“Seeing is believing,” the old saying goes. Yet in today’s first reading and in the Gospel, those who have seen with their own eyes—people hearing the words of the recently converted Paul, as well as disciples who have been at Jesus’ side throughout his ministry—cannot reconcile what they have seen and heard with the larger message. Jesus asks, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?”

He might ask us the same question, if he were to stand before us today. We have spent years, maybe our entire lives, listening to the teachings of Jesus, receiving him in the Eucharist, professing that he and the Father are one. Still, there are probably days when, like the disciples, we approach Jesus with a bit of spiritual amnesia.

It’s not that we haven’t listened; it’s that we have listened with our ears rather than our hearts. The good news is that we do not always have to fully understand in order to receive the graces that flow from God toward a seeker with a sincere heart. “O God teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life,” Thomas Merton writes in one of his early journals. “Teach me to be content with Your grace that comes to me in the darkness and that works things I cannot see.”

Today, let us put aside the need to know it all and let us trust in the mystery beyond all knowing.

Mary DeTurris Poust, “Spiritual Amnesia,” from the May 2025 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2024). Used with permission.

Photo by Anastasiya Badun on Unsplash

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The image of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel stands in stark contrast to the secular holiday images that bombard us from every side during this season.

Camel hair for clothes and locusts for food are a far cry from a red velvet suit and a plate of cookies, and, yet, here we are, trying to navigate between two very different worlds with two very different messages. Ho, ho, ho, you brood of vipers!

This Sunday’s readings can be a tough sell. We listen, we hear, but it’s hard not to feel just a little bit disappointed to be handed threshing floors and unquenchable fires as we decorate our Jesse trees and open the doors on our Advent calendars.

And while John’s dire warnings may seem out of place in a season of hopeful waiting, if we dive deeper into the readings, we find glimmers of a hope that will outlast anything we might find under the tree come Christmas morning.

For starters we can soothe our jagged souls by spending a little time with St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, today’s second reading, to offset some of the harshness John is serving out.

In Paul we find endurance and encouragement, harmony and hope. That’s more like it, we want to shout, but the hard truth is that ours is not a faith of either/or but one of both/and. We do not get the harmony and hope without the repentance and refinement through spiritual fire.

We probably should not expect anything less from a God who was willing to break into our world to save us by becoming one of us.

“The Advent mystery in our own lives is the beginning of the end of all, in us, that is not yet Christ,” wrote famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton in his essay “Advent: Hope or Delusion?”

“It is the beginning of the end of unreality. And that is surely a cause of joy! But unfortunately we cling to our unreality, we prefer the part to the whole, we continue to be fragments, we do not want to be ‘one man in Christ.’”

That sounds suspiciously like an updated version of the message John the Baptist brings us today.

This mystery we call Advent, this path through darkness toward light, is not only about preparing the way of the Lord but preparing ourselves for the Lord’s coming — on Christmas, yes, but also at the end of time.

Advent is a season that dwells in both realities. We prepare to celebrate a birth even as we prepare for the end of the world as we know it.

But what does that mean for those of us who are living in the world, cooking dinners (not of the locust variety), buying gifts for family and friends, decorating our house and sipping eggnog?

Can we enjoy those moments of lighthearted joy even as we accept John’s message of repentance? Yes, because Jesus showed us how.

Throughout Scripture we see Jesus attend parties, share meals with friends and find joy in the innocence of children. Ours is not a joyless faith, just the opposite. It is a faith that finds joy even amid suffering, which is no easy thing.

This season of Advent and the Scripture readings that guide our way day by day provide the operating instructions for the difficult task of letting go of our unreality and clinging to the only reality that matters: Jesus Christ.

The rest of the world wants you to blast Mariah Carey around the clock, bake cookies till you drop and spend so much you’ll need six months to dig yourself out of debt. When you think about it, that doesn’t sound all that joyful, does it?

Advent, on the other hand, asks you to slow down, pause, breathe, wait, be. Can’t you feel your shoulders relax as you hear that? If you want a recipe for real joy, skip the world’s version and find what’s hiding in the challenging words of Scripture.

