And yet, we are often disappointed, even on Easter, even when we are offered the promise of eternal life and salvation. We look at prayers unanswered (at least according to our standards) and a world breaking under the strain of division and human suffering, and we struggle to find joy, even when our faith tells us not to be afraid, that nothing on this earth, no matter how awful, can keep us away from what God has promised.

Wherever you find yourself today, whatever your problems and struggles, there is reason to rejoice. Jesus is not dead; he is alive. The cross was not a defeat for him, and it will not be a defeat for us. We do not always understand Jesus’ ways, and like those early disciples, we may stare at the empty tomb — or at some challenge in our own life or the larger world — and wonder, “How can this be?” But Jesus doesn’t ask us to understand; he asks us to trust that things are unfolding just as he told us they would.

If you are struggling to find Easter joy this season, imagine you are Mary Magdalene, bereft after finding the tomb empty. Upon encountering a man whom she does not recognize at first, she is called by name and realizes she is speaking to the resurrected Jesus. He tells her not to be afraid and to go and preach the good news of his resurrection to the other disciples. Her fear disappears in that moment, and she boldly proclaims: “I have seen the Lord.” We, too, are called by name.

In his beautiful book, “Life of the Beloved,” theologian Henri J.M. Nouwen writes, “What I most want to say is that when the totality of our daily lives is lived ‘from above,’ that is, as the Beloved sent into the world, then everyone we meet and everything that happens to us becomes a unique opportunity to choose for the life that cannot be conquered by death. Thus, both joy and suffering become part of the way to our spiritual fulfillment.”

Our lives will always be a mixture of both dark and light, happiness and sadness, but always hope, and possibly even joy in the face of struggle, if we follow Mary Magdalene’s example of complete trust.

As you move through this Easter season, pay attention to physical signs and symbols around you at Mass — the Paschal candle flickering, the powerful fragrance of lilies in bloom, the music bursting with Alleluias, the holy water cool against your skin, a shower of blessings in the most literal sense. It’s beautiful how we use physical things to help us bridge the distance to God, as though we are so hungry to get closer, we pull out all the stops. If only we could keep that fire of love going year-round. The Church gives us a running start by offering us the beautiful 50-day season of Easter. Soak it up. Let it feed your soul and animate the inner joy that is your spiritual birthright. After all, he is risen. Run and tell the others!

This column originally appeared in the April 9, 2025, issue of The Evangelist.

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And therein lies the beauty and joy and inspiration. I spend a lot of time with younger adults these days. In our training studio, we are learning together for 25 hours at a clip over seven weekends. I am humbled and inspired, awed and amazed by the young people who are wise beyond their years, deep on the spiritual path and committed to making the world a better place. I sit beside them in class, or huddled over a plate of rice and lentils at lunch, and soak in their enthusiasm and determination.

Learning past midlife is often underrated or avoided. We age and think we know it all. We age and think you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The truth is that it is only through continually growing and learning—in our spiritual lives, our physical lives and our intellectual lives—that we remain vibrant and relevant, engaged and enthusiastic, not just for the things that matter directly in our lives but for the things that matter to others, to the greater community, to the people we love and to the strangers who join us on the path.

One of the key things I’ve realized during my training is that it’s not just about the learning; it’s about the community that surrounds the learning. We can learn while sitting in front of a computer screen at home, but learning that puts us into relationship with others, that draws us deeper into community, is what changes us on a fundamental and foundational level. Much like the way our Church and our parish are meant to change us. Sure, we can pray at home—and we should—but, at some point, we have to join our prayers with those of others in community where we strengthen each other and move forward together. That’s what most people crave; that’s what many people find missing: a united community that does not just say the words together on Sunday but lives the truths together day by day.

When I walk into my training community at Jai Yoga School in Slingerlands, N.Y., fellow students rush over to hug me and inquire about the people I’ve asked them to pray for. We share our deepest fears and greatest hopes, we make mistakes in front of each other, cry in front of each other, and laugh together. There is so much joy, not because everything is perfect but because we are willing to be vulnerable before each other.

Finding a new class will help you stay physically and mentally fit, but finding a spiritual community will carry you when you are in need, challenge you when you think you’ve stretched as far as you can go, and connect you in ways that will soften your heart and transform your life.

In “Bread for the Journey,” Henri Nouwen wrote, “Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.”

Where do you find that kind community? Who makes up your spiritual tribe? Cultivate connection and compassion somewhere in your life today and watch the magic happen.

This Life Lines column originally appeared in the March 25, 2020, issue of Catholic New York.

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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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Being on the open road for four hours is the perfect time for thinking about waiting and the way we view time, or at least time spent on things that don’t seem important or productive or special. After all, the goal of my drive was the destination I had programmed into my GPS; the drive was just the means to an end. At least that’s how my mind usually works.

