Some Reflections on Simple Faith

By Gary Topping–

In my idle moments—which, nowadays in my retirement, seem to be plentiful—I sometimes go to YouTube.  You never know what’s going to come up, from the most appalling garbage to the most sublime and inspiring.  I find that by searching for specific things I can avoid the former and gravitate toward the latter.  Bishop Robert Barron’s Sunday homilies and lectures on various subjects are always there and always inspiring.  And there’s some great music: if you’re a jazz fan, don’t miss Nikki Parrott and Scott Hamilton doing “One O’ Clock Jump” with a big band.

One musical treat that I’ve kept coming back to, though, is the Notre Dame University Folk Choir singing “I Am the Bread of Life”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX4uC3a7RC8.  It’s a very popular Catholic song which we even sing at Mass occasionally, and I always love it when it comes up in the liturgy.  But check out this version and marvel at the high energy and enthusiasm of those kids, some of them swaying to the music and all of them expressing their deep faith with wide smiles on their faces.  It brings tears to my eyes every time I watch them.

To a hardened old soul like mine, it takes me back to those years when I myself was the age of these kids, in my late teens and early twenties.  In those days it was easy to have faith, and simple answers to complicated questions also came easily.  But the longer I lived, the more I learned that complicated questions often have to have complicated answers.  And I had to learn to live with ambiguity and even contradiction.  And I witnessed aspects of fallen human nature that I had not anticipated: shameless lying, faithless betrayals of trust and callous abuse.  It all placed a big stress on both my intellect and my faith.

As I look into the faces of those kids in the choir, I see a simple faith, but not a naïve one—they’re believing in the right things.  But life is going to test that faith, and my prayer is that they will develop a wisdom and maturity to enable them to maintain the core of the faith while yet admitting complications and ambiguities.  Tragically, some of them, no doubt, will find the stresses too great and they will buckle under the burden.  But I choose to place my faith, not only in the sustaining power of God, but also in the wise and dedicated faculty members they are fortunate to be studying with and their ability to help those kids build a foundation that will withstand the storms that are going to hit them.

May it be so.

*Gary Topping is a writer and historian living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the retired archivist for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City and has written many books and articles. Signature Books recently published his latest work titled D. Michael Quinn: Mormon Historian.