By the time you read this issue of Jesuits and Friends, the FIFA World Cup will be coming to a conclusion. I hazard a guess that if you are not a football fan, you might be pretty fed up with it all by now.
Interestingly, the game of football has a long history. In medieval times, a skin of ale was placed midway between two villages, and the object of the exercise would be to get the beer back to one's own village. The whole village would play, and it wasn't so much the number of goals that counted as the number of dead or injured.
Things were not so different in the reign of Elizabeth I, where football was still very popular. The game is mentioned in a letter from Fr Pibush which the Jesuit Provincial, Henry Garnet, forwarded to Fr Aquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus in Rome, in 1600.
He writes: "My Father, those who propose to come to this country and work profitably therein, must bring along with them vigorous souls and mortified bodies. They must forgo all pleasures and renounce every game but that of football, which is made up of pushes and kicks, and requires constant effort, unless one would be trampled underfoot; and in this game they have to risk their lives in order to save souls."
I am not sure whether the players in the various World Cup teams "bring with them vigorous souls and mortified bodies", but their single-mindedness and determination can be an example to us who continue to dedicate our lives to the game of "saving souls".
Fortunately, in this issue of Jesuits and Friends, there are many examples of those who play this game very skilfully, and some still risk their lives in doing so. I hope you enjoy reading these accounts and are inspired by them. Enjoy your summer.
Fr Tim Curtis SJ
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