May 28, 2025
A Chaplain’s Thoughts: You Gotta Believe
By Rev. James F. Quigley, O.P. ’60
Associate Chaplain, National Alumni Association
Carlo Carretto, a 20th century religious author, writes about the Catholic Church: “How baffling you are, Church, and yet how I love you. How much you made me suffer and yet how much I owe you. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity. How often I wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face and how often I have prayed to die in your arms.”
Why remain in the Church? Obviously, many do not. I would guess that many of us have family members and friends that have separated from the Church, permanently or at least for a time. So why stay? Why join? Why return? I like the answer given by the great American writer Flannery O’Connor: “I think that the Church is the only thing that is going to make this terrible world we are coming to endurable; the only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and on that we are fed.”
Faith is the capacity to see beyond the senses to a higher reality. It is an attitude of trust, an openness, an acceptance of what God will reveal, do, and ask. St. Paul would say: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It should be obvious that, when dealing with God, we are not in control.
Your life is not about you. You are part of God’s great design. To believe that is to have faith. The risen, still-living Lord Jesus Christ is the heart of Catholic religious life. Our faith calls us to surrender to his power already at work in us.
While we are not in control, we also are never alone. The mystery of the Church of Jesus Christ is that it has the power to give great holiness yet is made up all the way through of sinners.
So why stay? Think of the goodness of people in your life: parents, siblings, relatives, friends, priests, teachers, and so many others. Where does that goodness come from if not from God’s love at work in them? In the Catholic Church, we have the sacraments, we have the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We have the saints, we care for the poor and the immigrant; we serve the sick and those in any kind of need. We have a moral vision for what it is right and wrong, good and bad — all that makes life different.
Faith is not a superstition or assent to irrational nonsense. It is the ability to religiously decide to believe and follow Jesus Christ, who is beyond reason. So, you gotta believe.
