September 13, 2024 // National

At Paralympics, ‘Don’t Limit Your Challenges, Challenge Your Limits!’

OSV NEWS

By Caroline De Sury

PARIS (OSV News) – With the Paralympic Games closing in Paris on Sunday, September 8, more than a monthlong Olympic adventure is over. But the spirit of the Games will resonate in the French Catholic Church for much longer thanks to the disabled who participated in Church initiatives with great enthusiasm.

The August 28-September 8 Paralympic Games brought together Christian associations that care for people with disabilities around “welcome days” held in Paris’ parishes.

“We had a wonderful experience of shared joy,” Isabelle de Chatellus, Director of the Holy Games Project, told OSV News. The Holy Games initiative offered tickets to the disabled to attend the Paralympic competitions, with 630 places reserved by the Church for this purpose.

One of the associations involved was L’Arche, an international organization that cares for people with intellectual disabilities. In Paris, 78 of its mentally disabled members were selected to be among the 2,400 disabled volunteers who provided support at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Four of them even carried the Olympic flame.

Other L’Arche volunteers were involved in Holy Games. On Friday, August 30, they welcomed people with disabilities to the Notre-Dame-de-la-Salette Church. In this modern, round, rough-cast concrete church, they all spent a day of hospitality and learned to play para-table tennis.

The following day, the disabled were invited to the Saint-Esprit Church.

“Sport and faith go well together,” Father Arnaud Duban, the parish priest, told OSV News. He was one of the chaplains on duty in the Olympic Village during the Games. He is a sportsman who has run the Paris Marathon 11 times.

“Many aspects of the sport combine well with faith,” he said. “It is about surpassing oneself, inventiveness, solidarity, and mutual aid in a fraternal climate.”

On Thursday, September 5, Laurence Durand, a former military paratrooper who was left a paraplegic eight years ago following an accident, offered her testimony during a Holy Games event. She is a four-time French champion in relative flight parachuting. She jumps into free-fall with a teammate, with whom she performs compulsory figures in record time.

Durand had prepared the St. Augustine Holy Games day with volunteers from the Christian Office of People with Disabilities.

Another athlete, Aurélie Roisin, parachutes despite suffering from a genetic and degenerative disease.

“My challenge is to stay on my feet, to put off the time when I will have to use a wheelchair,” she said, adding, “Don’t limit your challenges, but challenge your limits!”