LATROBE, Pa. -- Sitting in the recliner of his monastic man cave at Saint Vincent Archabbey, the Rev. Maximilian Maxwell basked in the soft glow of his flat-screen as he soaked in the euphoria of the Pittsburgh Steelers' improbable Week 18 win.
Giddy from the adrenaline rush of the Baltimore Ravens' missed field goal that sealed the Steelers' AFC North title and 2025 playoff berth, Father Max, the prior of the archabbey, called a few friends during the commercial break to celebrate, and as the rush simmered to a buzz, he settled back in his chair to wind down for the night.
Then, he sat up in disbelief.
As the broadcast resumed, Father Max watched himself on the TV walk across the gold end zone at Acrisure Stadium, sprinkling holy water, and he heard NBC play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico narrate the religious ritual.
"This way," Tirico said, pointing, "is the end zone where the missed field goal happened by Tyler Loop. I want to show you what happened pregame, at 6:15 local time. This is a priest who is spreading holy water in that end zone. ... And down at that end zone is where Tyler Loop misses the field goal and allows the Steelers to win."
Tirico's partner, Cris Collinsworth, chuckled and added, "So it's not Tyler Loop's fault."
Tirico: "As with everything in football, it's at a higher power."
Father Max was speechless. But his friends weren't.
His phone started ringing, and it didn't stop ringing for days. News crews showed up at the monastery. TMZ even requested an interview. Everyone wanted to know about the priest who seemingly blessed and prayed the Steelers to the postseason and a win against their archrival.
"I did not like the fact of having a cellphone," Father Max recently told ESPN, recalling that night. "I had received many text messages and things of that nature. And that's where it gets weird, because of the fact that people were thanking me and congratulating me."
Anxiously waiting for the timer on his 15 minutes of fame to expire, Father Max respectfully declined all interview requests at the time. To him and the nearly 200 monks at Saint Vincent Archabbey, founded in 1846 as the first Benedictine monastery in North America, there's nothing supernatural or mystical about the blessing. The water didn't make Loop miss the field goal, and it certainly didn't determine the outcome of the game.
"No, I don't think so," Father Max said, when asked if the Steelers won by divine intervention. "I think it was a case where something happens, that's why we play the game. That would be a case where, if all of the players competed worthily and well with virtue and went home safe and sound, that's why that blessing took place."
Sweet sweet victory pic.twitter.com/2MGGtLDfAZ
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) January 6, 2026
What the cameras didn't show is that Father Max blessed the entire field before the game -- not just that one end zone. And what the mics didn't pick up was his prayer for the players' health and safety. There wasn't one word uttered urging the Steelers to win or the Ravens to lose. It's not a supernatural incantation. It's a sacred ritual, one that Father Max has performed for the past decade in tandem with the Rev. Paul Taylor.
"It's become a nice tradition that really brings people together," said Father Paul, who is also the president of Saint Vincent College, where the Steelers held training this summer. "And we try to do it in ways that are not visible. What people want to see is the game. We're sort of the behind-the-scenes people there for the team, just people of the team. It's not about us. It's about them.
"We pray for health and safety and freedom from injury. That's the prayer. And it's really for all the players on the field. It's not picking sides. God doesn't pick sides."
But that didn't stop players and fans -- and certainly Ravens fans -- from speculating that the Steelers got a divinely ordained dub.
"I was laughing with the [Pat] McAfee guys, they hit me up about that," Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told ESPN. "They sent me the clip -- I think that's when first I saw it -- they said, 'This is why you guys won.'"
Longtime Steelers defensive leader Cameron Heyward laughed and shook his head at the memory from Jan. 4.
"Whenever crazy stuff happens, I'm not surprised," he said. "God's got a plan. ... God's always been a Steelers fan."
Even second-year quarterback Will Howard, who is a practicing Catholic, admitted that his grandmother would probably say the win was divine intervention.
"She was uber-Catholic," Howard said. "She would have been the one to be like, 'That's why you guys won. You won because the priest blessed the field.'"
But Father Max and Father Paul are clear: Correlation doesn't imply causation. The blessings aren't the Steelers' secret weapon, and they don't dictate game outcomes. And with the initial fervor around the Week 18 blessing cooled, they now view the moment of virality as an opportunity to shine a light on the faith and the customs that come along with it.
"It's moving away from superstition and magic and things of that nature and focusing on trying to honor that sacramental and that honest blessing," Father Max said. "That's part of the beautiful bridge between church stuff and society stuff. Someone finds this attractive, and it's up to me for them to explain it, and move it away from magic and superstition to ask for a blessing so that peace of mind and heart can reside in whatever people are asking for."