“Our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is, not as it might be,” wrote Merton. “The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it and that His plan has been neither frustrated nor changed: indeed, all will be done according to His will.

“Our Advent is a celebration of this hope. What is uncertain is not the ‘coming’ of Christ but our own reception of Him, our own response to Him, our own readiness and capacity to ‘go forth to meet him.’”

In other words: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”

Turns out John the Baptist is right on time, not only in this season but in this period of history. The world tries to tangle us up in heartbreak and division, but John reminds us in the bluntest of terms that this world holds nothing for us.

We belong to the One who is and was and is to come.

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The problems arise when we forget our story or get stuck in a bad chapter or let someone else write the story for us. Have you ever walked into a family gathering happy, confident, carefree, only to find yourself crashing downward when a loved one says something (perhaps unconsciously) meant to fit you into someone else’s characterization of you? Suddenly you are 12 years old again and powerless.

I look at my own childhood and my own children, and it’s easy to see how we can sometimes foist our own definitions upon others—the social butterfly, the brain, the daredevil, the helper, the troublemaker. But when we take a closer look, we see things that go much deeper than the labels. We are all complex beings. We hear everything, see everything from our own unique perspective. Meanwhile, the people we love, the people who drive us crazy, the people we encounter in even the most fleeting moments of our days respond to us from their own perspectives and stories. It’s fascinating and at times frustrating no matter which side of the equation we are on.

How do we defy the definitions that threaten to contain us to the small world other people want us to live in? How do we throw off the labels and embrace the path God has laid before us? By embracing our true selves, the people we were created to be, not the people we think we should be or the people the world tells us to be.

In his book “No Man Is an Island,” Thomas Merton wrote: “Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?”

Deep inside I think most of us have a sense of what we were made for, but we don’t trust ourselves, don’t trust God. We believe what the world tells us—it’s too difficult, you’re not smart enough, you don’t have the temperament—and we throw obstacles in our own way. The older we get, the harder it becomes to shake that.

I remember years ago, when Chiara was first starting out in gymnastics, many of the girls would step up to the uneven parallel bars to attempt the aptly named “fly-away,” which requires a gymnast to let go of the bar and sail through the air for a few terrifying seconds, and they would freeze at the moment of truth. Their feet would cling to the bar and they’d hang there like a little cocoon, as the coach tried to convince them to let go.

Chiara, who, truth be told, often wears the “daredevil” label in our family, never hesitated, not even for a nanosecond. She’d flip her legs up, release her hands and fly into the air as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I would watch that moment of pure trust in absolute awe.

We start out trusting, all of us, but somewhere along the way the stories people tell us about ourselves become more real than our own truth. Someone makes fun of us or scolds us, highlights a flaw or plants seeds of doubt, and little by little we begin to hold tighter to the bar, afraid if we let go we’ll hit the ground with a splat.

Own your story. Trust your heart. Let God reveal your true self and then let go and soar.

This column originally appeared in the Feb. 26, 2020, issue of Catholic New York.

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Now the back story. I first attended the Merton in the Mountains retreat in 2008. It was my first-ever silent retreat and my first time at Pyramid. I was nervous going in, wondering if I could maintain the silence. I left transformed and committed to regular periods of silence and stillness, whether on retreat or on a cushion in my sunporch at home. The retreat was run by Walt Chura back then, a devoted Merton follower and secular Franciscan who guided us, offered us spiritual direction, and made us feel like this retreat was exactly where we needed to be. Walt stopped leading the retreat a few years ago. This year was supposed to be a special treat. Sister Monica Murphy, CSJ, director of Pyramid Life Center and a larger-than-life beloved figure in our diocese, was scheduled to lead it, but she was killed in a tragic auto accident earlier this month. A substitute leader was needed; that’s where I come in, and I am beyond honored. There is no way I can fill Sister Monica’s shoes as leader of this retreat — I wouldn’t dare try — but I will lead from the heart of my own love of Thomas Merton, in the spirit of Walt Chura, and in memory of Sister Monica.

