Many high school confirmation candidates choose St. Sebastian as their patron saint because of his patronage.
St. Sebastian has been known for centuries as the patron saint of athletes, and this patronage is often extended to all sporting events.
It is interesting, as St. Sebastian lived in the 3rd century and was very far removed from the modern definition of sports.
Martyr
Oddly enough, St. Sebastian did not play any sports during his life.
Why, then, was he picked as a heavenly patron for sports?
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, an early account of his life “relate[s] that he was an officer in the imperial bodyguard and had secretly done many acts of love and charity for his brethren in the Faith.”
If this is true, Sebastian was certainly in very good shape as a soldier in the Roman Empire. His physical strength would soon be put to the test when his Christian faith was discovered.
In The Lives of the Primitive Fathers by Fr. Alban Butler, Sebastian was, “impeached before the emperor Dioclesian; who, having grievously reproached him with ingratitude, delivered him over to certain archers of Mauritania, to be shot to death. His body was covered with arrows, and he was left for dead. Irene, the widow of St Castulus, going to bury him, found him still alive, and took him to her lodgings, where, by care, he recovered of his wounds, but refused to fly, and even placed himself one day by a staircase, where the emperor was to pass, whom he first accosted, reproaching him for his unjust cruelties against the Christians. This freedom of speech, and from a person too whom he supposed to have been dead, greatly astonished the empeior; but recovering from his surprise, he gave orders for his being seized and beat to death with cudgels, and his body thrown into the common sewer.”
The most common artistic depiction of Sebastian was as an athletic young man, riddled with arrows. It was this artistic expression, along with the story of his supernatural endurance, that made him a popular saint among soldiers and athletes.
He may have never played any sports, but St. Sebastian certainly persevered to the end and “won the race,” the race to Heaven.
