. Just as Martha had to learn from her sister, we need to learn that being in the presence of our Father is more important than accomplishing the active life tasks. God is always offering Himself to us in a game of catch in every tabernacle/monstrance in the world. He is offering Himself in every moment that we can spend in prayer. It is up to us to not just make time for Him, but to reorient our life around that game of catch with our Heavenly Father.
