Miracles and Materialism

“There is only one intelligent reason why a man does not believe in miracles and that is that he does believe in materialism.” 

—“Miracles and Death,” St. Francis of Assisi, by G.K. Chesterton

© 2025 by Michael F. Lee
Originally published by Decided Excellence Catholic Media, October 2025

Have you, or anyone you know or have spoken with, ever said or wondered “why don’t we see miracles today?” Many seem to hold that miracles, if indeed they ever happened at all, simply do not happen anymore. 

This attitude may be due at least in part to the understandable debunking of myths and fairy tales undertaken by parents as their children age and develop. God forbid that a 9-year-old lets it slip that he or she believes in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy! 

If you couple this debunking with the oft-repeated adage, “God helps those who help themselves,” you have the vaccine needed to inoculate children against belief in the miraculous, whether intended or not. 

And what does the debunking offer in place of the forbidden beliefs? Sadly, what it often offers is a belief in materialism— after all, gold is reality! 

Mr. Chesterton, who happily retained his belief in dragons and in brave knights who slew them, would caution us against being too easily convinced of the materialist gospel. For he knew well that miracles happen every day, most notably on every Catholic altar, and that we only fail to see them because we’re focusing on accumulating perishable material things.