Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr, O.F.M.is a Franciscan friar ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970. He is an internationally known inspirational speaker and has published numerous recorded talks and books, most recently Yes, And...: Daily Meditations, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionClergyman
CountryUnited States of America
Life is not, nor ever has been, a straight line forward ... Life is characterized much more by exception and disorder than by total or perfect order.
If I'm going to continue to be any kind of spiritual teacher, I've got to go deeper myself. And so for me, [I am] preserving long periods of solitude, silence, prayer, journaling, study, writing. I don't turn on music or the TV unless I really need to.
Whole people see and create wholeness wherever they go; split people see and create splits in everything and everybody.
Remember finally, that the ashes that were on your forehead are created from the burnt palms of last Palm Sunday. New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.
In my opinion, most organized religion does neither agentic service nor relational nurturance very well.
The greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection or order.
Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it's difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will.
Jesus is never upset at sinners; he is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners.
God created us for love, for union, for forgiveness and compassion and, yet, that has not been our storyline. That has not been our history.
Your false self is always that which is passing away. Your true self doesn't go up or down, it's constant - it's a rock. Once you learn how to live there, what others say about you, your failures or successes - these don't send you on a roller coaster ride down or up. It's really the only way to peace. There's no other way to be peaceful except in the true self.
To believe in Jesus, is to believe that the historic person who lived on this earth more than 2000 years ago was the image of the invisible God. That's a huge leap of faith, but it is my leap of faith, it's the act of faith of the Christian community.
Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity.
Moralism is always the cheap substitute for mysticism.
It is only through the holes in our soul that we break out and God breaks through.