Growth Through Dark Nights
I once attended a series of lectures given by a prominent Polish psychologist, Kazimierz Dabrowski, who had written a number of books around a concept he called “positive disintegration”.
From the House of Fear to the House of Love
Henri Nouwen, in his writings, frequently asked this question: “How can we live inside a world marked by fear, hatred, and violence and not be destroyed by it?”
When What Is Precious Is Taken from You
Perhaps the reality that is hardest of all to accept in life is the unalterable fact that everything that is precious to us will, in some way, eventually be taken away.
Everyday Life as Sacrament
For Christians, ultimately the whole world is holy and everything in it, especially the physical, is potential material for sacrament.
Lost is a Place Too
In her book, Survivor, Christina Crawford writes: “Lost is a place, too.” That’s more than a clever sound bite. It’s a deep truth that’s often lost in a world within which success, achievement, and good appearance define meaning and value.
Naming the Present Moment & A Retreat Opportunity
Putting proper names to what is happening inside our experience is the place where we can read the language of God.
One Spirit – One Source of All
Someone once said that the law of gravity and the law of love ultimately have the same source and are both driven by the same spirit, the Holy Spirit.
Painful Goodbyes and the Ascension
Among the deeper mysteries in life is the mystery of the Ascension. It’s not so much that we misunderstand it, we simply don’t understand it.
In Safer Hands Than Ours
Everything that Jesus reveals about God assures us that God’s hands are much gentler and safer than our own.
God’s Inexhaustibility
For all of us there are times in life when we seem to lose hope, when we look at the world or at ourselves and, consciously or unconsciously, think: “It’s too late! This has gone too far! Nothing can redeem this! All the chances to change this have been used up! It’s hopeless!”
Never Grow Weary
There is a Norwegian proverb that reads: Heroism consists of hanging on one minute longer.
True heroism often consists in staying the course long enough, of hanging on when it seems hopeless, of suffering cold and aloneness while waiting for a new day.
The Silence of Life
We will not get in touch with the deep source of our lives if the activities of our life are so consuming and obsessive that we can never find an identity and meaning in something beyond them.
Struggling to be inside the Present Moment
During the last years of his life, Thomas Merton lived in a hermitage in an attempt to find more solitude in his life. But solitude is a very illusive thing and he found that it was continually escaping him.
Hearing the Voice that Soothes
Karl Rahner had it right when he said that we do not have souls that get restless, but that our souls themselves are lonely caverns thirsting the infinite, deep wells of restlessness.
The Ninety-Nine and the One
Throughout the years that I’ve been writing, I have sometimes been asked “Why do you write the way you do, invariably with some kind of secular bent? Why don’t you focus more on catechesis, teaching church doctrine, explaining the creeds, defending the church’s position on moral issues, and doing apologetics for the church?”
Weakness Builds the Soul
Psychologist and author James Hillman suggests that it is our inferiorities that build up our souls. His view is that it is not our strengths that give us depth and character, but our weaknesses.
The size of our Hearts
God puts us into this world with huge hearts. The human heart in itself, when not closed off by fear, wound, and paranoia, is the antithesis of pettiness. There’s nothing small about the human heart.
Carrying our Solitude at a High Level
I once received a letter from a woman who expressed frustration in finding support, even among her church friends, for living out a high ideal.
Living with Frustration and Tension
Our generation has some wonderful emotional and moral qualities, but patience, chastity, contentment with the limits of circumstance, and the capacity to nobly live out tension are not our strengths.
The Christ-Child of the Year
Every year Time magazine recognizes someone as “Person of the Year”. The recognition isn’t necessarily an honor; it’s given to the person whom Time judges to have been the newsmaker of the year – for good or for bad.
The Meaning of Christmas – Connecting the Dots Between the Crib and the Cross
May the joy of the angels, the humility of the shepherds, the perseverance of the wisemen, and the love of the Christ child be among God’s gifts to you this Christmas.
Incarnation – God is with Us
“The incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which to escape from the ambiguities of life and scale the heights of heaven. Rather, it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of planet earth and find it shimmering with divinity.”
God’s Closeness
Once while speaking at conference, a woman approached me with this story.
Christmas – Its Checkered Origins and Its Checkered Sequence
The story of Jesus and the meaning of Christmas can only really be understood by looking at where Jesus came from, his family tree, and by looking at how his story has continued in history.
Staying Awake
All of us know how difficult it is for us to be inside the present moment, to not be asleep to the real riches inside our own lives.
The Hiddenness of God and The Darkness of Faith
When I first began teaching theology, I fantasized about writing a book about the hiddenness of God. Why does God remain hidden and invisible? Why doesn’t God just show himself plainly in a way that nobody can dispute?
Advent: Curing Fire by Fire
The German poet, Goethe speaks of something he calls “holy longing”. He defines it as “a desire for higher love-making”, a longing to embrace the world and make love to it as God does this.
