Becoming Who You Are: Insights on the True Self from Thomas Merton and Other Saints

by James Martin

“But when I read the works of William Penn and found them to be as supernatural as the Montgomery Ward catalog, I lost interest in the Quakers.”

He begins to realize how much his responses to people stem from his own shortcomings.

What one says about other people speaks more about himself than them.

It is no wonder that in later life Thomas Merton said that he no longer knew the man who wrote The Seven Storey Mountain.

Just like I no longer remember how to managed to convince myself to leave the country twenty five years ago...

The person who years before had stood apart from the crowds is now firmly in their midst, loving them. The true self can now contemplate the false self with some distance, some wisdom, and even some compassion.

Looking back of old self...

I am still full of many things that keep me from being who I am meant to be.

who I was meant to be.

This goes beyond the label of your professions or roles.

Merton wrote that the quest for the true self is part of the quest to let God know you as you are.

Much of this journey involved my letting go of the need to be somebody else.

Nobody in particular, mind you, just a feeling that I needed to be different. Early in the novitiate, I thought that being holy meant changing an essential part of who I was, suppressing my personality, not building on it. I was eradicating my natural desires and inclinations, rather than asking God to sanctify and even perfect them. Here’s the way I thought about it: I knew that I certainly wasn’t a holy person, so therefore being holy must mean being a different person. As strange as it sounds, I thought that being myself

meant being someo...

And they had to face the same essential spiritual poverty that all of us face: the poverty of knowing our own human limitations.

The tendency to compare is a great trap in the spiritual life, especially today, when much in our culture tempts us to think that if only we were someone else—better looking, better educated, better moneyed—we would be happier. All we need to do is to be other than who we are. Why is this such a dangerous temptation? For many reasons. First, because it leads to despair. Trapped by our false ways of perceiving other people’s lives, we denigrate our own lives, and thus devalue ourselves.

One is freed from this spiritual prison not only by reflecting more realistically on the sometimes painful lot of others, as well as accompanying them into their suffering, but also by reflecting on the blessings in our own lives. In other words, by engaging in the practice of gratitude.

Coming to accept themselves in this way, and, more importantly, allowing God to love them as they are, not as they might wish they could be, or how society might want them to be, is an important step in one’s relationship with God. God loves us as we are because we are as God made us.

I am curious to see what fr. Martin has to say about transsexuality.

included working fifteen hours a week in a “ministerial” setting. Much of this work was to be with the poor in the area, and would help us understand the needs of the poor, as well as the graces that come from working with and alongside them. We called these ministries our “apostolates” (the kind of work that an apostle would do).

Ironically, this very fear sealed the novice director’s decision to send me.

There is an old Jesuit practice called agere contra, which means, in essence, “to act against.” If there is a part of ourselves that is not free, we try to “act against” that part in order to free ourselves from resistance in that area.

For example, if a novice fears working with homeless men and women, he may be asked to do just that, so as to invite him into the experience of finding God in that unexpected place and move past his fear. All of this is a way to grow in freedom and love. So when the novice director heard that I instinctively hated hospitals, he asked if my fear and revulsion might be something that I needed to be free of.

The reason why I chose to go to Chicago instead of New York or San Francisco. I never liked Chicago. Also about self-care. It is never meant to get away from the life you have; rather, it is to build your life so that you won’t have to get away.

So how do you determine if something is an essential part of your true self or simply an unfreedom that needs to be challenged? Good question. Basically, one has to ask, “Is this part of myself keeping me from being more loving and generous? Is this keeping me from being closer to God and to other people?” If the answer is yes, perhaps it may be time to consider how you could move away from whatever prevents you from being more loving and generous.

“It’s good that you want Rita to open up to you, and maybe she will one day. But why not just try being yourself?”

Reminds me of my CPE.