On Sunday mornings I teach catechism classes for sixth graders.
The students are generally 11 to 12 years old. It’s an odd age. They’re not quite teenagers, but there not totally naive either.
During this week’s lesson, I used a comparison of the years 1924 and 2024 to help make a point from this week’s gospel, which is from Mark.
Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,
and putting his arms around it, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.”
Right before this takes place, Jesus is telling his disciples the essence of his story: He will be handed over, put to death, and rise again.
The disciples don’t understand, nor do they really hear him.
They’re busy talking among themselves about who among them is the greatest!
It’s kind of funny when you think about it.
That’s when Jesus takes the child and places it in front of them. In Jesus’ time, children were not considered worthy of much. Some of us too may be old enough to have grown up when children were better to be seen and not heard.
Jesus puts things in perspective for his apostles, and humbles them while he’s at it, when he tells them, ““If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
1924 vs. 2024
Sixth grade is probably when comparison to your peers really starts to come into a child’s mind. They’re able to compare looks, clothing, popularity, and whatever else sixth graders think about these days.
That’s why I wanted to have them look back 100 years ago. To compare today with that day long gone.
I started by having them put some of the “popular” or “best” from today on the chalk board. The subjects included UFC fighters, musicians, movie stars, cars, football players, basketball players, baseball players, the wealthiest person, the Olympics (both the 1924 and 2024 games were held in Paris), and the president.
UFC wasn’t around in 1924, but that didn’t matter, because no one knew Jack Dempsey, who was then the heavyweight champion of the world in boxing.
Al Jolson did not ring a bell for the students either. Jolson, and his tune, “California, Here I Come,” was the top of the pops that year.
Douglas Fairbanks could have come in and slapped them in the face, and they would not have recognized him, even though he was Hollywood’s leading man 100 years ago.
Similar for Red Grange (football), Calvin Coolidge (President), or any basketball player. One student knew John D. Rockefeller (wealthiest man), but all of them had a recognition of one name — Babe Ruth.
This past week, Shohei Ohtani, the star slugger (and also a pitcher before he tore his ulnar collateral ligament last season) of the Los Angeles Dodgers, did something that no baseball player has ever done in the history of the Major Leagues, including Ruth. He hit his fiftieth home run and stole his fiftieth base of the season, making him the initial member for the 50/50 Club.
Ohtani, who is frequently compared to The Babe for his on-field exploits, is from Japan.
Back in 1934, only 90 years ago(!), Babe Ruth, and a number of major league all-stars, barnstormed Japan, playing against all-star players from the island. In addition to Ruth, the team included other names you might be familiar with, if you’re not a sixth grader: Lou Gehrig and Lefty Gomez, two of Ruth’s teammates with the New York Yankees; and Jimmie Foxx, of the Philadelphia Athletics. Connie Mack, the Athletics manager, wrote out the lineup cards.
Ruth and the all-stars’ tour of Japan was a smashing success. Yes, Ruth hit 13 home runs in 18 games, and the Americans won every single contest, but Ruth’s exploits, and his “charisma” changed the projection of the game’s history in Japan.
The team the Americans played against became the Yomiuri Tokyo Giants, the first professional baseball team in the history of Japan, and one that still exists today.
You could argue, without Babe Ruth, Shohei Ohtani, never exists. At least as a baseball player.
This kind of all unraveled for me as I’m talking to the children Sunday morning. No one remembers the star of the 1924 Olympics, just like few people will probably remember Simone Biles in 2124.
I told the children, as hard as it may seem today, in 2124, sixth graders will probably never heard of Elon Musk or Jeffrey Bezos. Will people even be driving cars then? And what’s the chances they’re Teslas?
Which got me wondering why Babe Ruth, who starred in a game that is probably less popular today than its counterparts basketball and football, was a name all of the students knew?
Like many great people, and saints in particular, Ruth was a missionary. He brought the game of baseball to a foreign land to spread its message, and uncovered the wonder, majesty, and thrill of a baseball game, in particular, the home run, to the Japanese people.
But in many ways Ruth, like Jesus, was focused on children. He was famous for his interactions with and his service to children. His nickname was the “Babe” for…crying out loud!
As us adults grow older, we start to lose the wonder and joy of play that we once had as children. We become so self-conscious, comparing ourselves (or our cars, homes, cell phones, jobs, 401ks) to others, or to our own selves, that we sometimes lose the essence or point of life, similar to those disciples.
What if we could really be like that child that Jesus wrapped his arms around? What if we could feel that secure? Feel that amount of love?
What if we were able to play, unconsciously.
As a kid, I would play teacher to a school classroom of Cabbage Patch Kids. I would host matches between rubber LJN wrestling figures in the solace and comfort of my bedroom, which might as well have been a sold-out Madison Square Garden. And I played countless games of baseball, football and basketball in the backyard, providing the dramatic play-by-play on par with the great broadcaster Al Michaels.
The Babe, who was raised by the Xavarian Brothers who ran the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, Md. from the age of 7 to 19, never seemed to lose that child-ness that Jesus seems to be extolling to his followers.
The Babe created a legacy that lives on, even 100 years later.
In Shohei Ohtani. And in the 14 sixth graders, and 48-year-old teacher in a classroom on a Sunday morning.
The Gospel according to Babe.
Amen.