The Feast of the Presentation: A Time to Ponder our Openness to God Changing Us
It’s hard to believe it’s been 5 years, but on January 26, 2020, the world lost one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Kobe Bryant, when his helicopter went down killing all on board. He boarded that helicopter, which he used as a way to cut down time in traffic allowing for more time to be spent as a family, after attending the early morning 7 a.m. Mass at Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Newport Beach. Mass though wasn’t a rare thing in his life.
One of the tributes that came in about him was from singer Cristina Ballestero, who talked about encountering him at a weekday mass at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, CA. They went up to communion, and he waited for her as a sign of respect. She said his most inspiring trait was his decision to turn to his faith in God and receive God’s mercy and to be a better man after a “regretful decision.”
That regretful decision was in 2003 when he was arrested for allegedly raping a woman in a hotel room in Colorado. The case never did make it to trial; it ended when he settled with a civil lawsuit and issued a public apology to her acknowledging that she did not consider the encounter to be consensual.
He denied the crime, but he did admit to marital infidelity, and there were consequences. He and his wife struggled to hold their marriage together. She suffered a miscarriage, which Kobe blamed himself for. When his wife had enough later that year, she threw all of his clothes out on the street. It was a game day, and hours later he played the worst first half of his basketball career against the Magic, scoring just a single point.
But, what happened at halftime was what some called the game when he became what would be his nickname, the black mamba. He reflected “I may never come back from this, but the only thing I can control right now is what I do on the basketball court.”
Tracy McGrady of the Magic was defending him that night, and he recalls Mamba came out with a vengeance. He scored 37 points in the second half to lead his team to victory. But it was about more than basketball. He was beginning to understand he had to adopt an entirely different approach to his life and the game of basketball, namely the Mamba Mentality. As he put it, the “mindset isn’t about seeking a result – it’s more about the process of getting to that result.”
It was reflective of something internally that was going on. In a 2015 interview with GQ, reflecting on this time earlier in his life, he said: “The one thing that really helped me during that process—I’m Catholic, I grew up Catholic, my kids are Catholic—was talking to a priest. It was actually kind of funny: He looks at me and says, ‘Did you do it?’ And I say, ‘Of course not.’ Then he asks, ‘Do you have a good lawyer?’ And I’m like, ‘Uh, yeah, he’s phenomenal.’ So then he just said, ‘Let it go. Move on. God’s not going to give you anything you can’t handle, and it’s in his hands now. This is something you can’t control. So let it go.’ And that was the turning point.
He needed grace & that mentality to persevere through trials. He lost the NBA Finals to his former teammate, Shaquille O’Neil, & Phil Jackson who had left the Lakers to go to the Heat, and failed to lead a younger Lakers team to the playoffs the following season. He’d swallow his pride and welcome Phil Jackson back to the Lakers, and they’d go on titles in 2009 and 2010.
But off the court, he applied that mentality to get done what needed to get done. He and his wife almost suffered a divorce, but worked on their marriage and reconciled in 2013. The couple, who had two children, went on to add two more to their family.
He regularly attended Mass with his family at his parish. And he connected his Catholic faith to a family commitment to help the poor, through the Kobe & Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation.
He strived to change for the better in his life too, working on his marriage saying “..you know, my reputation as an athlete is that I’m extremely determined, and that I will work my (tail) off. How could I do that in my professional life if I wasn’t like that in my personal life, when it affects my kids? It wouldn’t make any sense.” He also resolved his multi-year feud with Shaquille O’Neal before he died, realizing it wasn’t worth it to stay angry as the two reconciled with Shaq giving a powerful tribute to him on TV shortly after his friend talking about his devastation and that Kobe was his little brother.
Indeed, it would seem by all accounts that he strived to work hard on & off the court, becoming a better man by responding to the grace of God. Applying the “Mamba Mentality” to his life – seeing who he wanted to become, and knowing with God’s help, he could take control of the situation in front him through responding to grace.
Change. It’s so important for us all; for the athlete who wants to become great; but, more importantly, for the sinner who wants to become a saint. It would seem God changed Kobe Bryant’s life, and does it do so for us is a question to ponder on this Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.
On this feast, we celebrate the return of the glory to the Lord of the Temple; the light of God coming as a helpless baby in His mother’s arms. That glory had left the Temple years prior when the people sinned and forgot God’s message; now God has come back. This begs the question for us, how then do we change?
We do that by daily asking ourselves as we make an examination of conscience what in our life might need refining. It’s so easy to become complacent because often once we are adults there’s no one challenging us as parents, teachers and coaches do when we are younger, and it can be easy to dull our conscience and say hey it’s just every so often, it’s just because of a bad day, it’s just me and my computer no one gets hurt, I just get angry so what’s the problem. How blind we can be to how we treat others, especially those we live with in the home; our attitudes, or with respect to our behaviors. Now is the time to own up to things we want to change so we can be refined by God’s love for that day we stand before Him in His Temple. And it also means keeping it up, not just finding religion briefly, but doing what Anna and Simeon in the Temple do, continually living a life of prayer and patient waiting.
Lastly, as we are refined, how are we going to respond to the love that God gives us by continually growing in it? We carry the light of Christ from this Temple into the world, into our homes, & into our workplaces. Bryant worked hard off the court trying to make the world a better place through his foundation, & through his work on helping kids & youth learn basketball. So how can we carry that light into our world is a question we should always ask as well. It’s one of the reasons today celebrates traditionally blessing of candles; when used as primary light sources in people’s homes, they were a reminder we are to be that light to the world. Jesus expects much of us, not just punching a clock, so may we too strive for greatness in sainthood.
As Mr. Bryant now sees Jesus face to face, and God’s love removes anything left in him that he needed help with, may we move forward not shamed of our own past, and not ignoring the dark parts of the present, but truly encountering our Lord, being transformed by the incredible love of Jesus.
God’s blessings! Fr. Paul
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February 2025