The author at the VII PCCC in Sandomierz 2008.

Although chess is all about chess, there is no doubt that this royal game can be regarded as a metaphor for spiritual life. In chess, as in the spiritual life, there is a need for strategies and techniques. Appropriate long-term goals must be set and appropriate measures to achieve them must be chosen.

The IX Polish Clergy Chess Championships are over. This year they took place in the hospitable Higher Theological Seminary in Drohiczyn. The winner was Fr. Stanisław Bąk, with whom I used to battle on the chessboard. I did not manage to come to Drohiczyn, but I promise myself that next year I will take part in the Jubilee, X Championships, which will take place in Koszalin.

Among the Catholic clergy there were several players of the world class. The first one is Ruy Lopez, a Spanish chess master, who in 1561 published his work on the theory of chess. Bobby Fischer’s second during his legendary world championship match with Boris Spassky in 1972, was William Lombardy, a chess grandmaster and a Catholic priest at the same time. Henrique Mecking, a prominent Brazilian grandmaster became a priest. Mecking was ill with muscle atrophy and experienced - as he says - a miraculous recovery, and, influenced by this event, he entered the priestly way.

Although chess is all about chess, there is no doubt that this royal game can be regarded as a metaphor for spiritual life. There are many images of a man or an angel playing chess with an evil spirit. One of these paintings hangs in the Jesuit Retreat House in Czechowice-Dziedzice. Well! An angel can afford a game with a bad spirit. But a man should not enter in any game with him. This is one of the principles of spiritual life: never get engaged in any talks or pacts with the devil. Ergo! Also do not play chess with him. Otherwise he will always outsmart us, because he is probably a brilliant player.

In Bulgakov’s ‘The Master and Margarita’ Satan Woland plays the game, for which - as noted consciously by Margarita - every chess magazine would give a lot to be able to print. Chess is essential in Bergman’s brilliant film “The Seventh Seal”. The main character, knight Antonius Block returns from the Crusades. He is weary of his 10-year wandering. He is tormented by the question of whether God really exists. On his way he meets Death. The knight suggests a game of chess to Death. This is not just to put off the inevitable from each end from himself if having won the game, but most of all, to hear from Death the answer to the question of the existence of God and eternal life. The knight eventually loses the game, and Death does not explain any of his niggling doubts.

In chess, too, as in spiritual life, there is a need for strategies and techniques. We must set appropriate far-reaching goals and choose appropriate measures to accomplish them.. St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises first determined the purpose of human life, and then concluded that "man should use creatures to such an extent as they assisted him in the pursuit of his purpose, and he should dispose of them to such an extent as they interfere in the pursuit." It is analogous to chess: you need to use the chess pieces to a degree ... sometimes, though, - as in spiritual life – a piece is worth sacrificing to achieve the greater good in the longer term. Such a sacrifice in the initial phase of the game is called an opening gambit.

No post-modern spontaneity in the search of an imaginary (subjective) truth about the reality will lead us to good results. Fashionable gibberish that everyone has their own inner truth turns out to be disastrous. You need to follow obvious rules and obey the referee. It happens that the players do not know the rules (e.g. that the touched figure goes) and then they nurse grudges. The same happens in spiritual life: someone makes big mistakes, because he believes that he does not have to listen to anyone and then he is surprised when, inevitably, everything falls to poeces. “And I was winning”, says a disappointed chess player. “And it was going so well”, sighs the man whose life is slipping away, leaving a bitter taste. An old chess saying goes, “When someone says that he was winning, do not deny; actually - he was ... “.

Both in chess and in life you have to be a consistent pilgrim. Indeed, a carefree wandering around the black and white chess board can cost a lot. In chess though, it’s just about chess, but in life it is about life.

Fr. Dariusz Kowalczyk SJ

Source: DEON.pl - Szachy a duchowość.