By David G. Bonagura, Jr.
At first glance, being Catholic does not seem difficult. Go to Mass on Sunday. Pray. Keep the commandments. Love others. It sounds pretty easy.
People like easy: it is the key adjective in all advertising today—easy meals, easy programs, easy payments, easy installation. The implication is clear: difficult is undesirable, unpleasant, unnecessary. What sane person would spend hours preparing dinner, completing a computer task, or assembling a new gadget when the easy way solves it in an instant?
But if we dig beneath the surface, being Catholic is not so easy. Attend Mass every single Sunday throughout my 70 or 80 years, even in terrible weather and when I travel? Pray: who has time for that? Keep the commandments: I have not killed anyone, but am I really subject to judgment and Hell, as our Lord warned, if I get angry with my brother or call him a fool? (Matthew 5:22) I have not borne false witness, but must I really abstain from gossip and slander as well? Love others: even the hateful neighbor, the reckless driver, the lunatic shouting in the subway?
Being Catholic means being a follower of Jesus Christ. He proposed a deal for it: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) And the reward for following Him in this life? “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” (Matthew 10:22)
For our Lord’s commandments, “easy” is not the first adjective that comes to mind.
Yet I see “easy” used often in Catholic marketing: easy apps, easy steps to pray, easy ways to incorporate faith into our lives. “Easy” has a cousin, “simple,” which is used as a synonym for the same point. “Just follow these easy steps and you will be a saint in an instant: it’s that simple!”
So let us offer a clarification: the general principle of being Catholic may be easy to grasp—that is, following Jesus—but being Catholic in practice, that is, following Jesus as He commands us, is difficult. Quite difficult. And we must know and accept it. Because if we live our faith without struggle or challenge, we are not living it correctly.
If we are honest on this point, are we communicating to Catholics and potential converts that our faith is undesirable, unpleasant, and unnecessary, like everything else that is difficult to do today? If being Catholic is not easy, must there not be at least some joy or fun in it? Is there any truth in that famous couplet by Hilaire Belloc?
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
We can reconcile that being Catholic is both difficult and joyful by turning to the world of sports for an imperfect parallel. Golf is an incredibly difficult game to play well. That fact did not stop the 48 million Americans who played golf in some form in 2025, and their average scores show that most play terribly. The agony, the swearing, the bad temper unleashed on a golf course over bad shots occur more often than the triumphs, the joys, and the high-fives over good ones. Everyone knows golf is not easy. Yet players keep coming back. The game is difficult. Quite difficult. They love it anyway.
Faith does not stir the soul as sport does, which powerfully stimulates the senses. Faith is first and foremost a matter of the intellect or, more colloquially, of heart-knowledge. Acts of faith—prayer, attending Mass and receiving the sacraments, performing good works—satisfy the heart and mind in the manner of a good book or a beautiful sunset. “Satisfy” is the optimal word. Sport excites. Faith fulfills.
We do not perform the difficult works of being Catholic for that cliché: “If it is not difficult, it is not worth it.” We do them because that is what God asks of us. There may be no joy in performing them in the moment: prayer can be a trial, bearing others’ burdens can be terribly heavy. And by definition, there is no joy in the act of suffering. Joy is reflective, born of knowing that in doing these things we enter into union with the God who loves us. Our senses may not be excited, but we know that God fulfills our spiritual needs when we offer Him these difficult tasks.
And joy gives way to fun. It can be fun, in retrospect, to recall terrible shots and bad streaks in a round of golf. Likewise, it can be fun to recall the difficulties and failures of Catholic life. “I fell asleep praying the rosary last night; I asked my guardian angel to finish it for me.” “I went to confession and got so irritated by the wait that, when I entered, I had a new sin to add.” “I felt so dirty after watching that movie that I wanted to drink a glass of holy water.”
That fun resonates only among fellow Catholics who “strive to enter by the narrow door” (Luke 13:24). Because hardship, joy, and fun coexist and mutually reinforce one another when united by a common love. So it is with golf. So it is with family life. So it is also with Catholic life, which has many good things, beyond the hardships, that generate joy and fun; but that is for another column.
The union of God with man in Christ generates another mystery: the union of the Cross, laughter, and good red wine, all within the one Church of God.
About the author
David G. Bonagura, Jr. is the author, most recently, of 100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today, and the translator of Jerome’s Tears: Letters to Friends in Mourning. An adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary and Catholic International University, he is the religion editor of University Bookman, a book review founded in 1960 by Russell Kirk. His personal site is here.