Every Wednesday night, a crew of student athletes—easily spotted on campus with our team backpacks—makes its way into the student lounge at STM. Often sore from the day’s workout, or the seemingly never-ending midterm season, we gather in community and prayer as Cathletes. Brought together by our shared faith and experiences as both Catholics and athletes, we congregate to take stock of our spiritual lives and to track our individual faith journeys, applying our collective penchant for training routines and athletic goal-setting to our lives as Catholics.
Revived from a previous group at STM, we began coming together last semester. Led by Tim Ritchie, a professional long distance runner and volunteer assistant coach with the Yale Track and Field team, Cathletes has become an inviting outlet for us to foster friendship across teams while engaging in theological dialogue. Tim serves as a mentor to us all, bringing his rich background in the Catholic intellectual tradition and his experiences as an exceptional athlete to our discussions—Tim holds a masters in theology from Boston College and is the 2017 USA Track & Field national champion in the marathon.
Together, we have sought to better incorporate prayer and meditation into our daily lives as we learn to see the beauty of God’s works in the small moments that are too often drowned out by the demands of grueling athletic and academic schedules. With these moments of joy also comes the practice of realizing our shortcomings and honestly assessing where we need to grow as Catholics and as athletes. Deriving inspiration from Tim Muldoon’s The Ignation Workout, we apply our athletic experience to the exercise of our spiritual lives through a guided “training” regiment, one drawn from the life and writings of St. Ignatius. Just as we do with our teammates in our respective sports, our weekly meetings keep us accountable to our faith development and provide support and comfort as we pursue common goals.
For me, Cathletes is a bright spot in my week, allowing me to pause for a moment among track workouts and laboratory experiments to shape my spiritual life. While I won’t be racing in a Yale uniform for much longer, I will carry with me the support of this STM community for many miles to come.
