Grief, prayer and the journey to intentional faith

Anyone who knows Massimo Di Muccio will know how proud he is of his Catholic faith, but his relationship with Christ hasn’t always occupied the central space in his life that it does now. On the latest episode of the Things I Wish I Knew podcast, he talks to Julia about his journey from cultural Catholicism to intentional discipleship, with which many listeners will resonate.

Many people inherit faith as part of the atmosphere of family life. It arrives alongside language, food, customs and celebrations. For cradle Catholics especially, faith can become woven into culture so thoroughly that it is difficult to distinguish where one ends and the other begins. Yet there often comes a moment when inherited belief is tested by suffering, loss or change, and what was once cultural becomes something more deliberate and personal.

This movement from cultural faith to intentional faith emerged strongly in a recent conversation on the podcast Things I Wish I Knew, where Julia Corcoran spoke with Massimo Di Muccio about his experience of grief, family life and prayer. His story reflects a wider reality familiar to many Christians today: faith is rarely static. It develops through ordinary life, through relationships and responsibilities, and often through experiences we would never willingly choose.

Massimo grew up in a traditional Italian Catholic family where faith formed part of everyday life. Church attendance, sacraments and Catholic customs were the norm, but he did not experience religion as something imposed upon him. His parents created space for faith to be explored freely, rather than enforced rigidly. Looking back, he recognises this as a gift. It allowed faith to remain open rather than burdensome, even during periods when it was less central to his life.

For many people, especially those raised within long-standing Catholic communities, this experience is recognisable. Faith can feel less like a conscious decision and more like a cultural inheritance. It shapes identity, family relationships and moral instincts, yet can remain largely unexamined until adulthood. The challenge comes when cultural belonging alone no longer seems enough to sustain a person through suffering or uncertainty.

For Massimo, that turning point came with his father’s illness and death from cancer around a decade ago. Grief disrupted the assumptions and routines that had quietly carried him through life. At the same time, he found himself living away from the closeness of family and familiar community. The loneliness of that period sharpened deeper spiritual questions and awakened a renewed need for God.

What is striking is the honesty with which he speaks about this transition. Faith did not suddenly remove grief or confusion. Instead, it became a place in which grief could be carried. Church became a place he could bring sorrow rather than escape it. Prayer became less formal and more relational. He describes developing an ongoing dialogue with Jesus, speaking openly and directly amid exhaustion, uncertainty and fear.

There is something deeply Ignatian in this movement towards conversation with Christ in the midst of ordinary life. Ignatian spirituality often begins not with abstract theological certainty but with attentiveness: noticing where God is present within experience, emotion and desire. Massimo speaks movingly about contemplative prayer and the simple image of ‘pulling up a chair’ to speak with Jesus. The power of the image lies in its simplicity. Prayer becomes not a performance but a relationship.

This relational understanding of faith also shapes the way he approaches family life. As a father raising a young daughter while also caring for his widowed mother, he experiences the competing demands familiar to many adults in midlife. Responsibility can easily narrow life into a cycle of practical tasks and quiet anxiety. Yet he speaks about faith as something integrated into daily rhythms rather than confined to church or private devotion.

That integration matters. One of the difficulties facing Christians today is the temptation to separate faith from ordinary experience. Spiritual life can become something reserved for Sunday worship or moments of crisis, disconnected from work, caregiving, parenting or friendship. Yet the Christian tradition consistently points in the opposite direction. God is encountered not only in retreat or silence, but also in the hidden demands of everyday love and service.

Massimo’s experience also highlights how faith is often transmitted less through instruction than through witness. His daughter sees not only what he believes, but also how he prays, how he responds to suffering and how he continues seeking God amid uncertainty. Children are often formed spiritually by atmosphere long before they understand doctrine. The habits of compassion, honesty and prayer within a home can become a living inheritance.

There is also an important lesson here about vulnerability. Contemporary culture frequently rewards self-sufficiency and control, yet Christian faith begins with an acknowledgement of dependence. Grief has a way of stripping away illusions of independence. In speaking openly about loneliness, caregiving and emotional struggle, Massimo offers a reminder that faith is not sustained by strength alone. Often it deepens precisely through recognising our need for God and for one another.

Stories like this resonate because they resist simplistic narratives of certainty or easy answers. They remind us that faith is not merely assent to ideas, but an ongoing relationship shaped by life’s joys and wounds alike. The movement from cultural Catholicism to intentional discipleship is not necessarily dramatic or sudden. More often it unfolds quietly through prayer, suffering, family life and the slow discovery that God remains present within all of it.

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