I've been serving on the altar since I was seven years old. One Sunday, when I was nine, I was kneeling at the side of the altar after Communion, praying intently before a large Crucifix, which dominated a rather plain nouveau apse. It was then and there that I had the first of many personal encounters with God (each and every one undeserved).
While I am well aware of the psychological, intellectual, physical, and relational aspects of what could have made me think I was encountering Christ, after decades of prayer, repentance, and consultation with spiritual fathers, there is absolutely no doubt that I experienced a very brief moment of theoria in the innocence of my youth.
What also remains vivid for me from that day is the experience I had of telling my parents about it. Keep in mind that they were devout Roman Catholics who prayed the Rosary frequently and never missed Mass. My mother's faith was disciplined, intense, and intellectually curious. My father's faith was expressed as hard working, loving, and reflective.
So, it comes as no surprise that tears rolled down my face as I started to explain the intensity of the presence of God within me (I described it then as Jesus looking at me and talking to me, but today I would properly refer to its noetic character).
After I was done talking, there was an expectant silence during which I noticed out of the corner of my left eye that my father nodded reassuringly. Then my mother turned toward me and said my ‘story’ was beautiful and that I shouldn’t really tell anyone what had happened. I do not think she doubted me. I think she wanted to protect me. But I also think that she did not know what to do with what I experienced.
After that, I began doing what I've done ever since. Pray. Serve. Partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Read the saints. Study theology. Go to Confession.
Back there and back then (without the Internet), I attended classes at church every Wednesday, absorbed our abridged copy of Butler's Lives of the Saints, devoured Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, explored the Catechism, perused the Summa Theologica, read Augustine's Confessions, and, on my 17th birthday, received a copy of Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain.
One might recognize this as a proper Catholic upbringing. But it was more than that. It was the first etchings of a map ... the kind that invisibly exists in the faces burnished on every icon. These were the moments of my first rocky steps up the mountain ... toward the contemplative life. A life of suffering, service, repentance, and glimpses of God.
That is why, today, on the 56th anniversary of Merton's death (10 December 1968), and the 36th anniversary of my reading his most famous work, I am grateful for that complicated, brilliant, faithful, sinful, thoughtful priest and monastic. Whether I am supposed to say this in public or not, I cannot deny the impact Merton's work had on me.
There are many others of course, mainly Eastern Christian ones, but he has never left my side. A fellow traveler ... a fellow Thomas ... believing, praying, serving, thinking, doubting, failing ... seeking Christ ... living in the Holy Spirit ... and contemplating ... contemplating the Triune God in life and in death.
A photo of Thomas Merton.
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