JOHANNESBURG A Southern African church organisation has declared June 13 the World Cup Sunday.
Francois Dufour, spokesperson for the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC)s Church on the Ball 2010 team, said this week that Parish Pastors and Catholic communities would on that day, which comes a day after the official opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, hold a mass to celebrate the arrival of the World Cup and South Africas part in staging the Beautiful Game.
This is timed to the opening weekend of the World Cup and the end of the year for the Priest so there is much to celebrate, said Dufour.
The World Cup is about South Africa welcoming the world to our home. We are also welcoming the world to our church communities. This welcome helps us realise that despite our nationalities and our teams, were all one people of God.
He said on that day, the church will encourage its African parishioners to wear the South African national dress, traditional dress or the football shirts of parishioners favourite teams.
The parishioners will, with the theme of the readings of that Sunday, lend themselves to a creative and extended form of the penitential rite, with emphasis on the healing quality of forgiveness, said Dufour
He added that while the World Cup promotes temporary glory, believers need to remember that there is more to life than earthly rewards and that parallels can be drawn between the rules of soccer and the rules of life:
We will emphasise the need to be competitive without being aggressive, be patriotic without being partisan or sectarian and strive to win without being unfair because it is not winning but playing the game fairly that matters.
Post published in: News