A priest leading a retreat I attended years ago referred to this intentional and dedicated time with God as “soaking the sponge.” Imagine you are cleaning your kitchen counter with a dry sponge. You might move some dirt around, but you will not get the counter clean. Soak the sponge in water and everything changes. And so it is with our spiritual lives. We can notice God with awe in the daily moments of our days, but if we don’t regularly pause to soak the sponge of our spiritual lives, we remain on the surface, never sinking to a place where seeds of change are planted and true transformation can begin.

Don’t get me wrong. I am all about discovering the Divine in everyday moments. In fact, it’s the tag line of my website and the focus of one of my books. Part of me wishes that was enough, because it can be challenging to carve out dedicated time for God when so many other responsibilities are clamoring at our literal and figurative doors. It’s one reason I travel with a mini sacred space, setting up a battery candle, cross, rosary beads, and other items on my nightstand in any home-away-from-home I visit. It serves to remind me that while I may stand before the ocean in awe of God’s great goodness, I still need to come back to the cave of my heart and hang out with God one-on-one, not only offering prayers and praise but listening for what I might miss when I am moving through the world.

I recently wrapped up the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a nine-month journey of daily structured prayer under the guidance of a wonderful spiritual director. As I reflected on the experience, I realized that the structure of the Exercises, which at times felt rigorous and overwhelming, was exactly what kept me deeply connected to God when I was going through a harsh challenge that was wearing me down physically and mentally. The requirement to show up every day to sit with Scripture and in silence before God kept me on an even keel, calling me back to my center when it would have been easy to spin out in every direction. As the Exercises ended this week, I wondered (and worried) that without the requirements, it might be easy to slip into a less devoted prayer life and in the process allow the sponge to dry and shrivel. I know if I don’t want that to happen, I have to find a space for God daily, not in the leftover spaces of my days but at the center.

When we create a rhythm that puts God first, even when we are on vacation or maybe especially then since time is more fluid, we begin to recognize God not just in the wonder of the spectacular but in the miniscule and mundane. Soak the sponge, and see what happens.

This column originally appears in the May 28, 2026, issue of The Evangelist.
Photo by Victoria Aleksandrova on Unsplash

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“Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” — 1Pt 3:15

This line from today’s second reading stopped me up short. What, if asked, would be my explanation, my reason for my hope? Often the answer to that question is ephemeral, something we know and believe in our hearts without being able to articulate it in words, because mystery and faith are hard to describe, like catching a breeze or nailing down a cloud.

But when we get to today’s Gospel reading from John, it feels as though it answers the question for us. “I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you,” we hear Jesus speak. Is there anything more hopeful than that? God lives in us. We are never separated from God, even on those dark days when we believe ourselves to be alone in this challenge called life. Jesus promises to send the disciples—and all of us, by extension—“Advocates” to remain with us always. He will not leave us orphans, he says.

When we start to lose hope, it is often because we forget that promise. We convince ourselves that we are in charge, and we put on fear and anxiety as our battle armor, forgetting that the Spirit of God dwells at our core and walks beside us every step of the way. God is our source and our shield. And that is my reason for hope. What’s yours?

Mary DeTurris Poust, “A Reason to Hope” from the May 2026 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2026). Used with permission.

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At one point, on a train from Rome to Florence last month, a man in business class was blasting “reels” on his smartphone, so loud that you could tell the entire train car was restless. Then he started taking calls, allowing us to be privy to one side of his conversation. Finally, another man got up and, as gently as possible, asked him to please use headphones. It worked, for the most part, although even then, not completely. The scenario repeated again and again throughout my journey, and lest we think it’s an Italian thing, it’s not. I’ve encountered the same behavior on Amtrak trains to New York, in doctor’s offices, and too many other places here at home. I’m sure we all have. And we might wonder: How can people be so self-centered that they assume we all want to listen to their music, their videos, their conversations?

But I’m beginning to think it’s less about selfishness and more about fear — fear of what happens when we get quiet. What might we hear if we finally silence the encroaching madness of the world and just listen? Whenever I lead retreats, I ask participants to be silent from bedtime through breakfast the next morning. Most people are willing or even happy to give that brief period of enforced silence a try; others have told me they would have skipped my retreat if they’d understood they would need to eat a meal in silence. That might seem extreme on the surface, but silence can be scary and uncomfortable and challenging, and that’s exactly why we need more, not less, silence in our lives.

“Christian hope is not born in noise, but in the silence of an expectation filled with love. It is not the offspring of euphoria, but of trustful abandonment,” Pope Leo said in a General Audience last fall.

What does the “silence of expectation” look like for those of us living in an increasingly loud and demanding world? It means more than simply using headphones when we’re in public. It means first turning off the actual noise — whether that’s on our phones or on our TVs or in our email inbox — and then slowing down the need to fill every moment with an activity.

