Photo ~ Sister Catherine Holum, former Olympian

Olympian Becomes a Sister

Sister Catherine Holum of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal in Leeds, England, represented the United States at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, when she was a teenager.

“I was speaking at an all-girls school,” she says. “We’d been asked to come in during a retreat on Olympic spirituality.

I did a little game with the girls: comparing sport with our goal of getting to heaven.

It was a wonderful way of saying that there is so much we can learn from sport — discipline, motivation, commitment, perseverance, hard work and sacrifice — all these things we need to learn to get to heaven.

“But heaven is eternal glory, where the Olympics — winning a gold medal or what not — is brief glory.

Our goal should be to get to heaven and to really share that.

To learn from sport how to get to heaven is a really great way to open up for them (the faith) and to look at their faith in a different way, to see what is the goal and purpose of our life.

We can learn from the experiences we have on the way.”

Sister Catherine sees the Olympics “as an opportunity for the Church here in England, the beginning of the linking of sport, athletics and our faith and using that as a platform to build up the Kingdom. I think this is a fantastic opportunity for England and all the Catholics in this country to really utilize the Olympics to share their faith.”

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