Gold Medal Faith

Rebecca Dus­sault is going for the gold, and yet she feels that she has already won. Few would sus­pect that one per­son could excel as a young wife, mother and world cham­pion cross-​​country ski racer.

At age 15 Rebecca started cross-​​country ski racing, and found her­self climb­ing quickly to the top. She seemed to have the win­ning com­bi­na­tion that U.S. Nordic Ski Coach Peter Vor­den­berg later described: “Rebecca is a tal­ented an ath­lete as we have ever had. She has the phys­i­cal tal­ent, the men­tal drive, and the emo­tional sup­port of her fam­ily and her strong Catholic faith.” She loved the sport because it brought her into the beauty of God’s cre­ation. She skied with oth­ers who shared both her love for the out­doors and for God.

“We used to go ski­ing in the mid­dle of the night with a group from our church and our priest, who was an avid out­doors­man,” she recalled. “He would cel­e­brate Mass for us in the moonlight.”

A DIFFICULT CHOICE

When Rebecca mar­ried her child­hood sweetheart, Sharbel, at age 19, she thought her ski­ing days were over. “My main rea­son for hang­ing my skies up at such a young age was to re-​​prioritize and break away from the spot­light. My ski­ing had become all-​​consuming and I real­ized that I was not going to be able to keep up the demand­ing sched­ule and raise a fam­ily.” For her, the first pri­or­ity became and still is her voca­tion to mar­riage.

She and Shar­bel had been friends since age 11, when his mother home schooled both of them. “We felt a strong bond of friend­ship we knew would last into mar­riage and until death,” she said, “We knew we were made for each other unto our eter­nal betterment.” They are both fer­vent Catholics.

A year after her wed­ding, with a spirit of docil­ity in ask­ing God through prayer what He was ask­ing of her, she decided to give up ski­ing to show what was really impor­tant in her life. “I was con­victed by the Lord that He wanted more of me than I was giv­ing to Him,” she explained, “and that ulti­mately I would have to leave ski­ing to attain this gift of self.” This deci­sion required true courage in tak­ing the risk of giv­ing up a proven and suc­cess­ful life in com­pet­i­tive rac­ing to answer God’s call to focus on her new family.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t share with all of you my truest love of all,” she said, “the Lord Jesus Christ and his holy Catholic Church. My faith is the most impor­tant thing in my life.” “Hav­ing the same faith for­ma­tion as my spouse has had unbe­liev­able advan­tages,” she said, “It was never a ques­tion as to whether or not we would fully embrace the Church’s teachings.”

On Novem­ber 29th, 2001, Rebecca gave birth to a son, Tabor, her “pride and joy.” When she went to the Olympics in Salt Lake City to watch her team­mates com­pete, she hugged her son close and told her­self that he was her gold medal.

THE PIVOTAL RACE

After a three-​​year break, the Dus­saults began to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­ity of Rebecca rac­ing again. In Feb­ru­ary of 2003 she entered a local race where she found her­self com­pet­ing against the two-​​time Olympian, Katrin Smi­gun, who was unde­feated in all her col­lege races.

The gun fired, and the rac­ers took off. Soon, however, Rebecca and Katrin had left the oth­ers behind. The crowd was astounded as the two women raced neck to neck for 25 min­utes. They crossed the line in a photo fin­ish, but no one had a cam­era to prove who actu­ally won.

The next week­end, Rebecca chal­lenged Katrin in another race, and this time won. Together with her hus­band, she decided to begin the process of dis­cern­ing whether God wanted her to get back into the world of racing.

BACK TO THE SKIS

The Dus­saults again lived out the virtue of docil­ity in their will­ing­ness to open their hearts and minds to God’s will. In humil­ity they turned to prayer to dis­cern God’s will, know­ing that they needed God’s help and guid­ance. “After a lot of prayer and the deter­mi­na­tion to keep our fam­ily together no mat­ter the cost, we came to the con­clu­sion that now was the time. God had given me a tal­ent and now he had given me another chance.”

Fol­low­ing God’s will would again require courage in tak­ing on the rig­ors of Olympic train­ing, and now with the added respon­si­bil­i­ties of a fam­ily: “So here I am back on my skis train­ing hard year round and prov­ing to myself and to oth­ers that it is pos­si­ble to live life to its fullest, be a mom, help run a busi­ness and per­se­vere through all the ups and downs. It is all a mat­ter of God’s graces help­ing me pri­or­i­tize and sched­ule my life so that I can accom­plish all of my goals.”

RACE SO AS TO WIN

Right now Rebecca has set her goals high: to ski well at the Torino Win­ter Olympics, to live heroic virtue, to become a saint, and even­tu­ally to have more chil­dren and edu­cate them at home. With a hum­ble res­o­lu­tion not to do it alone, she brings her fam­ily with her every­where she races, and invokes the help of Blessed Pier Gior­gio Fras­sati of Turin as her patron.

