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I decided years ago that if I'm going to keep teaching contemplation, then the last years of my life should be contemplative.

Richard Rohr

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Richard Rohr
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: March 20
Catholic Priest
Motivational Speaker
Priest
Writer
Topeka
Kansas
Years
Contemplative
Life
Contemplation
Decided
Teaching
Lasts
Last
Keep
Going

More quotes by Richard Rohr

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In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all of us must die before we die, and then we will not be afraid of dying. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as whenever you are not in control.
Richard Rohr
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Without transformation, you can assume you're at a high moral, spiritual level just because you call yourself Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic. I think my great disappointment as a priest has been to see how little actual spiritual curiosity there is in so many people.
Richard Rohr
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I am who I am in the eyes of God- nothing more and nothing less.
Richard Rohr
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Someone has said, 'To be a saint is to have loved many things' —many things — the tree, the dog, the sky, the flowers, even the color of someone’s clothing. You see, when you love, you love, and love extends to everything all the time and everywhere.
Richard Rohr
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When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself. Most of our mainline Christian denominations, in my opinion, don't do the first or second halves very well. We don't really give people a good container, we give them a bunch of legalisms.
Richard Rohr
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The ego knows itself by comparison.
Richard Rohr
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The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.
Richard Rohr
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In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us.
Richard Rohr
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Men and women are most alike at their most mature and soulful levels. Men and women are most different only at their most immature and merely physical levels.
Richard Rohr
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The true mystic is always both humble and compassionate, for she knows that she does not know.
Richard Rohr
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Jesus is the very concrete truth revealing and standing in for the universal truth.
Richard Rohr
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God tries to first create a joyous yes inside of you, far more than any kind of no . . . Just saying no is resentful dieting, whereas finding your deeper yes, and eating from that table, is always a spiritual banquet.
Richard Rohr
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The same powerful Scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person. This is surely what Jesus means when he talks about the one who has being given more and those who have not losing what little they have.
Richard Rohr
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If God continues to give me health and a sane mind and verbal ability, I want to teach.
Richard Rohr
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Your heart has to be prepared ahead of time through faith and prayer and grace and mercy and love and forgiveness so you can keep your heart open in hell, when hell happens.
Richard Rohr
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Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God.
Richard Rohr
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When 'happiness' eludes us - as, eventually, it always will - we have the invitation to examine our programmed responses and to exercise our power to choose again.
Richard Rohr
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There has to be a womp on the side of the head that defeats and undercuts this game of performance. It has to fall apart. Now unfortunately, that very often does not happen until what I call the second half of life, when there's been enough death in the family and you start experiencing your own physical deterioration.
Richard Rohr
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As to his gospel, Jesus Christ came into the world as the image of the invisible God to communicate to us that not only did we not need to be afraid of God, but that God is more for us than we are ourselves or one another. God's love is infinite, and unstoppable, and will win!
Richard Rohr
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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