Quote

Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.

Richard Rohr

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Rohr
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: March 20
Catholic Priest
Motivational Speaker
Priest
Writer
Topeka
Kansas
Possible
Religion
Language
Metaphor
Available
Mystery
Honest
Alone

More quotes by Richard Rohr

Image
We grow up as natural optimists as Americans. Catholic priests were so hopeful as we watched the Vatican II experience. Yet, it's a punch in the belly to see what has happened in the church and the world. Dualistic thinking seems to have taken over the church and our politics to a really neurotic degree.
Richard Rohr
Image
The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines.
Richard Rohr
Image
The Gospel gives human suffering deep, personal, and cosmic meaning, by connecting our pain to the pain of others and, finally, by connecting us to the very pain of God.
Richard Rohr
Image
If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.
Richard Rohr
Image
God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.
Richard Rohr
Image
Having a school really is the fulfillment of a longtime dream of mine.
Richard Rohr
Image
Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing.
Richard Rohr
Image
Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity.
Richard Rohr
Image
The true mystic is always both humble and compassionate, for she knows that she does not know.
Richard Rohr
Image
Creation is a process that is still happening and we’re in on it! We are a part of this endless creativity of God.
Richard Rohr
Image
You cannot be naïve about evil. You cannot be naïve to the reality that there are human beings and human situations which have totally identified with the dark side of reality. They are malicious. Realism teaches you to put up appropriate boundaries so that people can't do any more evil than possible. But that doesn't mean you do evil back to them.
Richard Rohr
Image
We do not make or create our souls, we just grow them up.
Richard Rohr
Image
In my opinion, most organized religion does neither agentic service nor relational nurturance very well.
Richard Rohr
Image
Egoic consciousness is the one we all normally operate with, until we are told there is something else! Every culture teaches egoic consciousness in different ways. At that level it is all about me, my preferences, my choices, my needs, my desires and me and my group as the central reference point.
Richard Rohr
Image
Christ is bigger than the Earth planet. If tomorrow we discover life on another planet, the whole Jesus piece would not make sense anymore. If he did everything for just us on this planet he wouldn't be the savior of the world.
Richard Rohr
Image
Once you experience being loved when you are unworthy, being forgiven when you did something wrong, that moves you into non-dual thinking. You move from what I call meritocracy, quid pro quo thinking, to the huge ocean of grace, where you stop counting or calculating.
Richard Rohr
Image
Prayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, competing, judging, labeling or analyzing, but receiving the moment in its present wholeness and unwholeness. That is what is meant by contemplation.
Richard Rohr
Image
Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.
Richard Rohr
Image
There is a part of you that is Love itself, and that is what we must fall into. It is already there. Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner contentment, you will realize you are drawing upon a Life that is much larger than your own and from a deeper abundance.
Richard Rohr
Image
Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.
Richard Rohr