In our conversation on “The Spiritual Life” this week, the author and social commentator Andrew Sullivan describes a moment of grace that he experienced on a beach during a moment of personal crisis.

I just felt something I’ve never felt before, which is not that God did not exist, though I was struggling with that, given so much horrible stuff had happened to so many good, innocent people around me. But it occurred to me for 15 minutes, [as] I knelt there in the sand, that God was evil. That’s the real alternative. And that was a dark night…. And all I can tell you, Jim, is that I got up after that and walked to the beach, and I did not get up of my own accord. I promise you that. I was picked up and told, “No, not evil.”

I was honored that Mr. Sullivan shared this personal moment of grace. But the words that caught my attention were “all I can tell you.” It was a reminder that no matter how articulate we are (and Mr. Sullivan, a former magazine editor, is probably one of the most well-known masters of the English language), in the end our spiritual experiences are mainly incommunicable.

This does not mean that they are not real. Rather, what goes on inside us is ultimately personal and not something we can fully share. This is one reason why what the church calls “private revelations” (visions of Jesus Christ, apparitions of Mary and other supernatural encounters) are not part of the “deposit of faith.” That is, even if they have been approved by the church (Lourdes, for example), Catholics are not required to believe in them.

Now, I should say that I generally do believe in these private revelations. (I am devoted to Lourdes.) But it makes sense for the church to be cautious about such things. It is hard to “prove” most of them, save for the miracles.

In my work as a spiritual director, I’ve also learned to trust that I may never understand exactly what is going on inside a person. Moreover, as someone who goes to spiritual direction and makes annual eight-day retreats, I know how hard it is to describe what happens inside oneself during prayer. Once, I was walking through the retreat grounds at Eastern Point Retreat House and trying to imagine Jesus walking next to me. After a few “unsuccessful” tries, I suddenly felt his “presence.” What did that mean? I didn’t see him. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t see the trees bow down in front of him. But something changed.

I often tell people in spiritual direction that just because you can’t describe it, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. When we think about the difficulty the disciples must have had in explaining their encounters with the risen Christ, we can sympathize. The consequent difficulty of the Gospels detailing what the risen Christ “looked like”—he was like a ghost, but he was not like a ghost; he looked like himself, but he didn’t look like himself—is another example. In fact, I find the seemingly contradictory reports (looked like himself; looked like the gardener) about the resurrection completely in keeping with this kind of powerful spiritual experience.

So when Andrew Sullivan says, “all I can tell you,” I believe him. And I am fascinated by how God worked in him and works in all of us, whether or not we can describe it.

The Rev. James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author, editor at large at America and founder of Outreach.