If you have time and want to give this retreat a try, think about it, or email me and I’ll be happy to talk to you about what to expect. Silence is the main thing. We’ll have regular “conferences” related to Merton, prayer in the mornings and evenings, silent meals taken together, Mass on Sunday, and time to just relax and listen for the still small voice. Pyramid Life Center is a beautiful place to spend a weekend — a big open lake, with loons swimming and calling; trails to hike, rocks to sit on, a little meditation cabin, a log chapel. It really is something to experience.

You can find more information about Pyramid Life Center HERE. If you’re ready to sign up, HERE is the direct link to the registration page. (It’s listed under “Thomas Merton Silent Retreat” in the drop down.) I hope I see you Sept. 6-8. If you can’t join us, please pray for those of us who will be making this interior journey. And please pray for the repose of the soul of Sister Monica. Pyramid will not be the same without her.

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Even this column took a markedly un-spiritual turn for a couple of months. I wrote about art and parenting from my outpost in the desert, hoping that by the time the next column came around something might have shifted. Fortunately, grace is usually at work even as we crouch in the darkness of doubt. I have to believe it was grace—and perhaps a nudge from my husband, Dennis—that made me realize that the only way things were going to shift was if I retreated into solitude and silence to sit face to face with God and myself.

Copyright Mary DeTurris Poust

So I emailed the retreat manager at the Abbey of the Genesee, booked my favorite room for the next weekend and made the four-hour drive to the Cistercian abbey just south of Rochester. Before I even checked into the retreat house, I headed to the abbey to sign up for spiritual direction and confession, knowing that I couldn’t fully participate in the liturgies with my beloved Trappist monks unless I first was absolved. There was an immediate opening, so I wrote my initials on the sign-up sheet and waited for the monk to call me in.

What unfolded over the course of that confession, the next two days and the weeks since is nothing short of miraculous, as far as I’m concerned. I arrived desperate and depressed, crying over the loss of my connection to God, and within 24 hours, I was practically floating down the hillside from the abbey, ready to tackle the difficult spiritual assignment I’d been given and overjoyed to feel not only a spark but a raging fire of God’s presence burning within.

My confessor and spiritual director, who was taught by Thomas Merton and served as spiritual director to Henri Nouwen—two of my all-time spiritual heroes, doled out the hardest penance I’ve ever received, a penance that was the exact spiritual medicine I needed: 30 minutes of “prayer in the presence of God” every single night for six straight weeks. I recognized at once that this penance was a gift. My confessor was trying to create in me a new habit, one that I desperately wanted and needed but was too lazy or too scared to commit to. I imagine that his hope is that the six weeks will turn into a lifelong practice. It’s my hope too.

That confession and conversation, peppered with wonderful stories, and laughter and tears, launched my retreat in the best possible way, leaving me renewed, reconnected and chanting along with the monks for every hour of the Divine Office. Spiritual direction with the same monk set me on a new trajectory, so much so that I’m convinced I was meant to be in that particular place on that particular weekend with that particular monk. It was beyond a blessing. It was transcendent and transforming.

Of course, life back in the real world isn’t nearly so transcendent. As deadlines and responsibilities push back against every spiritual impulse, I find myself thinking, “Maybe I’ll skip my prayer session tonight.” And then I remember that this practice is penance and skipping it is not really an option. Again, I marvel at the wisdom of this old monk who has seen so much and counseled so many. He saw through my act as soon as he laid eyes on me, and zeroed in on what I needed so quickly that I wondered if he could read my mind. He certainly read my soul, and I’m convinced that he probably saved it.

This column originally appeared in the Aug. 31, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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One girl, tall and thin with fair skin and strawberry blonde hair, came out in a stunning green-sequined dress and declared, “I love the dress but not the execution,” and she ran back to her stall to try again. Truth be told, she looked gorgeous, but as is so often the case, what we see in the mirror when we look at ourselves is often not what other people see when they catch the exact same glimpse of us. A few minutes later, another girl opened her door and the other three oohed and aahed and tried to convince her that this was “the one.” They begged her to come out and take a look in the three-way mirror at the end of the hall, but she was shy and backed into the stall head down, smiling nervously, mumbling something about looking “lumpy.” Meanwhile, I was doing the same dance with Olivia. Every single dress she tried on could have been a keeper, but as she harshly judged her appearance and pointed out flaws I couldn’t find, I could hear echoes of my own self-criticism.

