I took my family to a hockey game. It was held in a brand new fancy schmancy arena with all the latest high tech bells and whistles. It is truly an amazing place. Throughout the night many fights broke out on the ice from the players, or should I say combatants? And every time a fight would break out the crowd would go nuts with loud cheering rewarding such bad behavior and sportsmanship. Sure, the players are sent to the penalty box for their actions but then the crowd cheers them on even more as they make their way off the ice. This is the same mentality seen on the Jerry Springer show. What a bad example to expose to my 6 year old daughter who plays soccer at a nearby parochial school. Her coaches start each game with a prayer and foster true sportsmanship and discourage any unnecessary roughness. Why do these values get tossed out the window at hockey games? Isn't this also a reflection on our society?
In Rome the pagans used their coliseums to persecute the Christians. They didn't have the big jumbo-tron screen, high tech lighting effects or megawatt sound systems. For as far advanced as we have become today we are not that much more civilized than ancient Rome. We know from the catechism that the church will undergo a final persecution that will be worse than all previous persecutions. And this is stated by the Church as a sure fact. Sometimes I wonder how far off from this reality we are today.