“I share all that I am try­ing to attain with those who are help­ing me to attain it. Trav­el­ing together is three times as full with a fam­ily but I would not sac­ri­fice any of it because life is not just about cross­ing the fin­ish line first. Through­out this jour­ney the Lord has blessed us with fam­ily unity and taught us many lessons. I am blessed in every day to be able to share this with them.”

THE WITNESS OF A FAMILY

Shar­bel has not just been with his wife every step of the way, but has shared in her strug­gles and tri­umphs as well. He has acted as Rebecca’s agent and pho­tog­ra­pher, taken care of Tabor in all of the hours of train­ing, and has kept the busi­ness going so as to sup­port the fam­ily. He knows that the great­est vic­tory is not the gold medal, but the tes­ti­mony of embrac­ing the Catholic vision of mar­riage and the family.

“Our fam­ily has been a silent wit­ness to the voca­tion of mar­riage among team mem­bers, staff, and per­fect strangers,” said Shar­bel, “It is very rare for a fam­ily to be seen trav­el­ing on the race circuit. We have been con­fronted and chal­lenged to share our faith and our rea­sons for doing this as a family. We are com­mit­ted to our mar­riage and fam­ily life. Nothing is more impor­tant than keep­ing our mar­riage strong and healthy.”

THE SECRET FORMULA

Rebecca has spent the last months in a rig­or­ous train­ing cycle. Her train­ing goal was to have a fit body, to ski tech­ni­cally well and to have a con­struc­tive mind­set which will enable her to tap into the tools and fit­ness she worked so hard to put into place in her train­ing. She wants to be able to access all her phys­i­cal, emo­tional and spir­i­tual fit­ness so as to take on the world’s best at the Olympics.

She also has a wealth of moti­va­tions to spur her on: “I am moti­vated by my pas­sion for competition, hard work, suc­cess, meet­ing goals, mak­ing friends, see­ing the world, shar­ing my faith within sport, pass­ing tron saint, Blessed Fras­sati said, “Ever Upward!”

Bible Blurbs

“What­ever you do, in word or deed, do every­thing in the name of the Lord Jesus, giv­ing thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17)

I urge you there­fore… to offer your bod­ies as a liv­ing sacrifice, holy and pleas­ing to God, … Do not con­form your­selves to this age but be trans­formed by the renewal of your mind, that you may dis­cern what is the will of God, what is good and pleas­ing and perfect. (Romans 12: 1-​​2)

The LORD God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suit­able part­ner for him.”….That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. (Gen­e­sis 2: 18, 24)

Pope Quotes

“Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intox­i­ca­tion, but rather as a jour­ney, an ongo­ing exo­dus out of the closed inward­look­ing self towards its lib­er­a­tion through selfgiving, …and indeed the dis­cov­ery of God” (Pope Bene­dict XVI, God Is Love)

“It is part of love’s growth towards higher lev­els and inward purifi­ca­tion that it now seeks to become defin­i­tive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclu­siv­ity (this par­tic­u­lar per­son alone) and in the sense of being “for ever”” (Pope Bene­dict XVI God Is Love)

“It is also your task to pro­claim and to wit­ness to the human­iz­ing power of the Gospel with regard to the prac­tice of sport, which if lived in accor­dance with the Chris­t­ian out­look, becomes a “gen­er­a­tive prin­ci­ple” of pro­found human rela­tions and encour­ages the build­ing of a more serene and sup­port­ive world.” (Pope John Paul II, June 26, 2004)

Pope John Paul II when he spoke of the value of sports with a super­nat­ural perspective: “Precisely because your com­pet­ing does not take place for the sake of mere and super­fi­cial amuse­ment, but to give proof of your abil­ity and of what fruits a long and ardu­ous prepa­ra­tion may yield, sport­ing effort is a real school of human virtue, of which the ancient bib­li­cal book of wis­dom writes: ‘When it is present, men imi­tate it, and they long for it when it has gone; and through­out all time it marches crowned in triumph, victor in the con­test for prizes that are undefiled.’”

CATECHISM CLIPS

2826: By prayer we can dis­cern “what is the will of God” and obtain the endurance to do it.

1604: Since God cre­ated him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfail­ing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator’s eyes.

1656: In our own time, in a world often alien and even hos­tile to faith, believ­ing fam­i­lies are of pri­mary impor­tance as cen­ters of liv­ing, radi­ant faith. For this rea­son the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil, using an ancient expres­sion, calls the fam­ily the domestic church.

SAINTS AND HEROES

BLESSED PIER GIORGIO FRASSATI (1901-​​1925)

Blessed Pier Gior­gio Fras­sati was born in 1901 in Turin, Italy. His sis­ter Luciana described him as rep­re­sent­ing “the finest of Chris­t­ian youth: pure, happy, enthu­si­as­tic about every­thing that is good and beau­ti­ful.” He was an ath­lete and out­doors­man, enjoy­ing all types of activ­i­ties such as hik­ing, rid­ing horses, ski­ing and moun­tain climb­ing. He also had a good sense of humor, with a love for laugh­ter and prac­ti­cal jokes. Pier was from a wealthy fam­ily, but he lived sim­ply so as to give to the poor­est of Turin. He often served them in a hid­den and hum­ble man­ner. He con­tracted polio and died on July 4, 1925.