“Be here now.” I often write those words on a small dry erase board on my desk. It’s as much a reminder for myself as it is for those who come by to visit. Can I be present where I am at this moment, even if that happens to be behind a steering wheel, or on line at the grocery story, or in the waiting room at the dentist? It’s human nature to see those times as a sort of limbo where we’re biding our time until real life gets back under way.

And sometimes the waiting is much more difficult than a long Friday afternoon drive. How often do I look at the events of my life as things I need to wait out until I reach a better or different destination? When I get through the big work project, a child’s illness, the busy holiday season, the inevitable annual financial crunch…life will be better, easier, happier. We tend to live in a state of “I wish (fill in the blank).” But “active waiting,” as Nouwen calls it, challenges us to settle into where we are right now and sit with our pain or frustration or boredom in hopeful expectation.

“I feel that for many people waiting is sort of an awful desert between where you are and where you want to go, and you don’t like that place,” said Nouwen, pointing out that the difference between seeing waiting as a time of growth rather than as a time of frustration is choosing hope over fear. “A waiting person is someone who is very present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment.”

We are all waiting in one way or another. Many of the women I met in Rochester shared difficult stories, and I marveled at how faith-filled they were in spite of their sorrows and stresses. I never would have guessed from looking at them that they were facing such obstacles and burdened with such heartaches. They are women waiting in hope, and they showed me in very practical terms what I’d heard in theory on the Nouwen recording the night before: “Waiting is never moving from nothing to something. It’s always from something to something.”

God calls us to see the “something” in the fallow moments as well as the full moments, in our struggles as well as our successes. That’s certainly not easy, especially if we’re suffering through it. It takes practice. We can start small—like on a drive across the state on a clear autumn day—and embrace what is rather than what we wish could be. The next moment isn’t the one that counts. This is the moment. Be here now. Wait in hope and see what God has in store.

This Life Lines column originally appeared in the Oct. 13, 2016, issue of Catholic New York.

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If you look around my office prayer space or on my bedroom dresser, you’ll notice one constant: broken conch and whelk shells everywhere. Small and blue-gray, large and sun-bleached, twisting, turning, spiraling in that gorgeous and mysterious way that seashells do. Although I have one perfect channeled whelk shell that I purchased in Cape May, N.J., years ago, my prized possessions are broken shells of every shape and size because, as far as I’m concerned, they are far more beautiful than the ones that are perfectly intact and so lovely on the outside.

I love the way the brokenness lets you see inside, where the true beauty lies. There you discover the magnificent soft turns and intricate work of the Creator typically hidden by the outer shell, details so beautiful you would gasp if a sculptor had crafted them out of marble. Yet there they are, lying on the sand, trampled underfoot, washed ashore and pulled back out by the next tide along with tangled seaweed and discarded cigarette butts, or, every so often, tucked into the pocket of a hoodie by someone hoping for a sacred souvenir, a reminder that even some of God’s most beautiful creations are cracked and dulled and hobbled by the pounding surf of daily life.

I think I’m so taken with these shell fragments because they remind me of people, broken but beautiful. Even the people who look physically perfect on the outside harbor an intricate beauty and brokenness somewhere on the inside. It’s just a factor of our humanity. We don’t get through this life whole and intact; we are meant to be broken open, to expose and embrace our inner beauty.

But that’s not easy. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time looking at myself with the same gentle eyes I use to look at my collection of scarred and shattered shells. I understand in theory that “I am wonderfully made,” as Psalm 139 tells us, but translating that into an attitude that guides my daily life is a challenge. In my mind’s eye, I see only the imperfections in the creation that I am. I would be wonderfully made, if only (fill in the blank). I may believe God has an unconditional love for everyone else on the planet, but believing that about myself is, well, unbelievable.

I struggled with that concept throughout the writing of my book Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles With Food, Self-Image, and God, where I explored the ways we allow our hunger for wholeness to fuel unhealthy urges — whether for food, alcohol, shopping, gossip, sex, gambling or any other empty “vice” — that only pull us further and further away from understanding our true self and recognizing our belovedness in God’s eyes.

“Our brokenness is truly ours. Nobody else’s. Our brokenness is as unique as our chosenness and our blessedness,” writes Henri Nouwen in Life of the Beloved. “As fearsome as it may sound, as the Beloved ones, we are called to claim our unique brokenness, just as we have to claim our unique chosenness and our unique blessedness.”

Can we begin to see our brokenness as a blessing rather than a curse, a beauty mark rather than a scar? It can happen only when we fully place ourselves in God’s hands and accept once and for all that we are indeed wonderfully made, even with — or maybe because of — our flaws and weaknesses, our wrinkles and quirks, our sins and struggles. God doesn’t love us only after we are “fixed.” God loves us into being and loves us through our imperfections, patiently waiting for us to climb on board and revel in that gift. Unfortunately, we are too often caught up in the mirage of wholeness, the mistaken belief that a perfect outer shell will make us more lovable.

