Lessons from a Hockey Dad: Developing True Passion for Life

You can't force a passion upon anyone for anything, really.Fervor has to come from within.

DETROIT (Catholic Online) "The victor will inherit these gifts, and I shall be his God, and he will be my son. But as for cowards, the unfaithful, the depraved, murderers, the unchaste, sorcerers, idol-worshipers, and deceivers of every sort, their lot is in the burning pool of fire and sulfur, which is the second death." Rev. 21: 7-8

Ice hockey is huge here in Detroit--especially this time of year as our Red Wings continue their quest for Lord Stanley's Cup. My kids love the game. They play it, and follow it with a passion. We're blessed that they're healthy, and that we're able (with some help from Grandma and Grandpa) to afford something they enjoy. I admit though, we've stopped tracking the cost for fear it will stop our hearts.

Besides making us broke and them sweaty and smelly, it's a sport that teaches true life lessons: When you fall, you get up or the play might pass you by; when you're bumped, you take your knocks, but try to keep your balance and your composure; when you practice, work hard and learn how to share the puck, someone will score and your team will win; and when you slash the opponent, or deny him his right to skate freely by tripping, interfering or otherwise wrongly obstructing him, you are penalized and must spend some time in a box in solitary confinement. If the infraction is meant to cause serious harm, you're even thrown out of the game--maybe even out of the league. Funny, but they usually learn all this with great big smiles on their faces.

The Saturday 7 a.m. practices do make it hard to smile at first, and don't teach them much, except how to deal with grumpy parents. But they tend to weed out a few of the kids who are literally dragged out of the house and into an activity for which they have absolutely no desire. Some parents read the signs and move on to other sports. Others ignore them, however, and continue to haul their son or daughter to the rink, even though the kid's heart is anywhere but on the ice. Maybe it's because we live in what's called Hockeytown, but a few parents (and yeah, they're usually the dads) force their child out of the locker room dressed in the gear that their heroes wear, pretending their progeny will become the next Sidney Crosby or Nick Lidstrom. It's plain they're pursuing their own passion, not the child's. Eventually they'll learn they can't force their personal enthusiasm for what, they forget, is a game.

You can't force a passion upon anyone for anything, really. Fervor for any of life's endeavors has to come from within.

And this certainly holds true for our love for the Lord, for his Church, and for our neighbors--especially for the helpless children not yet born. Those of us who see the Lord and recognize the personhood of His pre-born future superstars are often like the dad who can't get his son to play his favorite sport. Frustrated. That's what we get when we come to realize there are people who don't care to see what we see, or to desire what we pray for. We can't coerce them to be moved by the hidden beauties around us, and within. We can't make them feel something that's not in their hearts.

There are those who might say they love the Lord and their neighbor--the kinds of people who might even go to church or attend Mass, but don't do much else to show where their hearts are. They are a perplexing bunch when it comes to detecting what, if anything, stirs them in their faith. We've all encountered them. They're the "IPTI-BOOs" (a silly nickname I came up with, but don't say out loud). Their one passion in life seems to involve not upsetting anyone at holiday gatherings or graduation parties, and begins, I think, from wanting to fit in nicely with a bigger Party. You hear them and their non-committal, well-rehearsed line about abortion when they declare so apologetically: "I Personally Think It's Wrong, But ...I Can't Force My Beliefs Onto Others." Omit some capital letters in the middle--like they omit any zeal for their weakly held creed--and IPTI-BOO seems like a nice self-describing acronym for these passionless party-goers.

I want to scream at the IPTI-BOOs, like an insane hockey dad trying to yell through the glass, but I know full well they can't hear anything. Like the glass, their ignorance is too thick and the shouts bounce right back. Still, I want to tell them, "No one is asking you to force your beliefs onto others--we're just asking you to stand up for the beliefs you have... and for some children who could be helped by them!" If they truly believe that purposely ending the life of an unborn brother or sister is wrong, then why aren't they just a tiny bit passionate about defending their siblings' right to be born? That it is an innocent child who is about to be killed must not really be an urgent issue for them. If they are Catholics, they will no doubt be our tepid brethren that future historians will one day point to when they disparage the Church and record that we were as unenthused about ending abortion as we were about stopping the Holocaust.