“We struggle to stop and rest. We live as if life were never enough. We rush to produce, to prove ourselves, to keep up,” Pope Leo said. “But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is an act of trust that we must learn to perform.”

I’m trying (not always successfully) to have more compassion for those who blast videos and conversations from their phones in public. It must be exhausting to need to fill every space in your own life, not to mention everyone else’s, with nonstop noise, but it’s a product of our culture and an upside view of what gives us value.

Society wants us to believe the chatter that tells us we are not enough and we don’t have enough, but that leaves us listening to all the wrong voices. Today, just for 10 minutes, turn off all sound and retreat to the quiet with Jesus. “It is precisely in that silence that the new life begins to ferment,” says Pope Leo. “Like a seed in the ground, like the darkness before dawn.”

This column originally appeared in the April 22, 2026, issue of The Evangelist.
Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

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P.S. The photo was taken from the Basilica of San Miniato many, many steps above the central city of Florence. A beautiful and peaceful spot, if you ever get the chance to make the hike. (Photo copyright Mary DeTurris Poust)

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Most of us come up against this kind of transforming pain, usually many times in a lifetime. For me and my family, this Lent was one of those moments. After visiting our younger daughter, Chiara, in Florence, where she is studying abroad, we headed to Rome for a transcendent Ash Wednesday when my husband, Dennis, and I met Pope Leo XIV in private conversation at the end of the papal audience. It was like something from a dream. We left for home floating on a spiritual cloud. Just four weeks later, however, we were hopping on last-minute flights back to Florence because Chiara was in a hospital fighting a serious infection. It’s amazing how quickly all the “important” things we have on our daily “To Do” lists become utterly meaningless when posited against the health of your child.

In the midst of this, a blessing burned bright from the start. Our older daughter, Olivia, had arrived in Florence only hours after Chiara had been admitted to the hospital. Originally a long-planned visit for outings to Tuscan wineries and famous museums, it instead became a labor of love, one sister to another. As parents, we could not have asked for more, and Olivia calmed Chiara and inspired us with her selfless care.

What transpired over the next two weeks was a roller coaster of emotions — overwhelming fear threaded with glimmers of occasional hope, strides toward healing offset by ongoing uncertainties. We prayed and begged others for prayers. We cried and begged God for answers. Praying. Crying. Begging. And praying some more. This was the Lenten path we didn’t choose but the one that will bring us closer to Jesus than anything we could have concocted on our own.

On the Sunday before Chiara was discharged, Dennis and I sat in the Church of Santi Apostoli, the English-language parish just steps from our hotel. It was standing room only in the 11th century church, filled with so many exchange students and local residents alike. As the choir’s voices echoed against the ancient stone, singing Psalm 23 — “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want”— tears rolled down my face. The Italian woman next to me put her arm around me, and at the end of Mass I thanked her and asked her to pray for Chiara in my mangled, non-existent Italian. “Ah, like Santa Chiara di Assisi,” she said, nodding in recognition of our youngest’s Italian name for the most famous Clare. This woman was not the only one to happily promise to pray for Chiara in this country where almost everyone feels like family, from our hotel owners, to shopkeepers, to people I randomly meet on walks to and from the hospital.

I am still in Italy as I write this, waiting for my girl to get the green light. It’s not the romantic trip to Florence that others imagine when they hear I am living here for weeks. Instead, it is a miniature version of a road to Calvary that weaves through some of the most breathtaking sites in the world. It’s a Lent where I eat Italian pastry for breakfast every morning without guilt because the real sacrifices have nothing to do with the food I am eating or the habits I’ve given up and everything to do with the plans I’ve had to turn over to God day by day, knowing I am not in control. Surrender is my Lenten sacrifice this year, the hardest practice I know.

This column originally appeared in the March 25, 2026, issue of The Evangelist.

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The next morning, tickets in hand, we queued up at 7 a.m., the line to get through security for the 10 a.m. audience already snaking through the street and around the corner. When we were finally allowed to pass through security and ask officials and the occasional Swiss Guard for directions toward the seats marked by our neon yellow tickets, we were surprised to be directed across to the other side of the piazza and, eventually, forward and forward and forward until we were practically at the platform where the pope would sit hours later. I’m sure there was a look of confusion on our faces as we continued moving forward and finally had a security detail look at a list and find Dennis’ name there. We’ve attended numerous papal audiences, papal Masses and papal visits with both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, and this was definitely new terrain for us. We were directed to the second row of seating with a clear view of the pope’s chair under crystal clear blue skies on this chilly February morning. We sat and waited and wondered if we would be lucky enough to see the pope close up or maybe even stick our hand through the row of people in front of us and get to shake his hand. I tried not to hope too hard to allay what I assumed would be my eventual disappointment. I kept saying that all I wanted was the chance for a close-up picture of him, if he came to greet the VIPs seated in front of us.

