Richard Rohr: Use

Richard Rohr is American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest. Explore interesting quotes on use.

Richard Rohr: 86 quotes20 likes

“We do not handle suffering. Suffering handles us.”

Source: Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation

“every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.”

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.”

Source: The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“In solitude, at last, we’re able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be defined—by relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence”

“When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.”

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“We have defined freedom in the West as the freedom to choose between options and preferences. That’s not primal freedom. That’s a secondary or even tertiary freedom. The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances. That’s what great religion offers us. That’s what real prayer offers us. That’s why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective. Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.”

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 93

“The world, the system, moves forward out of fear. That’s why they have to threaten us to play the game. We’re threatened with loss of job, money, reputation, or prestige. It’s all based on fear.”

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 85-86

“Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. It just increases our “stuckness” in the old world. As does a lot of poor psychotherapy. Cheap religion teaches us how to live successfully in a sick system.”

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 132

“Prayer must lead us beyond mind, words, and ideas to a more spacious place where God has a chance to get in.”

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 127

“What we know about God is important, but what we do with what we know about God is even more important. Too often people think it is necessary that we all see God in the same way (which is impossible anyway), but what is really necessary is that we all follow God according to what God tells us. The fact that God has given us so many different faces and temperaments and emotions and histories shows us how God honors each unique journey and culture. God is not threatened by differences. It’s we who are.”

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 110