by Nick Brescia / Nick Brescia first heard this creed at his son’s Catholic baptism and Jewish naming ceremony. Twenty years into an interfaith marriage, he has found its words describing a life he was already living.
Prayer of Belief – A Liturgical Creed
by John Shea
We believe that where people are gathered together in love,
God is present, and good things happen, and life is full.
We believe that we are immersed in mystery,
that our lives are more than they seem,
that we belong to each other
and to a universe of great creative energies
whose source and destiny is God.
We believe that God is after us,
that God is calling to us from the depth of human life.
We believe that the Spirit of Peace is present with us
as we gather to celebrate our common existence,
and the fidelity of God.
We believe that the Spirit of Peace is present with us
as we gather to celebrate our common existence,
and the fidelity of God.
And most deeply we believe
that in our struggle to love, we incarnate God in the world.
And so, aware of mystery and wonder,
caught in friendship and laughter,
we become speechless before the joy of life.
– John Shea, The Hour of the Unexpected
Nick’s Reflection
I read and heard this prayer for the first time at my son’s Catholic baptism and Jewish naming ceremony. I find the words beautifully capture the spiritual foundations and richness of the Jewish and Catholic faith traditions and offer insight to anyone open to spiritual exploration. The words also reflect many truths I have received, tried to share, and then received again as part of our chapel community. For me, our chapels are “gatherings in love” filled with contemplation of “a universe of great creative energies” and reflections on “mystery, wonder, and our struggle to love.” Jack Shea’s words have become my lived experience, “the joy of life,” as a husband and father in an interfaith family and a participant in chapel.
Chapel also often reminds me that “God is after us . . . calling to us,” including through music. While not typically considered a hymn, ”Wildflowers” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I believe espouses God’s desire for and call to us. It’s a song my wife and I hold dear, and I propose it to you as a simple and true “prayer of belief.”
How the Word Works
We tend to think of creeds as fixed statements of doctrine to agree with or push against. But the deeper tradition understands a creed as something more like a living testimony: what a community has come to trust through experience. Cardinal John Henry Newman spent a lifetime exploring this. For Newman, faith was not a conclusion but a journey; he wrote to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. Jack Shea’s creed does not define God, but rather describes an experience of being found, gathered, called to love, and
becoming speechless before The Mystery.
This summer we have moved through fifteen forms of sacred language. A creed can be the form that holds all of them. The place where a community finally says, together, what the Poems, Parables & Proverbs have been pointing toward all along.
A Simple Practice
Read Shea’s creed slowly, once through, without deciding anything about it.
Then read it again, and this time notice where you find yourself saying yes. Not where you think you should — where something in you actually recognizes what is being described. It may be a whole stanza. More likely it will be a single line: we belong to each other, perhaps, or God is after us, or in our struggle to love, we incarnate God in the world.
Stay with that one line. Then ask the question that matters most: what in your own life has given you confidence that this is true? Some experience taught you this. A person, a season, a room you were once in. Let yourself remember it in detail.
A creed is not finally a statement we agree to. It is a description of what we have already lived — and belief is what happens when we recognize our own experience in someone else’s words.
Nick’s Bio
Nick Brescia grew up Catholic and has lived in Oak Park for the past sixteen years with his wife Alyssa, their children Jude, Eloise, and Josie, and their dog Presley. He and Alyssa met serving in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in California and have spent twenty years learning to love and be loved as an interfaith couple, raising their family in both the Catholic and Jewish traditions. They count Old St. Patrick’s and The Family School — an interfaith Jewish and Catholic religious school — among their spiritual homes. Nick is a grateful and regular presence at the Wednesday noon chapel.
Poems, Parables & Proverbs was a Sunday email series shared with the Still Point community through the summer of 2026. Each week offered a text, a reflection from a member of our community, and a simple practice for the week ahead.
This definition of creed makes so much sense to me. Its richness will call me to reread many times.