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Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Maya Warren competes in Singapore during "The Amazing Race" reality TV show in 2014. Warren, a graduate of Rosati-Kain High School, a Catholic school for girls in St. Louis, and teammate Amy DeJong won the grand prize of $1 million for winning the competition. (CNS photo/courtesy CBS)

The Acts of the Apostles and ‘The Amazing Race’


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OSV News Filed Under: Commentary

“I guess I created a monster,” our adult daughter mused, as I lined up yet another episode of “The Amazing Race.” I knew that when she moved back in with us to save money for her upcoming wedding, she’d bring her tastes in entertainment — and her streaming logins — with her. What I didn’t realize was how much I’d be using them.

Because I’m 24 years late to the game, there are 36 seasons of previously aired “Amazing Race” shows to watch. I wish I could say that will keep me busy for a long time, but I fear it won’t. That’s probably because I’ve always had a severe case of the travel bug. And the more trapped I feel at my desk staring into a computer screen, the more likely it is that my evening will end with a glass of wine and an episode or two (or three) of “The Amazing Race.”

I won’t be there alone either. My 91-year-old mom, son and daughter-in-law are enthusiastic couch companions, even if my husband would rather be binge watching “The Chosen.” Again.

For me, “The Amazing Race” has almost everything I’m looking for in entertainment: travel, adventure, culture, competition, a pinch of relationship drama and even virtue.

Skydiving in Dubai and bungee jumping in a 400-foot New Zealand gorge, after all, requires courage. But completing an exhausting series of roadblock and detour tasks before checking into each pitstop is a serious test of perseverance and hope.

The million-dollar prize might well provide enough motivation to start, but I doubt it ends up being enough to finish, especially when a team has fallen behind and chances of elimination seem high.

At daily Mass a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that listening to the Acts of the Apostles was a lot like watching The Amazing Race. Almost every chapter of St. Luke’s chronicles of the early church talks about the first disciples speeding from city to city to escape persecution in Jerusalem and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The story is thrilling. Trials only embolden the disciples and force them outward. Peter is questioned and jailed repeatedly by religious authorities, only to continue the preaching they prohibited. Philip is snatched up to meet the Ethiopian eunuch puzzled by what he is reading in the Scriptures. After the eunuch is baptized, Philip simply disappears.

Saul orchestrates the stoning of Stephen but is then brought to conversion himself on the way to Damascus. It’s easy to imagine host Phil Keoghan saying something like, “After being blinded by a flash of light, Saul must be led into the city and find a street called Straight. There, he must wait for a man named Ananias to give him the next clue.”

The list of places and people grows longer as the story unfolds. Peter and Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Priscilla and Aquila journey tirelessly across the Mediterranean world to Antioch, Cyprus, Perga, Greece, and eventually Rome. And they don’t even have any red and yellow markers to help them find their way.

Despite every detour, U-Turn and even shipwreck their mission is always the same: to bring salvation in Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.

I can imagine the first disciples after the Ascension. Standing on the Mount of Olives, looking up into the sky, they aren’t sure what’s next. So, they lock themselves into the Upper Room and wait for the help Jesus promised them. Until it comes, they are fearful and reticent. But when it does, everything changes. The race begins.

Pentecost is the great “Ready. Set. Go!” Filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples’ questions and excuses are suddenly no longer relevant. They pick up their backpacks and, as the Letter to the Hebrews describes it, they run with endurance the race that is set before them, looking to Jesus (Heb 12:1-2).

The Acts of the Apostles and the “Amazing Race” challenge me to consider where I’ve been, and what we Catholics have been doing together. The Christian life is an amazing race filled with amazing grace, and we are all entered to run it. Yet the only way we will discover that is if we make Pentecost personal and take St. Paul’s advice to “run so as to win” (1 Cor 9:24).

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