SAINT ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY (1207-​​1231)

Saint Eliz­a­beth of Hun­gary was born in 1207 and died before her 24th birth­day. At the age of 4 she was betrothed to 11-​​year-​​old Count Lud­wig IV and was sent to Ger­many to be edu­cated at his cas­tle. The two chil­dren grew and were schooled together, form­ing a solid friendship. Elizabeth would often help the sick and the poor, and although she was crit­i­cized for this at court she refused to defend her­self. Ten years later, the two were mar­ried, and they enjoyed sev­eral happy years together. They under­stood each other, and shared the task of rais­ing four children.

Eliz­a­beth was dev­as­tated when her hus­band died, only six years after the wed­ding, but she gave her­self over to a life of poverty and work­ing with the poor until the day of her own death. One of her daugh­ters, Gertrude, also became a saint.

Virtue Vocab­u­lary Verification

Courage- The capac­ity to meet dan­ger with­out giv­ing way to fear; to have the courage of one’s con­vic­tions; to be will­ing to put one’s opin­ions and beliefs into practice

Dis­cern- To per­ceive, com­pre­hend or rec­og­nize God’s will in a situation

Docil­ity- Part of the virtue of pru­dence that allows us to learn from or be led by another

Humil­ity- Virtue that reminds us we do not know every­thing and that God can be trusted to guide us as a good Father.

Voca­tion- An incli­na­tion, in response to a call, to under­take a cer­tain kind of work; a calling

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What are some of the qual­i­ties of the type of friend­ship Rebecca and Shar­bel shared? How did this con­tribute to the suc­cess of their marriage?
2. Why is it impor­tant to dis­cern God’s will for our lives? What advan­tages or ben­e­fits does it give to us?
3. How have Rebecca and Shar­bel attempted to dis­cern God’s will for them? How can we do this in our own lives? What other ways, besides prayer, do we hear God speak­ing to us?
4. What things do the Dus­saults do to keep mar­riage and fam­ily life as a priority? In what ways do they give wit­ness to the voca­tion of marriage?
5. How can a good spir­i­tual life con­tribute to mak­ing a per­son a good ath­lete? How can a good ath­letic life help one’s spir­i­tual life?
6. What kind of mes­sage are the Dus­saults giv­ing to the world? Imag­ine that you are design­ing a poster for Rebecca’s promotion. What slo­gan could you put on it?

JOURNAL WRITING OPTIONS:

1. Make a list of Rebecca’s pri­or­i­ties, and num­ber them from the most impor­tant to the least impor­tant. Then, do the same for your own pri­or­i­ties and goals. What is most impor­tant to you? What is the least impor­tant to you?
2. Have you ever given up some­thing and then found it returned to you again? Write the story of how you decided to give it up, what your moti­va­tions and dif­fi­cul­ties were, and how you felt when you got it back.
3. Make a per­sonal train­ing pro­gram for your spir­i­tual life. Pick one virtue that you want to excel in, and make of list of 5-​​7 con­crete exer­cises that can help you prac­tice that virtue. Make sure your train­ing is rigorous, and will chal­lenge you to grow. How can you prac­tice this virtue at home? With your fam­ily? With friends? In your prayer?

ACTIVITIES:

• Sports Scrip­ture Con­test: Hold a timed con­test in which stu­dents look through their Bibles to find pas­sages related to sports (Run, Race, Strength, etc.). Stu­dents write the verse and ref­er­ence on a sheet of paper to be sub­mit­ted to the judges. The one with the most quotes is the winner.
• Rebecca Dus­sault says on her website: “Work out with peo­ple who need inspi­ra­tion. Don’t be afraid to do an easy work­out with some­one who you may impact greatly.” Ask stu­dents to “adopt” a friend, younger sib­ling or neigh­bor whom they can do ath­letic activ­i­ties with. Make a spe­cial effort to moti­vate and inspire them.
• Invite a speaker to the class­room on the theme of spir­i­tual exercise/​physical exercise, to speak about our need for both and some ways to prac­tice health in both areas.
• Ask stu­dents to research on the Inter­net the life of St. Ignatius of Loy­ola, and to then write a sum­mary of his rec­om­men­da­tions for how to train for a life of holiness.

WEB RESOURCES:

• Rebecca’s per­sonal web­site: http://www.dussaultskis.com/
• Win­ter Olympics 2006 cov­er­age: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9134568/
• National Catholic Reg­is­ter arti­cle by Gina Giambrone, pub­lished in Vol­ume 82, No.6, Feb­ru­ary 5-​​11, 2006 issue http://www.ncregister.com