The Lord's Day or CYO's Day

When our children were three and under, we met a good Catholic family whose boys enjoyed playing sports, especially soccer and tennis. The boys' parents, Anne and Paul, made sure they were able to do so, signing them up to play on soccer teams and taking them to one of the local tennis courts to hit the ball with them. Anne would occasionally talk to me about her boys' teams and/or their games. One fall, as we were talking, she told me that she did not know whether or not her boys would be playing soccer in the same league because some of the games were scheduled on Sundays. She told me that she had told the coach and others in charge that her boys would not be able to play on the team if the game days weren't changed. Anne knew that it is not a sin to play sports on Sundays, but she also knew that God and Mass were priorities for her family and she did not want to have sports competing with their faith. I am thankful for her example.


Receiving a Trophy from Coach John (Boys & Girls Club)

When some of our children expressed a desire to play sports, we looked at CYO Athletics. However, when we learned that CYO often schedules its games on  Sundays in our Archdiocese, we had to stop and ask ourselves: "What would we be teaching our children if we were constantly changing when we went to Mass in order to accommodate a game? Would our children possibly learn that sports take priority over going to Mass?" We realized that our children could not participate in CYO sports for one simple reason: We will not juggle our Mass schedule in order to let our children play on CYO teams. Sundays are the Lord's Day, not CYO's Day.