Lord I Believe, Help My Unbelief:
A Heroic Sonnet For Today's Struggling Catholic

I.

I hope in the end this will write itself

that my pencil will stop turning over

to erase words, letting the tip hover

useless over the page of buried wealth.

Decades of syllables in and still, self-

rumination runs before I begin

to gather my thoughts—so grace turns to sin.

Where in these first words lies any prayer?

To start unblessed, how crude—yet do I dare

continue on despite my haste, cross myself when

it seems too late to return and prepare?

Unrepentant yet desiring remorse

I sigh In the name of because of course,

Even in the eleventh hour, there’s time. 

 

II.

 Even in the eleventh hour, there’s time

 to start over. After absolution

 erasure becomes cleansing, ablution

 of graphite to the white. The only sign

 of my previous mistakes is ghostly fine.

 This is all to say, I’ve never yet had

 to put writing in ink, no more time to add

 edit, reconsider or regret. What

 is worthy of the final cut? And what

 in the end is worse: to fail, be bad

 at this, heart open, or silent, heart shut?

 I’m still unsure of the answer, yet out

 of time I must give account. So I’ll shout

 Before my judgment, ready to be heard. 

​

Even in the eleventh hour, there’s time

 to start over. After absolution

 erasure becomes cleansing, ablution

 of graphite to the white.​

 

III.

Before my judgment, ready to be heard

I collect myself, gather in breath, compose

each introduction, question, presuppose

potential outcomes and reactions—God knows

I get lost like this. I am one of those

Restless types, floating between two extremes:

Sheer fascination and hellish daydreams.

I used to wonder how I could exist:

Where did I come from? Terror would insist

to know how, when, why—and it did seem

Such thoughts were at times too much to resist.

I would cry, paralyzed in my car seat

by bleak musings. In my youthful conceit,

I knew my prayers well but not my God

 

IV.

I knew my prayers well but not my God.

And yet I was closer then than I am now.

My fear and awe for He who said I AM

was sincere if less understood. It’s odd—

to want less in search of more—I have paused

at the rich young man and the Pharisees

who thought themselves satisfied and wise. Please,

Jesus tell me why I’m drowning these days.

Is it because I have strayed down ways

other than Yours, trying to run and seize

what You do not yet want for me? It says

in this book Your ways are not those of man:

Is wandering, then, where despair began?

My most grievous fault, oh Lord how I regret!

 

 

V.

Mea maxima culpa, Lord—I regret

the days I’ve spent letting my prayers die

feeble and rushed, thoughtless, with no reason why

I should doubt Your love. I’m quick to forget

how with Your blood You chose to pay our debt.

Some days life appears to be no more than

scrolling through cracked screens and trying to plan,

liking a viral bit or celebrity—

Shit, why is it my phone’s the deity

I worship most days? Vain, I praise man

Wanting to be self-made, and verity

Eludes me as I love touchscreen idols.

Rather than live with my flesh, I spiral—

forget transcendence and Love Incarnate. 

​
 

VI.

Forget transcendence and Love Incarnate?

How could I? I’ve tried to imagine it,

to think of being as an accident

but pure reason prevents me—how can it

be, that my breath, body, brain—all are but

the chaotic lottery of order? No—

Life has been crafted too well, and although

the Craftsman does not show His face, still His hand

is present everywhere, His mind has planned,

graced ours to understand all that we know—

Birds, beasts, all that speaks, water and the land.

Each atom called into being by a

God I’m not seeing, yet how can I say

He is not there who marks all creation.

​

​

VII.

He is not there? Who marks all creation

then, with such design and simplicity?

Stars and seas, oceans—how then? Can it be

such beauty has no explanation?

What is it to be? Mere observation

yields breathless wonder at these mysteries:

The harmony of it all, down to the bees

who suffuse life in each bloom where they rest, bless

each flower, crop, and field. I could not guess

what God intends for all that grows—He sees

good far beyond what I know as success.

If flowers of the field are so tended

How much more then to me is extended?

More still—with His wounds, with His sacrifice.

 

VIII.

More still: with His wounds, with a sacrifice

no one but God could offer God—perfect,

a gift I could never hope to expect.

And though just one drop of blood could suffice

He gave His whole self—opened paradise.

What then of this world do I truly need?

