Our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. God created us with a body and in a body, and in the Creed we profess our belief precisely in the “resurrection of the body.” Therefore, a Christian has a special duty to be aware of his body and of the fact that it is included in his everyday life, work, prayer, and in his path of sanctification.

For this very reason, Christians are called to be witnesses of a healthy and integral relationship toward their own body, because this reflects the truth about the human person as a child of God. From this perspective, the initiative we have been carrying out for the past year in partnership with Superkid School of Sports is particularly meaningful. It consists of creative training sessions and intensive play workshops led by Superkid staff in our facilities (and beyond), attended by the children of our beneficiaries and volunteers. Furthermore, Superkid has organized various programs for “our children” — skating, skiing, camping, and swimming schools, as well as obstacle-course training for youth.

Sport has a special role in strengthening awareness of one’s own dignity. It can often contribute to building self-confidence through achieving results, pushing personal limits, strengthening the will, and overcoming oneself. In sport, improvements are directly visible and tangible, regardless of how small they may be or at what level they occur. All of this reminds us that caring for one’s body always has a spiritual dimension and significance.

For the human person is both body and spirit. This is also what Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus and the “grandfather” of the Jesuit Refugee Service, teaches us when he urges us to be “contemplative in action and active in contemplation.” He seeks to say that prayer and life are not separate — on the contrary, they are one.

In addition, Superkid has offered our team of volunteers and staff training in mentoring and coaching when working with children in socially vulnerable situations. In all of this, there is a strong effort to ensure that work with refugees remains, above all, sensitive and adaptable, so that competitiveness and an excessive focus on results do not prevail over empathy and humanity. In this way, the Christian ideal of integral social justice is realized on multiple levels through the collaboration between JRS and Superkid School of Sports.