Father Joe Mulligan, a warm-hearted, gregarious priest with 40 years of ministering to people in the Diocese of Charlotte, is seldom at a loss for words. But a phone call one week ago left him speechless.
That phone call came from the Carolina Panthers’ director of Player Engagement, Mark Carrier, who told Father Joe that the Panthers’ Catholic players had chosen him to go to Super Bowl 50 as their chaplain. Carrier said, the players were inviting Father Joe to accompany them on their historic trip to the Big Game in Santa Clara, California, and would Father Joe like to go?
Father Mulligan replied, “It’s a good thing I’m sitting down. As a person that usually has a lot of things to say, I’m just filled with gratitude and overjoyed to be able to go.”
“That was as much as I could get out,” he recalls.
A Philadelphia native of Irish descent, Father Joe has ministered to the Catholic families in the Panthers organization since the team joined the NFL and played their first pre-season game in 1995. Once among several Catholic chaplains who rotated in serving the team, Father Joe has served as the permanent Catholic chaplain since 2013. He offers Mass for them, ministers to their families and prays for them.
Father Mulligan says he celebrates Mass before every home game for about half a dozen Catholic players, including team captains Greg Olsen, Luke Kuechly and Ryan Kalil; some of the coaches; the team’s trainer and assistant trainer; and some of their family members.
And what’s he going to tell the team Sunday?
Looking ahead to this Sunday’s Gospel reading of Luke 5:1-11, Father Mulligan says this Sunday’s Super Bowl will be an opportunity for the Carolina Panthers to “dig deeper.”
This Sunday’s Gospel “has to do with the Apostles fishing and casting a net, and they haven’t caught anything. And Jesus says you have to ‘cast your net,’ ‘lower your nets’… Lower your nets is an imagery of digging deeper,” he explains.
“I’m going to apply the sense of lowering your nets and digging deeper as an image for what needs to happen if they’re going to come out victorious, both in life and following Christ and in winning the Super Bowl.”
And today we celebrate...