Poem: “The Time of No Room” By: Thomas Merton

 Into this world, this demented inn, 

in which there is no room for God at all, 

Christ has come uninvited. 

But because Christ cannot be at home in it, 

because Christ is out of place in it, 

Christ’s place is with those others 

for whom there is no room.

 

God’s place is with those who do not belong, 

who are rejected by power 

because they are regarded as weak,

those who are discredited, 

who are denied the status of person, 

who are tortured, bombed, and exterminated.

 

With those for whom there is no room, 

Christ is present in the world. 

Christ is mysteriously present in those for whom 

there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst … 

it is in these that God is hidden 

for whom there is no room.