Fr Rob Galea’s struggles with depression didn’t end when he entered the seminary. Rather, it came back when he needed mental stability the most.
It was then he started taking weight training more seriously.
“When I did that, I also took my prayer seriously—I noticed all the disciplines of my life started to become stronger,” Fr Rob told The Catholic Weekly.
Working out has become a “modern day ascetism” for the priest who spends much of his time on the road speaking in different countries. The toll that long haul travel takes on Fr Rob’s body is only possible because he maintains a strict fitness regime.
The same is true for married Maronite priest Fr Charbel Dib, who’s been “pumping iron” since his former days as a personal trainer. The strength training allows him to keep up with his four young energetic children at home.
He now trains over five times a week after discovering in his day’s a trainer that it’s easier to make excuses than promises…both to yourself and God.
“My health is a priority because if I can’t look after it, I can’t look after my family, and I can’t look after my parish,” he says.
While physical fitness should never come at the cost of a weakened spiritual fitness, these priests show how both forms of fitness can work together symbiotically.
Following an hour of prayer each morning, Fr Rob hits the gym where he lifts heavy weights. Each session sees him isolate and concentrate on a particular body part.
“I look after my body, so I have the endurance to be able to serve God without feeling exhausted all the time,” he says.
“Whether I’m in India, Ireland or anywhere on the planet, I can fit it in, 20 minutes is never an excuse.”
Fr Charbel, on the other hand, takes a different approach to training, preferring the push/pull method.
He says there are more connections between fitness and faith than people realise. God’s design of the body is naturally made to perform patterns of movement also found in the life of the church.
“In the Roman Rite we genuflect—a genuflection is a lunge. In the Maronite Rite we bow—not only a sign of reverence but a variation of the hinge movement,” he says.
He is a firm believer that positive nutritional habits create discipline, not only to reach fitness goals, but to abstain from sin.
“The more consistent we are in saying ‘no’ to those base desires for something as simple as a burger, the stronger we build willpower, and learn how to be prudent in our choices.”
One of the latest nutritional tools, intermittent fasting, is already well established in the church, where fasting is an ancient tradition.
“The fitness industry has embraced fasting because of the tremendous effects on the body, not only in helping us to lose weight, but in the way it contributes to a process called cellular autophagy which is your body’s cellular recycling system,” explains Fr Charbel.
“We go through our own seasons like Lent where we’re all encouraged to fast for those extended periods.
“But why do we fast? It’s to die to those old ways, to die to those ways that are not so healthy in our life, so that a new life in Christ may arise within us and we may live as a new creation come Easter.”
On his podcast Maronite Down Under, Fr Charbel has found he is often asked questions about fitness. Some of these questions are unexpected, such as, asking whether it’s a sin to take anabolic steroids?
“The extremes can get quite ugly, and we have to be careful that while it’s okay to want to look a certain way, this desire shouldn’t be from a place of arrogance or an unhealthy self-pride.”
Fr Rob also warns not to become too obsessed with the physical component of one’s life.
“Just like your phone, your husband, your wife, anything can become your god if you misplace it, so set your heart in the right place,” he says.
In both the gym and the church, there’s no better place to start than the basics.
“Have someone watch over your progress whatever training you’re doing, but also seek that spiritual direction, get to Mass on Sundays, go to confession,” Fr Charbel said.
“If we’re not making smart choices to look after our health, then we’re not living fully according to what our faith would tell us about caring for our body and soul.
“Go to the gym and church not to be better than other people, but to be the best version of yourself.”