In that moment, leaning against the wall of the dressing room surrounded by these teenage girls formed by a culture soaked in altered and unrealistic images of beauty, I experienced my own version of Thomas Merton’s famous epiphany on a crowded Kentucky street corner on March 18, 1959.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers…There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun,” Merton wrote in “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.”

“If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time.”

I have often joked that rather than feel an overwhelming Merton-esque type of love for the people surrounding me on a street corner, I am more likely to feel an overwhelming sense of annoyance. So, imagine my surprise when there, in Crossgates Mall on a cold February night, I had my Merton moment.

Although I never interfered in the conversation or offered any opinion, I was quietly but unavoidably smack dab in the middle of the action. As the girls went about their fashion show commentary, I could not help but smile, and I felt an overwhelming sense of love and protection as I looked at these beautiful young women who were being so hard on themselves and so critical of their looks when, in reality, they were all shining like the sun.

I think we all start out that way—shining like the sun—but the world’s demands and life’s daily struggles and our own misguided attempts to live up to someone else’s ideal cast a shadow over us and eclipse our light. Every once in a while, if we’re lucky, we find ourselves standing in a crowd, realizing we belong to each other; we are one.

This column originally appeared in the March 2, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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I find comfort in the fact that he carried on, following his path toward God, even when he was thrown off course by his humanness. I look at Merton and see holiness wrapped in weakness, and isn’t that where most of us are?

We’re all called to be saints, but oftentimes our humanity gets in the way. In Merton, we can see ourselves, trudging ever closer to God despite mistakes — some of them pretty major — and confusion and doubt.

Today, on the 46th anniversary of his death in Bangkok, I am taking time to remember and reflect, but Merton is never far from my thoughts because so many of his words are constantly ringing in my ears.

Hanging next to my desk is this Merton quote:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

See what I mean? Comforting and yet challenging. I read those words and think, “Oh, good, Merton had no idea where he was going either.” Then I read a little more and think, “Oh, no, he trusted God completely. Can I do the same?” For me that’s a saintly role model, reminding me that I’m not alone but pushing me to go beyond my typical response and reach for something deeper, truer.

Twice in the last six years I have been blessed to attend a silent retreat called “Merton in the Mountains.” By a lake in the lower Adirondacks, I have had the briefest glimpse into Merton’s way of life. It wasn’t easy either time. In fact, it was downright difficult and more than a little frightening — to give up my voice, to sit and wait for God while trying to throw off the monkeys of worry and doubt and pride and ambition. Merton knew those same feelings, and yet he continued to return to the silence, the solitude because that is where he knew he’d find God.

Another quote from Thoughts in Solitude that rings true for me, maybe truer with every passing year:

To love solitude and to seek it does not mean constantly traveling from one geographic possibility to another. A man becomes a solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of his own inalienable solitude and sees that he will never be anything but solitary. From that moment on, solitude is not potential — it is actual.

But perhaps the quote that always calls me back, the one that echoes in my head, is the quote below. It’s a constant reminder of my inability to ever know God if I try to make him in my own image:

God approaches our minds by receding from them. We can never fully know Him if we think of Him as an object of capture, to be fenced in by the enclosure of our own ideas.

We know him better after our minds have let him go.

The Lord travels in all directions at once.

The Lord arrives from all directions at once.

Wherever we are, we find that He has just departed. Wherever we go, we discover that He has just arrived before us.

Merton reminds me that I still have a shot, even when I don’t get it right on a pretty regular basis. Merton, with his beautiful and powerful words, gives me something to hold onto when God feels very far away.

Thomas Merton, pray for us.

This post originally ran on NSS on Dec. 10, 2013.

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“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us… It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely…I have no program for this seeing.  It is only given.  But the gate of heaven is everywhere.” – Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

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