Had a quasi-mystical experience reading this, which left an indelible mark on my faith life. Truly sacred. Merton in the beginning is quite relatable because he’s mired in sin like the rest of us—in this way it’s not unlike Augustine’s Confessions. And then he takes you through his conversion, step by step.
It’s difficult to recall all of the details so long post lectio, but I remember his treatment of the Mass and Eucharist being, again, mystical…and enlightening:
I did not even know who Christ was, that He was God. I had not the faintest idea that there existed such a thing as the Blessed Sacrament. I thought churches were simply places where people got together and sang a few hymns. And yet now I tell you, you who are now what I once was, unbelievers, it is that Sacrament, and that alone, the Christ living in our midst, and sacrificed by us, and for us and with us, in the clean and perpetual Sacrifice, it is He alone Who holds our world together, and keeps us all from being poured headlong and immediately into the pit of our eternal destruction. And I tell you there is a power that goes forth from that Sacrament, a power of light and truth, even into the hearts of those who have heard nothing of Him and seem to be incapable of belief.
— ᴘ. ᴍ. ʙ.
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