Father Paul, a Western Pennsylvania native who has been at Saint Vincent since arriving as a freshman in 1983, started blessing the fields for the Steelers in 2003, but the tradition dates back to the AstroTurf at Three Rivers Stadium, Steelers team president Art Rooney II confirmed.
"Every time we drop new turf in, we bless the field," Father Paul said. "The same here at Saint Vincent. At the beginning of every season, we bless the turf."
As he took on more responsibilities, eventually becoming the president of Saint Vincent College in 2019, Father Paul's schedule filled up quickly. A decade ago, Father Paul wasn't available for the training camp blessing. That's when he called Father Max. Since then, the two have split blessing the field duties.
"We, unfortunately, can't be at two places at one time," Father Max said. "So not to mix metaphors, but he goes to the bullpen for myself to help fill in for him and for the blessings."
As part of the blessing, the priests also bury Benedictine jubilee medals inscribed with a prayer for goodness and divine presence in each corner of the new sod.
Blessing the field is just one of the ways the priests and the Saint Vincent serves and partners with the Steelers. The college has hosted the Steelers for training camp since 1966, and the Rooney family's connection to the college and monastery dates back to Art Rooney Sr. playing prep school football games at Saint Vincent in the early 1900s and later attending Catholic retreats at the residence halls as a young adult. Some of his own children, including Art Rooney Jr., later attended the college, and now, the Steelers stay at Rooney Hall during camp.
After the Steelers won their sixth Super Bowl in 2009, the monastery housed the trophies during training camp, and the monks helped display them for the fans.
The archabbey also offers Mass several times a week, ones frequently attended by Steelers coach Mike McCarthy. He missed the finale of the team's annual home run derby to make a late-afternoon Saturday Mass.
"It's not about, really, what we all do," said Father Paul, emphasizing the importance of hospitality in the Benedictine order. "It's about how we walk together. So having a blessing of the field or offering Mass or some sort of ministry opportunity to the organization is just really a matter of friendship. It's what we do."
As an ambassador for the college and the archabbey, Father Paul is a frequent visitor to the sidelines of Chuck Noll Field during training camp, almost always wearing a Benedictine black habit: a long tunic, belt and hooded scapular -- even in the late summer heat.
Earlier this year, Father Paul's robes caught Rodgers' eye before a camp practice. Standing with the rest of his position group, the veteran quarterback called Father Paul over. What started out as some lighthearted ribbing about the habit turned into Rodgers asking Father Paul if he would mind extending a blessing to the quarterbacks.
"I saw him out there, and he was in all black," Rodgers said. "I was like, 'Hey, come on, give us a little blessing.'
"We always had priests [in Green Bay], and Father Jim was an absolute legend. He was the Catholic priest that came and did Mass for us. I would get him to pray for me from time to time just because he's such an awesome guy. I have a lot of respect for all the traditions and stuff like that."
While Father Paul frequently stays for Steelers' home games after blessing the field, Father Max takes a different approach. Wearing an all-black ensemble, Father Max arrives hours before kickoff to complete the blessing. He walks the perimeter of the field at Acrisure Stadium, sprinkling the holy water from a plastic vessel and reciting a blessing that asks for the safety of all players, coaches and support staff. The low-key process takes about 15 minutes, and he's often in and out before anyone takes notice -- except for last season's Week 18 game when the NBC crew happened to be filming pregame shots.
"We try to do that before cameras are on the field, and someone got him on camera, which is fine," Father Paul said. "It's not meant to be sneaky. It's just meant to be not part of the focus. I was surprised that it got as much attention as it did, but it's not about us. It's about the players."
Because of the long wait between the blessing and kickoff, Father Max usually heads back to the monastery to watch the game from his dorm room, one that greets him with a Steelers wreath on the door during football season.
A Philadelphia native, Father Max grew up rooting for the Eagles. But once he moved to Saint Vincent and became immersed in the community that helped host the Steelers training camp each year, he couldn't help but adopt the black and gold. And when the Steelers play the Eagles -- like they will in Week 11 this season -- Father Max isn't all that conflicted.
"Pray with my black and gold on," he said, when asked about his approach to those games. "That's the best way I can answer that. This is very much part of who I am. All due respect to the Philadelphia Eagles, but really this is part of who I am. I'm a very, very honored and proud member of the Steelers nation."
And while neither he nor Father Paul mix superstition and religion, in an interesting twist of fate, the field's first regular-season blessing of 2026 will come from the same man who delivered the final one of 2025 after the field was resodded following the Aug. 29 Bruno Mars concert.
"Actually," Father Max said, grinning. "I believe I am asked to help out for that game."