Bike Blessing

Last night I was honored to attend a first-ever SportsLeader event in our short history - "A Bike Blessing."

Doug Dobrozsi is the first cycling coach to get involved with SportsLeader to date. Yesterday, October 13th, was the feast day of the Madonna del Ghisallo, the patroness of cycling, and he invited Father Matthew Van Smoorenburg to have a blessing of the bikes and a rosary around a campfire.

As I was praying there with all the bikers the inspiration came to me - maybe other coaches from other sports will want to have their equipment blessed before a season - helmets, balls, pads, bats ... etc. Think about it.

Below is some more info.

Madonna del Ghisallo is a hill close to Lake Como in Italy. It is named after a legendary Marian apparition.

According to the legend, the Medieval count Ghisallo was being attacked by bandits when he saw an image of Virgin Mary at a shrine. He ran to it and was saved from the robbers. The apparition became known as the Madonna del Ghisallo, and she became a patroness of local travellers. In later times, Madonna del Ghisallo (the hill) was made part of the Giro di Lombardia bicycle race.

In 1949 a local priest, Father Ermelindo Vigano, proposed that Madonna del Ghisallo (the apparition) be declared the patroness of cyclists. This was confirmed by Pope Pius XII. Nowadays the shrine of Madonna del Ghisallo contains a small cycling museum with photos and artifacts from the sport. There also burns an eternal flame for cyclists who have died. One particularly notable artifact is the crumpled bicycle that Fabio Casartelli, a native of the region, rode on the day that he died in a crash in the Tour de France. www.sportsleader.org

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• bike
• blessing
• cycle
• bicycle
• catholic
• christian
• sportsleader
• virtue
• character
• bikes
• doug
• dobrozsi
• cincinnati
• father
• leader
• leadership
• strength
• qzmp10