Ok, the Baltimore Ravens have won the Super Bowl in an orgiastic soup or bouillabaisse of black-outs, early Baltimore touchdowns, San Francisco comebacks during the second half, stuff-strutting Beyonce, final moment of hysteria on the field, etc.
What is lost in all this is the question of how did the Ravens win? No, I don’t mean the number of touchdowns, penalties, injuries, field goals, etc, but what was the governing force in their win?
According to the TV reports of the city prior to the game, it seemed to be in part at least a result of the positive attitude of the Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic order of nuns associated with Mercy Hospital.
Photographed and questioned for the news media prior to the game while wearing their simple blue and gray clothing, modern wimples that more closely resemble cowls and cassocks, they were enthusiastically ebullient in their positive attitude for the forthcoming ultimate football game.
Why would they not be ebullient? After all, they have or had Jesus on their side. Jesus can’t lose a game, can he?
Then again, you have the Ravens kicker, Justin Tucker, a devout Catholic. He is always shown making the sign of the cross on his chest before every kick. With that going for you, you can’t fail, can you?
After all, polls (publicreligion.org) show that it is obvious that God and Jesus MUST have a hand in all this. 40 percent of fundamentalists and white evangelical Protestants agree that God plays a role in the outcome of sporting events and 67 percent of white evangelical Protestants say that God rewards those athletes who have faith with good health and success.
Thus between Justin Tucker and the Sisters of Mercy, it seemed like a double insurance policy or double whammy that the Ravens were going to win. Why not just avoid the game and give them their bonuses and rings without all that physical stuff?
Of course, it still begs the question as to how the Ravens won. There are several possibilities.
1. It is just a quirky coincidence as to the Ravens winning the Super Bowl.
2. It is a result of the Ravens being the better team and thus dominating the San Francisco team.
3. Ravens bullies are bigger, tougher and meaner than the 49ers bullies.
4. It is just happenstance as to how that silly little pointy-end ball bounces or gets intercepted by Ed Reed.
5. It is a fluke that the Ravens won after losing momentum with that after-halftime blackout that took the rev out of the Ravens and also almost allowed a tie in the 34-31 win.
6. Jesus and God like the Ravens better than the San Francisco team.
7. San Francisco is known as a haven for licentiousness and depravity and famous for the preponderance of homosexuals living there. God does not like that and decided to teach this left coast city a lesson.
Of course, this also poses other questions. Suppose that God liked the Ravens and Jesus liked the 49ers? What then? Suppose the Holy Ghost did not like either of them and had wanted the Patriots to win over the Ravens in their matchup prior to the Super Bowl?
Suppose that the nuns of Mercy Hospital had no strong allegiance this year to any team? Suppose Justin Tucker had forgotten to make the sign of the cross in an earlier game that caused a loss for the Ravens?
Man – the questions – they just keep coming and coming. And here I thought that Jesus and God would have no interest in such silly human sporting events!
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