After the audience, three groups of people in the row in front of us were invited to walk up to Pope Leo on the platform and meet him personally. Suddenly we wondered if it would be possible that we might be offered the same opportunity, but, as the pope descended from the platform and headed to greet folks in wheelchairs in the neighboring section, we assumed that chance had come and gone. Still, we hoped he might walk our way at some point. After taking photos with a visiting band and greeting some other people, Pope Leo returned to the platform, and we were told to stand. Shrugging off my trench coat and stuffing my purse under my seat, I tried to wrap my head around the possibility that I might actually meet Pope Leo personally. I was shaking and giddy and disbelieving right up until we were just a few feet from him and awaiting the go-ahead to move forward and introduce ourselves.

It’s sort of a blur. Thank goodness for photos taken by Vatican Media so I can look back and see that it really did happen. I took the pope’s hand and bent to kiss his ring, something I had not expected I would do but felt compelled to do. Dennis introduced himself, told him who he was and what he did (Executive Director of the New York State Catholic Conference) and that he brought the greetings of Archbishop Hicks and Cardinal Dolan and the Bishops of New York State. He introduced me and I said, I’m a Catholic writer and retreat leader, to which the pope replied: “Would I know your name?” I assumed he would not but told him my full name and mentioned that I write for, among other things, Give Us This Day. Pope Leo smiled gently and offered us blessings on our trip to Rome. We told him what an honor it was to meet him, thanked him, and walked away clutching the blessed rosary beads that had been pressed into our hands by security as we descended the platform.

People have asked me what Pope Leo was like. Smaller than I would have expected, shy, quiet, sweet, at least based on the very brief encounter I told a friend last night that he had a very Zen vibe, which is a funny way to describe the pope but true nonetheless. He seems so at home in his own skin and in his role as leader of the Church on earth. It was such a gift to meet him, a moment I will never forget for as long as I live. I may return to Rome, and I may attend other papal audiences, but nothing will ever top or overshadow this incredible moment. Core memory unlocked. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity.

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Walt Chura

At his wake and funeral, Walt was remembered for his kindness, his intelligence, his faith, his humor, his knowledge of and love for all things related to Thomas Merton, and his commitment to living the Gospel in the radical way we are all called to live it but rarely do. Although my time with Walt was limited to the annual Merton in the Mountains Retreat and conversations we had when I included him in a book I wrote on spiritual friendship, his impact on me was deep and lasting. I found myself near tears wondering aloud to his sons what it must be like to have everyone know in their hearts you are surely a saint when you pass from this life. I really believe that to be true. That’s the level of goodness that Walt exuded. Oh, to be even one-tenth that faithful.

But Walt’s death made me think of others who have crossed my path and left a beautiful indentation on my soul. I think of the late Trappist Father John Eudes Bamberger, who heard my confession and gave me spiritual direction on retreat at the Abbey of the Genesee and whose image and words I keep on my desk as a constant reminder of the lessons he tried to impart. In one short weekend, he offered me insights and not-so-gentle spiritual nudging that continue to guide me all these years later.

A few days after Walt’s funeral, I was on retreat at the Dominican Retreat and Conference Center, where I never fail to be lifted up and moved forward on the spiritual path by staff, presenters, and fellow retreatants. This past weekend was no different. In the prophetic hands of Sister Kay Kanick, R.S.M., we pondered the words of Philippians 4:6 — “Do not worry about anything” — even as the world seems to insist we worry about everything. Her joyful faith and powerful witness had me sitting there in awe, grateful to be in her presence and among other women whose stories moved me to tears but filled me with hope. It’s not the first time that has happened at DRCC. Just last year, Father Bill Sheehan, OMI, did the same when he guided us deep into Centering Prayer and friendship with God.

What all of this reminded me, as I reflected, is that we are surrounded by angels, some unseen and ethereal and others walking right alongside us. When I returned home, I started to tick off the spiritual icons who have entered my life at various times and taught me the lessons I needed to learn. I am blessed to say that I could make an album of icons, and I bet you could too.

Father John Eudes Bamberger, OCSO

Jesus made it clear that we are not meant to walk this journey alone, but so often we try to do just that. When we do, we end up afraid and isolated and unsure. When we seek out others, especially those who are further down the path and can light the way, we realize again that ours is a faith of community, not just when we are sitting in the pews, but when we are walking through our days. Find your community and lift each other up during these dark days when it is easy to feel alone and afraid. Who would be in your album of spiritual icons?

This column originally appeared in the Feb. 19, 2026 issue of The Evangelist.

