While Father Weldon was away, I had the chance to offer Mass at St. Joseph’s in Andale.  This is the sermon preached today to the football team and the other parishioners present.

Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
St. Joseph Catholic Church, Andale, KS
September 18, 2026

You sometimes hear it said that competing in sports is good training for life.  If that’s true—and in fact, it is—then you have to ask:  in life, who is your opponent?  This evening your opponent will be Wellington’s football team.  But who will be your opponent in ten years; in twenty years; in fifty years?

Fortunately, we’re blessed to belong to a Church that’s nearly 2000 years old.  During those twenty centuries, many saints have written about those questions.  The saints teach us that in our lives on this earth, we have three opponents.

The first is the Devil.  That’s pretty obvious, but the second is not as obvious.  Our second opponent is the world.  God created the world to be good, but because of sin, there’s much in the world around us that we have to oppose strongly.

Our third opponent in our Christian lives on earth is the least obvious.  It is our own selves.  Saint Paul speaks about this opponent in one of his letters in the New Testament.  He makes a confession about his own weakness:  “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” [Romans 7:15].

Because of Original Sin, each of finds ourselves divided.  In addition to doing the hard work of cultivating the virtues, you also need God’s grace.  Without God’s grace, you can do nothing.  With His grace, you will find self-mastery, so that you can accomplish all things in Christ.