There are certainly those on the other hand who don't appear to love the Lord or neighbor, but who still are passionate about a belief of theirs. Take the late Dr. Tiller. Strange as it sounds, he must have been stirred by something he considered a righteous cause--albeit bolstered in his work by greed, perhaps, or some sort of power over other human beings. Regardless, it was enough to inspire him (although "inspire" really doesn't seem right here) to have performed thousands of abortions--many of them even the partial-birth kind. Giving Dr. Tiller the benefit of the doubt, maybe, just maybe, he truly believed that the world would be better off with fewer unwanted babies. And so, in the disordered passion he had for this cause, his sullied desires led him to his personal and rather gruesome attempt at what he thought was the bettering of society. Had he been blessed with the Faith and with the knowledge and wisdom coming from the Holy Spirit, he might have worked honorably to give aid and assistance to the women in his community who came to him struggling with untimely pregnancies.

He could have become a decent, honest, healing obstetrician or gynecologist--could have taught his patients about the genius design and awesome workings of their amazing female bodies, and enlightened them on the perfectly effective and safe methods of natural family planning that would work within them. He could have become that "caring, concerned physician" that we all hope is there when a women is doubting whether she can handle the carrying of another amazing body inside of her own.

And then there's the man who murdered him. He must have been stirred by something, too: an inordinate and impatient quest for justice, perhaps, or a spirit of hateful revenge for the 50,000,000 children lost to abortion in the past 36 years. He was passionate, for sure--passionate enough to surrender all of his civil liberties for the rest of his life. The abortionist's murderer started with a desire to end abortion which many, including those in the current Administration, are now recognizing as a good thing--finally agreeing that abortions should be rare and their numbers reduced. But the killer with the gun tried to end abortion with an immoral action. He failed to separate the sin from the sinner, the abortions from the abortionist, the issue from the individual. Because of that, the battle between pro-life and pro-abortion has for the moment been revisited with the same old senseless yelling by those who watch from the stands, rooting on their party and their team.

Tiller and his killer, they both went off course. They fell for Satan's trap to fight for something without the help of grace, to carry out some horribly flawed agenda, and to give in to one's unrestrained emotions and passions. And they both did it by killing fellow human persons. It's the ultimate misdirection of a real inflamed desire they had--one that perhaps was once fired up with a spark of goodness inside. How the Serpent must enjoy the final scenes of such evil plays of passion!

Does this mean that we should be wary of our passion for the causes of life and justice? That we should tone down our zeal and self-censor the words we choose to speak on behalf of the little ones? Should we back off our defense of the unborn lest people label us "radicals," saying we're no different than the underground monster who emerges from his cave when the weather is just right for killing an opponent and advancing a cause?

No. No. And no.

Our passion for all victims comes from the same passionate love for life that our Lord has for the children he created. All of them. Those who perish each day in clinics like Dr. Tiller's. And those, like Dr. Tiller, who daily perish from gunshots fired in hatred or anger.

Sadly, we inhabit a society where--because of so many misdirected passions--the idea of being passionate about something is strangely and erroneously linked with fanaticism. Maybe it comes from hanging around at gatherings, listening to the tiresome chants of the IPTI-BOOs. The only passion out there, it seems, is the one that calls for collective antipathy--making way now and then for a burst of righteous indignation as current events might prescribe.

There is and always will be, however, that one life-ending Passion that can never be called misguided--or can ever be toned down. It's the one that speaks of the most zealous self-giving anyone could ever pour out to a fellow human. It once caused a Man with a love to stand, stripped and humbled, before a man with a whip--wishing He had enough blood to shed in his human body to prove the never-ending love for us that comes from the divine. It made Him, willingly, spread out His arms on a cross--that place where all passions intersect as they are purified, up there, next to the Sacrifice where everyone can see them.

As the man who killed Dr. Tiller is brought to justice, human judges will act as referees, and all eyes will be distracted from that cross. But that's where our vision and our hope must return. Ultimately, the One who hung there will call all lives back to Himself, and will someday be the judge of each of us.

If we stay on the side that plays by the rules, and keep on with our love for life and the Giver of it all, then we will raise the trophy he won for us. Ironically, it also is a cup. And like the one in hockey, it too is named for a Lord.

By the rules of the game laid down long ago, no one can force it upon us. But somewhere, a parent--our Father, in fact--is screaming to us through the glass that temporarily divides heaven from earth. "Play for my Son's team," He yells.

If we close our eyes, and imagine Him moving His lips, we can see Him and read what He's saying. "The victor will inherit these gifts, and I shall be his God, and he will be my son."

-------

Len Gutmann lives in the Detroit area. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus, and is active in his parish's pro-life group. A carpenter and the father of four, he writes with the support of his wife, and at the behest of JPII's call to work for the new evangelization. He is a contributing writer for Catholic Online.

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'

Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online