{"id":326537,"date":"2026-06-07T13:01:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T13:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/326537\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T13:01:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T13:01:35","slug":"the-san-antonio-nuns-chanting-go-spurs-go-and-god-bless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/326537\/","title":{"rendered":"The San Antonio Nuns Chanting \u2018Go Spurs Go! And God Bless!\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The morning after the Spurs won Game 5 of the NBA\u2019s Western Conference semifinals, I woke up, still reveling in the victory. As a born-and-raised San Antonian and die-hard basketball fan, the playoffs are something of a holiday season. Before leaving my bed, I added an infant Victor Wembanyama jersey to my baby registry and turned to Instagram for some game highlights. <\/p>\n

There, I stumbled across a post by the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco in San Antonio, a Catholic order devoted to educating and supporting young people. Behind the sisters was a print of Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s The Last Supper, but their eyes were turned to another work of art: The Spurs up 52-37 in the second quarter. The sisters were all standing and clapping. Each wore their white habits, but three of them also wore Spurs jerseys (Tim Duncan<\/a>, Tony Parker<\/a>, and Manu Ginobili<\/a>\u2014a holy trinity to Spurs fans) from a golden era of Spurs basketball, an era I pray we\u2019re returning to. <\/p>\n

Well, not literally pray, I suppose. I\u2019ve never known if the theology of that checks out. But now I knew who to ask. In a phone interview, I had the chance to talk ball, prayer, and San Antonio, with Sr. Bernadette Mota, director of mission advancement for the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco in San Antonio. <\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. <\/p>\n

Jenna Barnett, Sojourners: I noticed some older jerseys in the picture you shared on social media. Do you know how long the Salesian sisters have been Spurs fans? <\/p>\n

Sr. Bernadette Mota: It started about 20 years ago. We had a couple elder sisters at our provincial house, our retirement house for our sisters who need assisted living. Some of them were born and raised in San Antonio, and anytime there was a game on they would watch it. And they would get very irritated when the game had to be turned off because it was bedtime. These were die-hard Spurs fans, and since then, those sisters have passed away. But we have other sisters who have taken the baton. <\/p>\n

We like watching sports because our mission is with young people and so in order to connect with the youth we need to know what they like. Then we can converse with them and introduce them to who we like: Jesus. <\/p>\n

Have you caught the Spurs bug? <\/p>\n

I\u2019m a big sports fan myself. I actually played basketball in high school and I coached basketball for a couple years before entering the convent. I\u2019m a Spurs fan. They\u2019re a good all-around team and they have a great fan base. <\/p>\n

Do you have a favorite player? <\/p>\n

Well, Wemby is the best player but I have two other players I really like. Luke Kornet because he\u2019s a really strong Catholic<\/a>. I just really look up to the way he\u2019s not afraid to share his faith on the public scene. And then Dylan Harper is a graduate from one of our Salesian schools out East. I\u2019d love to meet them some day. <\/p>\n

Dylan Harper especially has been impressing me during the playoffs. <\/p>\n

And he\u2019s a young kid! <\/p>\n

Where do y\u2019all watch the games together? Will you paint the scene? <\/p>\n

At our convent we have our main dining room where we eat, and right next to it we have our own extended dining room, and there we have a TV. After dinner and chores, whoever wants to stay and watch the game will watch it there. We only watch the games that are on regular TV because we don\u2019t have cable. We used to have cable but it was ridiculously expensive, so that wasn\u2019t a good use of our funds. If they go too late we\u2019ll just check the scores or highlights the next day. So maybe there\u2019s like 8\u201310 of us who watch a game. <\/p>\n

Do y\u2019all hope to go to any games in person? <\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t this year. In the past, the sisters who were big die-hard fans, one of them, who has since passed away, was able to build a connection with [former Spurs] coach Gregg Popovich<\/a>. Him and his wife came and visited the convent a couple times just to show their appreciation. So that\u2019s one of the reasons we still have the love of the Spurs, because of their respect for us as religious women and the church. Really his wife was the one who nudged him into coming and visiting our sisters. <\/p>\n

Well, I hope Coach Mitch Johnson sees this piece and gets y\u2019all some tickets. <\/p>\n

[Laughs] We\u2019d love to go to a game if someone gave us some tickets, but we can\u2019t afford it ourselves! I\u2019d be there praying for them. <\/p>\n

Something I\u2019ve always wondered as both an athlete and a fan is what it actually looks like to pray in the context of sports. Am I saying God is on my side? Because God\u2019s on everyone\u2019s side. So can you just share what prayer means to you in the context of sports competition? <\/p>\n

Playing sports is a way of glorifying God with the gifts that he has given you. But as we\u2019re playing, just know that everything you do is a gift from him. And he wants you to find pleasure in the good things that are given to us \u2026 When we pray for the Spurs, we\u2019re praying for them to play to the best of their ability, that nobody gets injured, that they have good sportsmanship. We pray for the other team too, but we really want our team to win. [Laughs] We\u2019re not praying for the other team to do bad, just that we do better. <\/p>\n

\"\"\/ The Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco in San Antonio. Courtesy the sisters.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

And if both teams are pretty comparable in terms of athleticism, we\u2019re praying for their functionality as a team, that they listen to their coaches, that their coaches are giving them the right directives, and that they\u2019re showing sportsmanship. <\/p>\n

I guess when Wembanyama elbowed Naz Reid, maybe he needed some more prayers! [Both laugh] Will you say a little bit about why you think the Spurs mean so much to the people of San Antonio? <\/p>\n

One of the biggest reasons why San Antonioians rally around the Spurs is because it\u2019s their only major league sports team. And the Spurs, the team, do a great job showing their appreciation with the fans. <\/p>\n

Can you share what your prayer is for the Spurs for the rest of the playoffs? <\/p>\n

I pray that they play to the best of their ability\u2014together. Because united, that\u2019s what makes the team strong. I pray they enjoy what they\u2019re doing. Because ultimately, it is a game, so I pray that they can have fun, play as a team, leave it all on the court, and not be brought down by anything that the opposing team does or whatever might be in the media. They just need to play their game and play strong together. <\/p>\n

Thanks so much for talking with me, sister! <\/p>\n

Go Spurs go, and God bless! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The morning after the Spurs won Game 5 of the NBA\u2019s Western Conference semifinals, I woke up, still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3080,82,84,83,38353,154,1594,13353],"class_list":["post-326537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-sisters","tag-sports","tag-spurs","tag-wembanyama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}