More lies and sorrow to make my heart bleed?

I’d rather till and tend verdant space

in my soul, secret and full, a holy place.

The sower warned us: note where lands the seed—

I’ll make the ground ready to root grace.

I’ll break up the concrete path for fresh earth

Wrench out weeds and thorns in search of rebirth—

that God will grow a new heart in me now.

​

​

IX.

That God will grow a new heart in me now

I hope, I pray, and I have no doubt of.

My only confidence lies in His love.

And if you balk at this, if you question how

with all the prior verses I avow

such trust when I burst with uncertainty

I simply say: He wrests the doubt from me.

New and full of riches He found the door wide.

My heart’s gate broke open and Oh! Inside:

bluebells, olive, lily of the valley.

Overflowing, abundant, a place to hide

in the company of my God, ivy

encircling it all. And He sits by me

Gentle and kind, giving living water.

 

X.

Gentle and kind, He gives living water,

offering more than I know how to want.

Riches, fame, the things our idols do flaunt—

They are the world’s ends. But as His daughter

such things lose their luster, they are fodder

no more than garbage, chaff meant for the flames.

Instead, He speaks softly and calls out names—

though we feel as strangers, unknown, unsure

He calls those adrift to come into shore.

We, burnt out and overworked, hear our names

called like heralded kings and queens, and poor

though we may be, He has fashioned us crowns

Of eternal peace; our deaths now struck down—

He waits there on the water’s edge for us.

​

​

XI.

What waits there on the water’s edge for us?

At the precipice of life, what will be?

Which of our earthly delights would we see

and desire more than vision Beauteous?

No— at heaven’s shore it shall not be thus.

Lethe will have washed our vain desires and pains:

no temptations left, love alone remains.

Still, broken I ponder and ache, I’m afraid—

unable to conceive of this, I’ve stayed

away from thoughts of death, the refrains

of angels frightful to me though I’ve prayed

for a happy end. In truth, I don’t know

what greeting He will give me when I go,

nor if I will trust the promise unseen.

 

XII.

And if I do trust the promise unseen,

confident in what I have been born for,

rejoicing in the path I’m set before,

it will not matter where I have been.

My doubts, sins—all will be redeemed, made clean.

I will have turned away from my pride—

that sin by which my very being has died,

the wicked lie that has caused all my strife—

wrest from my soul, I’ll seek the Way, Truth, Life

at last to arise in Christ glorified.

All titles I crave to own—mother, wife—

I will cast them into His perfect will

wanting for them not, yet hoping still

For such good names and the greatest one: saint.

​

​

XIII.

For such good names and the greatest one, saint:

That is what I am learning to long for.

A trust, a hope so deep it keeps no score

and will knock at the door without restraint

persevering in prayer without complaint.

Though I know my God gives only good things,

more days than not, the seed of doubt still clings

to me as I struggle to surrender.

In those hours, I battle the pretender

fending off his poisonous lies and stings

with an earnest cry to my defender,

not yet that holy fool who is free of fear.

Still, I will go on yearning to draw near

One who loves me more than I understand.

 

XIV.

You, who love me more than I understand:

How can You forgive all this unbelief?

How do You love us, who cause You such grief

and deserve nothing but Your reprimand?

We betrayed Eden, lost the promised land

and fickle, made false idols in our hearts—

How do You go beyond those blackest marks

and wipe off the rot, revealing Your creature?

You restore us, and seal each feature

that was cracked with gold—so despair departs.

Renewed, we are no longer what we were.

I am in awe each time I am remade

and if I turn away, letting grace fade

You seek me still, arms wide, waiting, welcome.

​

You, who love me more than I understand:

How can You forgive all this unbelief?

How do You love us, who cause You such grief

and deserve nothing but Your reprimand?​

​

XV.

I hope in the end this will write itself

That in the eleventh hour, there’s yet time

Before any judgment cast, to be heard:

I know my prayers well, but not You, God,

Mea maxima culpa—Lord, I regret

forgetting prayer and love Incarnate.

I see You here, marking all creation

more still, with Your wounds, with Your sacrifice

as You grow a new heart in me now.  

Gentle and kind, You give living water     

and wait there on the water’s edge for us

ask if we will trust the promise unseen—

that our good names will be made great with Saint:

for You love us more than we understand.