Merton experiences a spiritual revelation . . .
When I went back to Havana, I found out something else, too, and something vastly more important. It was something that made me realize, all of a sudden, not merely intellectually, but experimentally, the real uselessness of what I had been half deliberately looking for: the visions in the ceiba trees. And this experience opened another door, not a way to a kind of writing but a way into a world infinitely new, a world that was out of this world of ours entirely and which transcended it infinitely, and which was not a world, but which was God Himself.
I was in the Church of St. Francis at Havana. It was a Sunday. I had been to Communion at some other church, I think at El Cristo, and now I had come here to hear another Mass. The building was crowded. Up in front, before the altar, there were rows and rows of children, crowded together. I forget whether they were First Communicants or not: but they were children around that age. I was far in the back of the church, but I could see the heads of all those children.
It came time for the Consecration. The priest raised the Host, then he raised the chalice. When he put the chalice down on the altar, suddenly a Friar in his brown robe and white cord stood up in front of the children, and all at once the voices of the children burst out:
“Creo en Diós...”
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth...”
The Creed. But that cry, “Creo en Dios!” It was loud, and bright, and sudden and glad and triumphant; it was a good big shout, that came from all those Cuban children, a joyous affirmation of faith.
Then, as sudden as the shout and as definite, and a thousand times more bright, there formed in my mind an awareness, an understanding, a realization of what had just taken place on the altar, at the Consecration: a realization of God made present by the words of Consecration in a way that made Him belong to me.
But what a thing it was, this awareness: it was so intangible, and yet it struck me like a thunderclap. It was a light that was so bright that it had no relation to any visible light and so profound and so intimate that it seemed like a neutralization of every lesser experience.
And yet the thing that struck me most of all was that this light was in a certain sense “ordinary”—it was a light (and this most of all was what took my breath away) that was offered to all, to everybody, and there was nothing fancy or strange about it. It was the light of faith deepened and reduced to an extreme and sudden obviousness.
It was as if I had been suddenly illuminated by being blinded by the manifestation of God’s presence.
The reason why this light was blinding and neutralizing was that there was and could be simply nothing in it of sense or imagination. When I call it a light that is a metaphor which I am using, long after the fact. But at the moment, another overwhelming thing about this awareness was that it disarmed all images, all metaphors, and cut through the whole skein of species and phantasms with which we naturally do our thinking. It ignored all sense experience in order to strike directly at the heart of truth, as if a sudden and immediate contact had been established between my intellect and the Truth Who was now physically really and substantially before me on the altar. But this contact was not something speculative and abstract: it was concrete and experimental and belonged to the order of knowledge, yes, but more still to the order of love.
Another thing about it was that this light was something far above and beyond the level of any desire or any appetite I had ever yet been aware of. It was purified of all emotion and cleansed of everything that savored of sensible yearnings. It was love as clean and direct as vision: and it flew straight to the possession of the Truth it loved.
And the first articulate thought that came to my mind was:
“Heaven is right here in front of me: Heaven, Heaven!”
It lasted only a moment: but it left a breathless joy and a clean peace and happiness that stayed for hours and it was something I have never forgotten.
Merton experiences an epiphany here. A vision of God's presence in the world--a light that is both completely ordinary and completely transcendent. It's available to everybody. I suppose all you have to do is open yourself to it, the way Merton does at this moment he's describing.
Most people aren't that open to this experience. I know I'm not. Most days, I keep my head down, blinders on, focused on myself and my problems. That pretty much describes the human condition. Instead of seeing the light, I see the dark.
Merton, himself, admits that this divine vision he experiences is fleeting. He simply can't sustain it. I suppose it's like striking a match. The flame springs up, blue and brilliant, then settles down, gutters for a minute or so, and disappears into smoke. And what Merton is left with is an intense physical memory of God. But it sustains him for a long time.,
Tonight, I'm sort of wrapped in darkness. Like a blanket around my shoulders. Just like Merton can't shake the light of God's grace from his eyes, I can't quite shrug off these shadows. Instead, I'm sitting here trying to make friends with them.
That probably sounds crazy. I mean, who wants to invite darkness to take a seat on the couch next to you? Really, though, that is the only way I know how to overcome these feelings. By living with them, talking with them, trying to understand them. Sort of like what Hemingway wrote: "Write the best story you can and write it as straight as you can."
You don't need to ornament the dark. Ascribe all kinds of big words to it. Darkness is simply the absence of light. And it's also what comes before sunrise. My darkness comes from a kind of aloneness. Being surrounded by people, yet unable to talk about the big hairy ape that's stalking my thoughts. (Yes, that's a King Kong allusion. Stick with me.) There are things in life that are difficult to put words to. Because if you put words to them, it makes them real, and, if they're real, then you have to deal with them. And who wants to deal with a 40-foot tall gorilla?
You just have to wait out the darkness. Stay in the cave until the sun shows up, however long that takes. Get used to the monkey. Maybe find out it's not all that frightening. Tame it. Maybe take a trip to the Empire State Building with it. Visit the Statue of Liberty. Take in a Broadway show. Maybe Hamilton.
Sometimes the things that frighten us the most turn out to be angels instead of monsters. Or maybe God, putting you to the Job test.
Saint Marty is sitting in his dark living room, ready for anything--Job or Kong or angel or God.
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