By India McCarty
Comedian and late night host Stephen Colbert shared the scripture that helped “calm” him during turbulent times when he was young.
“There was a time in my life when I was very depressed when I was a young man,” he said during an appearance on the “Open Book With Jenna” podcast. “The twenties are hard. I wouldn’t be in my twenties again for anything in the world.”
Colbert continued, “The Gospel of Matthew calmed me. The Sermon on the Mount calmed me….that made reading important to me, because that was a place that I could go and center myself.”
Colbert elaborated on this moment in a conversation on “The Spiritual Life With Fr. James Martin” podcast, explaining that he went through a period of atheism when he was in college.
“I was desperately depressed. I was in terrible shape. Really, just couldn’t figure out how to get out of the bed in the morning,” he said. “[And then one day] I’m walking down the street in Chicago, and it’s really cold. There were Gideons giving out New Testaments, Proverbs and Psalms.”
Related: Stephen Colbert Discusses The Relationship Between His Faith and Comedy
Colbert continued, “And I flipped it open, and there was the suggestions of like, how are you feeling this way? Read this. It was anxiety.”
He read the Sermon on the Mount, “and it struck me so profoundly,” Colbert recalled. “It was speaking off the page to me. I wasn’t doing anything. There was no reader. There was no book. I was being spoken to directly by Christ.”
“I can’t speak to the truth of other people’s religions,” Colbert continued. “I know what mine does for me, and I know that most of the time it doesn’t do it for me. But I’m often in the valley, but I know what it looks like from the mountaintop. And I believe that’s a real experience. I’m so far down the path of my own faith. Why would I throw away everything that was given to me by my mother and my father and my ancestors?”
He has also spoken about the role his faith plays in his comedy career, telling guest Dua Lipa on an episode of THE LATE SHOW, “[My faith is] connected to the idea of love and sacrifice being somehow related and giving yourself to other people.”
“If there’s some relationship between my faith and my comedy, it’s that no matter what happens, you are never defeated,” Colbert continued. “You must understand and see this in the light of eternity and find some way to love and laugh with each other.”
Colbert’s story about his experience with the Sermon on the Mount is a beautiful reminder of the real impact the gospel can have on our lives.
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