We are so busy spinning our wheels in an effort to become shiny and unblemished to the outside world that we miss the still, small voice urging us on from the inside, the Spirit beckoning us to stop spinning, stop judging, and rest in the arms of God exactly as we are at this moment, knowing we are loved perfectly despite our imperfections.

We are all shattered in one way or another. We are all incomplete, missing pieces here and there. But we are all beautiful. In fact, we are more beautiful because of it. Who wants polished perfection that belies the truth of what’s inside when you can have the raw power of beauty that’s broken because it has lived and loved and lost and carried on in spite of it all? Be broken and be beautiful.

This column originally appeared in the National Catholic Reporter on Feb. 11, 2014, and was based on a much earlier NSS blog post and a lifetime of collecting broken seashells. 

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The silence and solitude of the abbey seems so far away right now, and, yet, in a way, it is still will me, which I guess is testament to the fact that this retreat was a powerful experience for me. I’m close to saying “life-changing,” but I still haven’t decided if that’s the truth or just my imagination and ego talking. Things churn slowly after silent retreat, and more things are unknown than known. In the best possible way.

During my days at Genesee, I spent a lot of time sitting on a bench under a willow tree (as seen in the photo right here), staring at the pond and the distant fields and just waiting for that still, small whisper of the Spirit. The awesomeness of God’s creation, even when it’s baking under a 90-degree day, is so much a part of the prayer experience for me when I’m on retreat. The sunrises and sunsets, the flowers and plants in every stage of blooming or dying back, the animals scurrying around, the moon rising in the night sky — every single moment seems to speak of the Spirit, something I don’t always notice when I’m rushing past the natural beauty of my own backyard.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve been somewhat quiet about my retreat because I feel protective of what happened there. To speak it would be to diminish it in some way, and so I’ve been laying low — staying off Facebook except to post blog links, staying off my own blog except to give factual details rather than spiritual insights. One thing I will say for sure: Everyone should experience one weekend of silence and solitude a year (two, if possible). I felt that way when I went on silent retreat two years ago. I feel it now. Being away from everything, unplugging from the noise and the constant distractions, is good for the body, mind and soul. And if you are willing to let it all go, the Spirit will eventually make itself heard. Not necessarily easily or quickly or loudly, but one way or another, the Spirit will be there.

I’ll share one spectacular moment from my retreat. When I first arrived, I wondered what I was doing there. Why not just go home and use the time to clean my house, catch up on work, hang out with Dennis and the kids? There was a moment when I actually considered getting back in the car and just driving east. But I knew that was fear of silence talking, fear of hearing something I might not want to hear. So I stayed and I prayed. And prayed. And many times, despite the beauty of the monks’ chanting and the wonder of creation, I felt nothing. But I persisted — because what else could I do? This was why I was here. I knew it wouldn’t be easy.

With each hour of the Divine Office, I could feel myself settling into the rhythm of the day that is the monks’ entire life. I looked forward to the next hour, the next Mass, the next chance to sit in the silence of the chapel and wait for the monks to enter and begin their singing and praying. By Sunday morning, I felt at home and was sad to know I was leaving for at least a year. As I stood in the bread store, waiting to buy monk-made cookies for the kids, I couldn’t help but feel a little selfish for taking this time for myself when Dennis was home with the kids dealing with real life. Just then, as if to answer the nagging question still hanging around the edges of my mind, an old monk left his post in the “porter” office and came over to me in the store.

“You are doing everything you need to do to make a good retreat,” he said, out of nowhere. And right then the Spirit felt closer than it has ever felt.

His name is Brother Christian, and in the silent abbey where contact with the monks is so limited, I was given this rare opportunity, this unexpected gift, right when I needed it most. It was one of the highlights of my retreat because it was an affirmation of my decision to be at the abbey that weekend, and a reminder that even when we don’t think we’re making progress in prayer, if we are praying at all, that’s progress.

I drove home wrapped in this knowledge, with the words of Brother Christian echoing in my head. Then, when I got home, I googled Brother Christian’s name because I had promised to send him a copy of my book, Walking Together (which he said he wanted to read). It was then that I realized that “my” Brother Christian was also Henri Nouwen’s Brother Christian, the monk he wrote about in Genesee Diary, the monk who helped him when he couldn’t keep up with the bread making, the monk who made him a special monastic tunic so that he could feel more at home on his extended stay at the abbey.

And I felt my heart burst open. What absolute grace to be encouraged by this very same monk, to be singled out and prayed for by the man who once encouraged and prayed for Henri Nouwen. It occurred to me that Nouwen gets all the notoriety for his spirituality and his writings, and yet it is the quiet monk like Brother Christian who is silently but powerfully shaping people’s spiritual lives, unknown to the rest of the world. I know that my Genesee experience was cemented by the personal connection I now have with those holy monks, some — like Brother Christian — who’ve been living that life of silence and solitude for more than half a century.

More reflections and photos to come tomorrow and in days to come…

“Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” — Psalm 90

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