: Trent Beattie
: Fit for Heaven
: Beacon Publishing
: 9781942611240
: 1
: CHF 10,70
:
: Christentum
: English
: 384
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Is it possible to integrate your faith with football, your beliefs with baseball, and your spirituality with soccer? Learn from the Pros. Trent Beattie talked with dozens of the world's best Catholic athletes-from All-Pro quarterback Philip Rivers to Olympic gold medalist Curt Tomasecicz-about integrating their sporting lives with their deeply held religious beliefs. This book is a compilation of their words of wisdom. Fit For Heaven is a perfect read for every Catholic husband, father, and son who is looking for practical, real-world ways to integrate his love for sports with his Catholic faith. Even though winning the World Series is a rarity, every man can play sports with charity.

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MASS-GOING MARINER SUITS UP

March 22, 2010

A 10th-round draft pick for the Kansas City Royals in 1991,Mike Sweeney made his major league debut on Sept. 14, 1995. He spent the next few years playing in both the majors and the minors, not yet a sure thing in the Kansas City lineup. During spring training of 1999, it was rumored that he would be traded, which was not welcome news.

After going to church and turning to Our Lord in prayer, Sweeney realized that he needed to “let go and let God.” He resolved to put Our Lord first and let him be the guide in his baseball career, and this brought him peace of mind.

In the end, the Royals did not trade him, and he ended up hitting .322 for the season in 1999, along with 22 home runs and 102 RBIs. He was even more productive the next year, posting a .333 average, 29 home runs and 144 RBIs. While playing for the Royals, Sweeney was named an All-Star five times (2000-2003 and 2005).

This past season he played as a designated hitter for the Seattle Mariners, helping the team to win 24 more games than they did in 2008, to finish with an 85-77 record.

Sweeney recently spoke with Register correspondent Trent Beattie.

You’re one of eight children from an Irish Catholic family. How important is family to you?

Family is very important to me. On Nov. 9, 2002, I made a covenant with Jesus when I married the love of my life, Shara. My parents, my two brothers and my five sisters mean everything to me, but my priority is now my wife and my three children, Michael, McKara and Donovan.

I still honor my parents and love my siblings with an agape love, but Scripture says that “A man is to leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife.” Also, Ephesians 5 gives us men the greatest challenge when St. Paul writes that “Men are to love their wives like Christ loved the Church.” It is a challenge but a great compass setting.

You had some medical problems as a baby, but ended up getting through them in a providential, even miraculous way. Could you tell us more about that?

On July 22, 1973, I was born two months premature in Orange, Calif., to a 20-year-old saintly woman and an ex-professional baseball player with the California Angels who to this day is my hero. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Lord had a plan for my l