SPORTS fans are ready for today’s Super Bowl, the U.S.’s single biggest sporting event, and Cincinnati Bengals fans are preparing to cheer and pray for their team against the Los Angeles Rams.
Count Fr Tom Wray, Catholic chaplain for the team, among them.
Fr Wray has served as the team’s chaplain for the past two years, “during the COVID era,” which has added extra challenges for the Catholic faithful of the Bengals’ franchise.
Namely, most of the Masses he celebrates for the team have to take place via Zoom.
“The NFL requires that on Saturday evenings during the season that (the coaches, team and staff) are quarantined, so they’re not to physically be at any vigil Mass and of course, on Sunday morning. … So the league tries to make available to them their Mass obligation,” Fr Wray, who is parochial vicar at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in Cincinnati, said.
As part of his chaplaincy, Fr Wray has conversations and provides spiritual guidance to those who work for the team.
“A lot of the time it’s coaches and staff just talking about what it’s like to be mentors and guides to these very gifted young elite athletes, and just the kind of pressure these athletes are under and then how to help them uncover the best version of themselves.
“And of course, that also means the supernatural dimension,” Fr Wray told The Catholic Telegraph, Cincinnati’s archdiocesan newspaper.
In particular, Catholic players, coaches and staff are praying through the intercession of Our Lady of Victory for the Super Bowl final.
Prior to the team’s departure for California, Fr Wray met with the team at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati for prayer and a blessing.
He blessed medals of Our Lady of Victory for them to carry with them on their journey.
The Bengals asked Fr Wray to spread the word that they would like the faithful to pray for them.
“We pray that God would grant their hearts’ desires and that their vocation, as coaches and players, that their gifts, their service would make them better disciples, better husbands, better men, better human beings or Catholics,” the priest said.
“And if in God’s wisdom, and his vocation for them, if victory at the Super Bowl will do that, that is absolutely moral and just for us to pray for victory.”
