Last week, Randy Pausch died at the age of 47 from pancreatic cancer. You may have seen him on Oprah where he reenacted his last lecture from Carnegie Mellon or read his book entitled The Last Lecture.  I received his book as a going away gift and once I began to read, it was tough to put down.   Pausch’s story is phenomenal. 

One highlight of the book is when Pausch writes about how his romance with football started when his father dragged him screaming to the football field to join a league. It was there he met Coach Jim Graham, a huge man with a booming voice. On the first day of practice, every boy was scared to death. Plus, as Pausch notes, the coach hadn’t brought any footballs. One boy finally said, “Excuse me, Coach. There are no footballs.”   Coach Graham responded, “We don’t need any footballs, son.”  Pausch wrote, “There was a silence, while we thought about that.”
 
“How many men are on the football field at a time?” he asked us. Eleven on a team, we answered. So that makes twenty-two. “And how many people are touching the football at any given time?”  One. “Right!” he said. “So we’re going to work on what those other twenty one guys are doing.”  

Fundamentals.  Fundamentals.   Fundamentals.
 
The coach was right: you’ve got to know fundamentals before you can delve into anything fancy. Yet, how many Catholics know the fundamentals of their faith?  How many practicing Catholics see value in recognizing their own sinfulness and seeking God’s grace through Reconciliation?   Ever notice how easy it is to point out someone else’s sin rather quickly, but how difficult it is to see sin in ourselves?
 
We all must remember the fundamentals of our Catholic faith so we never lose sight of the ultimate victory: Heaven. When we use the fundamentals of our Catholic faith as the foundation of our lives we will find ourselves to be stronger Catholics, empowering others and spreading the Word of God in ways we never dreamed possible.  It all begins with fundamentals.

Have a great week!

Love,

Fr. Bill