Where else did I like to go? St. Pudenziana, St. Praxed’s, above all St. Mary Major and the Lateran, although as soon as the atmosphere got heavy with baroque melodrama I would get frightened, and the peace and the obscure, tenuous sense of devotion I had acquired would leave me.
So far, however, there had been no deep movement of my will, nothing that amounted to a conversion, nothing to shake the iron tyranny of moral corruption that held my whole nature in fetters. But that also was to come. It came in a strange way, suddenly, a way that I will not attempt to explain.
I was in my room. It was night. The light was on. Suddenly it seemed to me that Father, who had now been dead more than a year, was there with me. The sense of his presence was as vivid and as real and as startling as if he had touched my arm or spoken to me. The whole thing passed in a flash, but in that flash, instantly, I was overwhelmed with a sudden and profound insight into the misery and corruption of my own soul, and I was pierced deeply with a light that made me realize something of the condition I was in, and I was filled with horror at what I saw, and my whole being rose up in revolt against what was within me, and my soul desired escape and liberation and freedom from all this with an intensity and an urgency unlike anything I had ever known before. And now I think for the first time in my whole life I really began to pray—praying not with my lips and with my intellect and my imagination, but praying out of the very roots of my life and of my being, and praying to the God I had never known, to reach down towards me out of His darkness and to help me to get free of the thousand terrible things that held my will in their slavery.
There were a lot of tears connected with this, and they did me good, and all the while, although I had lost that first vivid, agonizing-sense of the presence of my father in the room, I had him in my mind, and I was talking to him as well as to God, as though he were a sort of intermediary. I do not mean this in any way that might be interpreted that I thought he was among the saints. I did not really know what that might mean then, and now that I do know I would hesitate to say that I thought he was in Heaven. Judging by my memory of the experience I should say it was “as if” he had been sent to me out of Purgatory. For after all, there is no reason why the souls in Purgatory should not help those on earth by their prayers and influence, just like those in Heaven: although usually they need our help more than we need theirs. But in this case, assuming my guess has some truth in it, things were the other way ’round.
However, this is not a thing on which I would place any great stress. And I do not offer any definite explanation of it. How do I know it was not merely my own imagination, or something that could be traced to a purely natural, psychological cause—I mean the part about my father? It is impossible to say. I do not offer any explanation. And I have always had a great antipathy for everything that smells of necromancy—table-turning and communications with the dead—and I would never deliberately try to enter in to any such thing. But whether it was imagination or nerves or whatever else it may have been, I can say truly that I did feel, most vividly, as if my father were present there, and the consequences that I have described followed from this, as though he had communicated to me without words an interior light from God, about the condition of my own soul—although I wasn’t even sure I had a soul.
The one thing that seems to me morally certain is that this was really a grace, and a great grace. If I had only followed it through, my life might have been very different and much less miserable for the years that were to come.
Merton doesn't believe in ghosts--or, as he says it, "everything that smells of necromancy." However, he feels his father's presence in his hotel room, strongly, as if Owen Merton has reached out and touched his arm. This presence causes Merton to do something he's never really done. Pray. Really pray. Not just a rote recitation of memorized words. No. He begs to be released of all his chains, metaphoric and physical. Merton is in spiritual pain, and he is asking for release.
I've had similar moments in my life. Not the ghost thing. The prayer thing. Times when I've gotten down on my knees in the middle of the night and begged for release. Usually, these moments come after I've exhausted myself with fruitless effort. Bargaining--If you do this for me, God, I'll dedicate the rest of my life to you. Anger--Fuck you, God, if you don't help me out. Begging--Please, God, I'm at the end of my rope here. Help me out. Exhaustion--I surrender, God. I can't do this anymore. You take care of it. And surrender--I give up. You win, God. I'll do whatever you want.
Usually, when I surrender, that's when God steps in.
This afternoon, after I got back from a shopping with my wife and son, I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to take a shower, lie down on the couch, and stay there for about two months. I haven't been sleeping all that well recently. Late nights. Early mornings. Worrying about things over which I have no control. Yet, I try to control them. Because that's what humans do. Play God.
Instead of surrendering to the sofa, however, I felt a nudge to take my puppy for a walk. I don't know why. I had tons of computer work to do for school. I needed to prepare for my upcoming work week. Laundry to fold. Lunches to pack. But I grabbed the leash, and out the door I went.
My puppy was pulling me along, barking at cars going by, sniffing everything. Distracted, I was mentally going over my to-do list for when I got home after the walk. I wasn't paying attention to anything around me, until my puppy pulled me toward an elderly gentleman who was standing in his driveway, watching us walk by.
I slowed down and allowed my puppy to approach the man. He bent down and started petting her, scratching her back. cupping her ears, saying, "Oh, you're a pretty girl. Yes, you are." My puppy rolled over on her back, exposing her belly, and the man laughed and started rubbing her belly. "Oh, my, yes. You are a good girl," he said.
The old man looked up at me, smiled, "She sure is friendly."
I nodded, said, "She loves everybody."
He nodded, smiled again, and said, "I just lost my girl." I saw tears well up in his eyes. "Had to put her down last week," he said. He scratched my puppy's belly. "She was in a lot of pain, you know," he said.
All of my struggles sort of melted out of my head, and I knew then why God had sent me on this walk.
"I'm so sorry," I said.
The man nodded, sniffed a little. "She was a good girl, just like this one," he said. My puppy jumped on his legs and licked his face. "Oh, thank you," he said to her. "I love you, too."
I stood there, let the man pet her as long as he liked.
Finally, he stood up and looked at me. "Thank you," he said.
I nodded. "Any time," I said. "I'm really sorry for your loss."
He nodded, looked over at his house, and then back down at my puppy. "She sure is a pretty girl," he said, nodding at her.
I pressed my lips together and tugged my puppy's chain. She started bounding up the street.
I allowed God to lead me this afternoon. Surrendered. And He taught me a pretty good lesson. One that humbled me greatly. He allowed my puppy to bring comfort to a grieving man. It was a miraculous thing.
And Saint Marty is thankful he was a witness to it.
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