Chastity’s Challenge
Chastity is not first and foremost a sexual concept. In essence, chastity is proper reverence and respect. To be chaste is to stand before reality, everything and everybody, and fully respect the proper contours and rhythm of things.
The Way of Surrender
What God wants from us is not a million acts of virtue, but a million acts of surrender, culminating in one massive surrender of soul, mind, and body.
Non-discriminating embrace that still speaks its truth
That’s a stunning truth: God loves us when we are good, and God loves us when we are bad. God loves the saints in heaven and God loves the devils in hell equally. They just respond differently.
The Cross as Revealing Christ’s Descent into Hell
There’s a curious line in our creed which says that, immediately following his death, Jesus “descended into hell”. What possibly can that mean?
Our Need to Share Our Riches With The Poor
We need to give away some of our own possessions in order to be healthy. Wealth that is hoarded always corrupts those who possess it. Any gift that is not shared turns sour. If we are not generous with our gifts we will be bitterly envied and will eventually turn bitter and envious ourselves.
Feeding off Life’s Sacred Fire
A healthy spirituality needs to be predicated on a proper understanding of God, ourselves, the world, and the energies that drive our world. These are the non-negotiable Christian principles within which we need to understand ourselves, the world, and the use of our energies.
Fear Masking Itself as Piety
It is easy to mistake piety for the genuine response that God wants of us, that is, to enter into a relationship of intimacy with Him and then try to help others have that same experience.
Always in a Hurry
Haste is our enemy. It puts us under stress, raises our blood pressure, makes us impatient, renders us more vulnerable to accidents and, most seriously of all, blinds us to the needs of others. Haste is normally not a virtue, irrespective of the goodness of the thing towards which we are hurrying.
Death Washes Things Clean
When I was a child, our family prayed for and I spontaneously associated “a happy death” with dying cradled in the loving arms of family and church, fully at peace with God and everyone around you.
The Heart of a Child
Unless you change and become like little children you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
(Reflections by Ron Rolheiser)
The Eucharist as Sacrifice
A sacrifice is any act of selflessness, of self-denial, which helps someone else. Ron Rolheiser, OMI THE EUCHARIST AS SACRIFICE As Christians, we believe that Jesus sacrificed his life for … Continua a leggere
The Mystical Body
The deep, important things that most affect us are usually not big and showy, but tiny, perhaps even imperceptible… This is even more true of the body of Christ where most of the important processes there are also invisible.
Prayer as Seeking God’s Guidance
In Scripture, we see many examples of people who seek out God’s guidance in prayer, especially so when they are alone and afraid as they stand before some major upheaval or impending suffering in their lives.
Moral Progress and Regression
Christianity and the cross (which lies at its center) can be compared to a time-released moral-capsule that is dissolving slowly in history.
A Crisis of Imagination
Imagine yourself lying in bed some night having just had a very good time of prayer. You are flooded with strong, clear feelings and images about God. On that particular evening you have no faith doubts – you can feel the existence of God.
In Our Full Humanity
Daniel Berrigan once said: “Don’t travel with anyone who expects you to be interesting all the time!”
From Maintenance to Missionary
We need to become more deliberately, reflectively, and programmatically missionary within our own culture, to our own children. We need to send missionaries into secularity in the very same way as we once sent them off to faraway countries. The church in the secularized world needs a new kind of missionary.
Affective Prayer
“You must try to pray so that, in your prayer, you open yourself in such a way that sometime – perhaps not today, but sometime – you are able to hear God say to you: ‘I love you!’…
Finding God in Community
“God is love,” Scripture says, “and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him or her.” Reflections by Ron Rolheiser, OMI FINDING GOD IN COMMUNITY Too … Continua a leggere
Working too Hard
It is hard not to be over-busy and consumed by work, particularly during our generative years when the duties of raising children, paying mortgages, and running our churches and civic organizations falls more squarely on our shoulders…
Searching for God among many voices
God’s voice is inside of many things that are not explicitly connected to faith and religion, just as God’s voice is also not in everything that masquerades as religious.
Our Deepest Insecurity
Why don’t we live happier lives? Why are we forever caught up in frustrations, tensions, angers, and resentments?
Reflections by Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Longing, Desire and the Face of God
“Like a deer yearns for flowing streams, so my soul yearns for you my God.” “My soul keeps vigil for you in the night.” Reflections by Ron Rolheiser, OMI LONGING, … Continua a leggere
Laughter as Faith
During my seminary studies, I read a book by Peter Berger entitled, A Rumor of Angels, in which he tries to point to various places within our everyday experience where, he submits, we have intimations of the divine, rumors of angels, hints that ordinary experience contains more than just the ordinary, that God is there.
Struggling with Being Blessed
Deep down, all of us know we’re special, that we’re not just accidental, meaningless little chips of energy falling off the conveyor belt of cosmic evolution, indistinguishable from billions of others.
