Loving my home team—and all the rest of my neighbors

A Reflection for the Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope

Find today’s readings here.

Last weekend, my family and I sat down together and watched middle school boys play baseball on television. 

We were tuned in for a very particular reason: My hometown, the small city of Bayonne, N.J., was playing in the qualifying match for the Little League World Series. And though we had no relatives on the team, no close friends playing minutes, my family was deeply invested. We know these players, just from school or sports or around the neighborhood. They are our neighbors. 

And so we groaned when the other team scored and held our breath when the Bayonne kids went to bat. And when, after a big comeback late in the game, the Bayonne team took home the victory we cheered like we ourselves had been on the diamond. Their win felt very much like our own. 

It seemed our entire community felt this way. T-shirts reading “Bayonne vs. Everybody” popped up around town in the lead up to the game. There were watch parties in all the favorite bars. And a great many neighbors actually took the ride up to Bristol, Conn., to take in the game from the stands. We enjoyed spotting people we knew in the crowd—some who had personal relationships with the kids on the team, and some who were just proud to be from the same place. 

This past week, my neighbors have loved each other as they love their own selves. It hasn’t felt hard to do. We have walked the same streets as these kids, attended the same schools, played on the same fields. We know what makes our city a beautiful place to live. We know what sometimes makes it a hard place too. We know what it takes for a team like theirs to achieve something like this, and what the accomplishment must mean to them. We are proud. It’s a lot of fun. 

Jesus’ call in today’s Gospel asks us to take this attitude and expand it and then expand it again. We don’t need a sporting event to celebrate each other, root for each other, sympathize with each other. The way we care about these kids’ baseball victory, we must care too about their losses, their pain, their suffering, their hopes and desires. We must always care. 

And this call does not start and end with our literal neighbors either. It feels natural to care for someone who shares our same experiences, understands our lives. But haven’t we all, every single one of us, felt like a child up to bat against the world sometimes? Haven’t we all felt the jubilation of a home run? The frustration of a strikeout? Aren’t there human experiences we all share, no matter where we’re from? And can’t that shared humanity allow us all to look at each other with a sense of familiarity and recognition?

Maybe Bayonne will win it all. Maybe their luck will run out in this next round. But regardless of what happens in this Little League World Series, I think I will carry this moment of community with me, as a reminder that loving each other abundantly does not have to feel like a burden. Sometimes it is a gift we receive. Sometimes it is a celebration we are all—every one of us—invited to take part in. 

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