by Robert Duncan

The other day over a long Spanish lunch I was talking with a fellow bullfighting aficionado over how the national fiesta - as bullfighting is described in Spain - has changed on a spiritual level. This to a non-Spaniard may sound shocking, but the fact is that many famous matadores and persons in days now past were practising Catholics. A skeptic I suppose would say that their faith was a by-product of working in such a dangerous profession.

But the fact is, with the exception of perhaps Juan Belmonte at the turn of last century, the norm among bullfighters was that they travelled with a portable chapel, full of prayer cards of various saints, and paid visits to the bullring chapel to say a few last minute prayers before entering the arena to face death on four legs.

Nowadays that relationship between faith and bullfighting seems to be losing force.- maybe it has something to do with the 1990s matador Joselito, who rose to the peak of bullfighting ranks while espousing a rebel persona, as well as refusing anything to do with the church (it's reported this had to do with the local priest refusing to change the date for his First Communion so that his father could attend - and Joselito becoming for all purposes an orphan later).

While it's true that some bullfighters perhaps had a faith that rested more closely upon superstition, the fact is that some were incredible in their desire to honor God in their work in the ring.

Such is the case of the famous Spanish matador Antonio Bienvenida, who was actually an Opus Dei supernumary (this site is in Spanish, but I will at a later date translate it).

Antonio Bienvenida is example of Saint Josemaria's teaching that all "noble" work can be offered to God - albeit for some Anglo-Saxons I suspect the idea that bullfighting falling into this category is questionable, but for now let's leave it to a question of a difference in cultures.

The story is told that once when in the north of Spain ahead of a bullfight, Bienvenida as was his custom went to the morning mass. That evening, while fighting - and having a rough time in the ring with a particular bull, and causing the crowd to become impatient - a woman who had seen him at the mass, shouted out a phrase which can be roughly translated as: "Antonio, less praying, and more fighting!"

There is a powerful message there.

If you are doing a job, then do it properly and care about the details - after all our colleagues and family are watching.

We need to realize that people everyday are watching us. They notice what we do, and how we act. That doesn't mean that we are strange birds. Definitely not. Instead, people should see that we are joyful, that we are fun to be around, and we do our jobs properly. In that sense, we should be contagious, where folks want to be around us.

In other words - we are Christians, and whether we like it or not we are witnesses.

Once we realize that, and are mentally able to offer our work to God, then our attitude toward life, and work, should be different.

After all, if we truly believe that what we are doing is God's - that we are sanctifying ourselves, our work, and our world by doing our normal everyday job - then are we going to offer God anything less than the best? And that is indeed a powerful witness, and responsibility.