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When I first launched Not Strictly Spiritual, I did so with a favorite prayer by St. Francis de Sales, whose writings are remarkably relevant to our world today despite his being a 17th century bishop. I used to have this prayer hanging on my bathroom mirror so it was the first thing I would see when I began my day:

Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life;
rather, look to them with full hope that as they arise,
God, whose very own you are,
will lead you safely through all things;
and when you cannot stand it,
God will carry you in His arms.
Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;
the same everlasting Father who cares for you today
will take care of you then and every day.
He will either shield you from suffering,
or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace,
and put aside all anxious thoughts and imagination.
— St. Francis de Sales

So much has happened over these past 18 years, much of incredibly wonderful, some of it painfully awful. And yet through it all we carry on, trusting the path, trusting our story as it unfolds, trusting that God will carry us, enfold us, shield us, care for us.

As I continue on the next leg of this journey, I hope to continue recording episodes of my Life Lines podcast, which many of you tell me you listen to on repeat when I don’t record new episodes (Thank you! I love you.) I will continue posting my monthly Life Lines column, which runs in The Evangelist, and I will post other spiritual writing as I am able. You’ll also be able to find my upcoming events, which includes seven retreat opportunities in 2026, including my annual Stillpoint Retreat at Pyramid Life Center in September, multiple retreats at Dominican Retreat Center in Niskayuna and Graymoor Retreat Center in the Hudson Valley, NY, and a fall retreat at Bon Secours Retreat Center in Maryland. Continue to check the Events tab at the top of the home page to see what’s coming up. I also hope to offer some online and in-person workshops and yoga classes, so check the Yoga tab, if you have interest in those. I hope I see you along the way.

Thank you again for joining me in this space and in my Tribe. If you haven’t signed up for the Tribe, which includes receiving an occasional email newsletter from me, you can do so at the Join the Tribe button in the top right corner of this page.

Peace, Love, Blessings, and Every Good Thing,

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We humans are so much more alike than we are different, but we forget that too easily, seeing ourselves as if in a fun house mirror with our flaws, both real and imagined, magnified to unrealistic and grotesque proportions. We believe we are alone in our brokenness and so burrow down deep into our inadequacies, marinating in self-loathing and sadness. Meanwhile, we watch the world go by through the window of our smartphones and believe every filtered photo to be the real and perfect life of a family member, friend or acquaintance. It’s a recipe for unhappiness based on a false truth, for a feeling of lack in the midst of abundance, for a sense of isolation despite near-constant connection. This upside-down view of reality has become so pervasive in our culture that we’ve got an entire society of people weighed down by imperfections they believe to be unique to them, and afraid to step into their own lives exactly as they are and be who they were born to be.

Whenever I talk or write about accepting our brokenness and finding beauty there, the response is overwhelming. On retreats, via email, through social media, I hear from people who tell me they thought they were alone in their thinking, that they’ve lived their whole life as if with some shameful secret. But the real secret is that none of us get out of this earthly existence without making mistakes and living with imperfections. The key is what we do with that reality and knowledge.

Many years ago, when Pinterest was all the rage, I happened upon a beautiful image of a pale gray-blue pottery bowl broken and held together by threads of shimmering gold. I stopped and stared, taken in by an image that spoke to my soul. I “pinned” this image, which displayed a Japanese form of repairing broken pottery known as “kintsugi.” The shards of pottery are put back together using a precious metal — gold or silver — to fill the cracks, thereby making the piece more beautiful and more valuable for being broken.

At the time, this was a new concept, at least to most Americans, but I’ve noticed over the past decade or so that more and more people are talking about kintsugi and posting images and memes of similar pottery pieces, realizing or maybe hoping beyond hope that they, too, can be as beautiful as these ceramic bowls, not hiding their imperfections any longer but magnifying and decorating them to the point where the very things that once caused them to hide become the reason to celebrate.

We are after all as Psalm 139 says, “fearfully and wonderfully made” by a God who loved us into being and never lets up no matter what we do. When we not only accept that we are imperfect but recognize that the things that make us human are the things that bind us to one another, we let go of the need to stay within the confines of our self-created world and discover, as I did at that retreat center years ago, that we already belong. We belong to ourselves, we belong to each other, we belong to God. And nothing we do can break those bonds.

Join me for a weekend retreat on this topic — Broken, Beautiful and Beloved — March 6-8 at Dominican Retreat and Conference Center. This retreat will also be offered June 26-28 at Graymoor Retreat Center in New York’s Hudson Valley, and October 2-4 at Bon Secours Retreat & Conference Center in Marriottsville, Md. Info at notstrictlyspiritual.com/events.

This column was originally written as the introduction to a yet-to-be-published book. It first appeared in print in the 1/21/26 issue of The Evangelist.

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