Virgin Mary ‘Crosses the Finish Line’ with Olympic Gold Runner

Ethiopian athlete Meseret Defar provided one of the most emotional moments of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games when she crossed the finish line in the 5000 meter race to win the gold.

She then pulled a picture of the Virgin Mary out from under her jersey, showed it to the cameras and held it up to her face in deep prayer.

An Orthodox Christian, Defar entrusted her race to God with the sign of the cross and reached the finish line in 15:04:24, beating her fellow Ethiopian rival Tirunesh Dibaba, who was the favorite to win.

A teary-eyed Defar proudly showed the picture of the Virgin Mary with the Baby Jesus that she carried with her for the entire race…

Putting your faith on display. Speaking of which, may I suggest you check out BBC’s Censorship of Usain Bolt’s Christian Faith posted by Fr Tim Finigan.

Blogger “Cranmer” asks Why does the BBC ignore Usain Bolt’s God? It is a good question. Usain Bolt always makes the sign of the cross before each race, offers a prayer and then openly gives thanks to God after he has won. As Cranmer says:

The BBC have known for more than four years what Usain Bolt always does, before and after each race, without fail: how he chooses the moment the camera is on him to make the act of humble worship, as a very public witness that it is the Creator who made him fast. They have been briefed to bits by Bolt’s PR team and by members of his family: Usain Bolt is a Bible-believing, God-honouring, Jesus-worshipping Christian. But not a whisper from the BBC; not a word of explanation of the real significance of these ‘moments to himself’.

Thanks to the censorship of Bolt’s Christian identity, many people might simply assume that because his name is a bit like “Hussein”, he must be Muslim.

There may well have been some talk on the radio about his faith, but it is excluded from the multi-billion viewer coverage.

 

I Am Nothing Without Them

The French freestyle relay team stunned the world by winning the gold medal in the 4×100 meter contest by defeating the Americans.

But there was another surprise.

Fabien Gilot raised his arm in victory to reveal a moving tribute in Hebrew: אני כלום בלעדיהם, meaning “I am nothing without them.”

Gilot explained that it was a tribute to Max Goldschmidt, a Jewish grandfather figure.

Goldschmidt, who grew up in Germany and was an Auschwitz survivor, moved to France where he met Gilot’s grandmother. Despite not being his biological grandfather, Goldschmidt was an important and inspirational person in Gilot’s life, and “a grandfather in every way,” Michael Gilot, Fabien’s father, told YNet.

Goldschmidt passed away earlier this year.

This is not the only moving tribute to a Jewish figure at this year’s Olympic Games in London. The same day that Fabien Gilot revealed his Hebrew tattoo, the Italian delegation to the Olympics held a minute of silence with the Israeli team to commemorate the 11 victims of the 1972 Munich massacre.

Huffington Post

 

The Olympic Games: How They All Began

Download a free e-Book on the history of the games to learn the ancient context for the games.

To do so at the Biblical Archaeology Society, click here.

 

 

Religion at the Olympics, from Ancient Greece to London

Religion News Service:

A 600-foot footrace was the only athletic event at the first Olympics, a festival held in 776 B.C. and dedicated to Zeus, the chief Greek god.

For the next millennium, Greeks gathered every four years in Olympia to honor Zeus through sports, sacrifices and hymns. The five-day festival brought the Greek world together in devotion to one deity.

What began in ancient Greece as a festival to honor a single god, Zeus, has now become an almost Olympian task, as organizers of the games navigate dozens of sacred fasts, religious rituals and holy days.

The London Olympics will try to accommodate religious athletes with 193 chaplains, a prayer room in every venue and a multifaith center in the Olympic Village.

Athletes at the ancient Olympics believed their training honored the gods, and victory was a sign of favor from a deity. As contests like wrestling, boxing, and horse racing were added to the Olympic roster, they supplemented devotional sacrifices, hymns, and ceremonies.

“The idea was that you were training to please Zeus. But part of the festival would be to visit the temple, visit the cult statues, making offerings, celebrating and seeing your family,” said David Gilman Romano, a professor of Greek archaeology at the University of Arizona.

The combination of Greek sport and worship led the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, to ban the Olympics in 393 A.D.

The Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 after excavations at Olympia renewed public interest in the athletics and pageantry of the Olympics.

Though not sectarian, the modern games began to take on their own quasi-religious rituals.

Coubertin borrowed ceremonies, hymns, and rituals from the ancient festival to shape a transcendent “Olympism,” uniting all athletes. Some scholars today refer to his creation as a “civil religion.”

“The civil religion was not so much the worship or devotion to the state, as it is often now understood,” explained Joseph Price, a professor of religion at Whittier College in California who researches sport and religion. Devotion “was to the civitas, the human group that transcended a particular religion.”

Over the years, the International Olympic Committee and host states introduced “new” symbols to bolster Olympism, said Stephen Mosher, professor of sport management and media at Ithaca College in New York.

Still, the modern games have touches from the ancient past…

Rest here.

 

Did St Paul Attend the Olympics?

Bishop Kevin Farrell:

St. Paul could have attended the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. He was in Greece when they were being played. He never mentioned the Olympics in his letters, but he has a lot to say about winning.

“Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. ^“(1 Cor 9:24-25)

He is not talking about “winning the gold.” The prize St. Paul is referring to is “an imperishable one,” and the race he is referring to is the journey we all make to God. The great thing about this race is that everybody can win the prize. But, like the Olympians, it takes determination and self-discipline.

Athletes from throughout the world are in London this week to compete for the “perishable prize” referred to by St. Paul. Most of them have trained for years to make it to the Olympics. They have willingly sacrificed many legitimate pleasures in order to prepare their bodies for a single moment of glory and piece of precious metal on a ribbon. They compete knowing that the odds are against most of them.

Our training regimen for our race for the imperishable prize is much simpler. We heard it in the first reading of the Mass last Monday. “…to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

I look forward to the Olympics. Let’s enjoy the games, but let’s never lose sight of our own race and the imperishable prize.

The New Proposed London 2012 Olympic Logo

Source

Iran Protests 2012 Olympic Logo: Racist! Zionist!

Tehran has officially challenged the 2012 London Olympic Games logo as racist and Zionist.

Head of Iran’s Olympic Committee Bahram Afsharzadeh said the logo was designed by a freemason organization.

“We had to protest the measure. We intend to write a letter to the Asian Olympic Council to urge them to follow up on the issue,” he told ISNA.

Tehran believes the geometrical figures illustrating “2012″ in the logo conceal the word “Zion,” a term Iranian officials use to describe Israel and its government, which they do not recognize.

Some Muslim nations raised objections as soon as the logo was unveiled, but their objections were rejected by British Olympic Committee and International Olympic Committee officials.

Afsharzadeh said some British individuals and organizations also protested the logo.

“This is the first time that this has happened in the history of the Olympics. Zionists have exercised influence in Britain, and according to our information, the summer games logo has been designed by a Zionist organization linked to freemasons,” he said.

The above was here. Silly.