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Once God and grace move us to the second half of life, religion becomes a mystical matter, rather than a moral matter.

Richard Rohr

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Richard Rohr
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: March 20
Catholic Priest
Motivational Speaker
Priest
Writer
Topeka
Kansas
Rather
Half
Religion
Mystical
Moving
Second
Matter
Move
Life
Becomes
Grace
Moral

More quotes by 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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The movement toward gratitude, authenticity, and union is the natural and organic inner work of the second half of our lives.
Richard Rohr
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You come to God not by being strong, but by being weak not by being right, but through your mistakes.
Richard Rohr
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Spirituality is about being ready. All the spiritual disciplines of your life - prayer, study, meditation or ritual, religious vows - are there so you can break through to the eternal. Spirituality is about awakening the eyes, the ears, the heart so you can see what's always happening right in front of you.
Richard Rohr
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Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing.
Richard Rohr
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To keep the middle coming back, you can't say some radically conservative or radically progressive things. That's been the bane of organized religion. It makes me wonder if Jesus' first definition of the church as two or three gathered in my name is not still the best way.
Richard Rohr
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Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.
Richard Rohr
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Contemplation is an alternative consciousness that refuses to identify with or feed what are only passing shows. It is the absolute opposite of addiction, consumerism or any egoic consciousness.
Richard Rohr
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If you do not transform your wounds you will transmit them.
Richard Rohr
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We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.
Richard Rohr
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Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.
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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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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A person who can laugh and go with life does not demand to be in control, which is why the most controlling people may be sarcastic but lack an authentic sense of humor.
Richard Rohr
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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
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What I wish I had said in the book [Falling Upward] is that part of the attraction of conservative religions, such as Mormonism, Mennonite, Amish, groups we would consider very traditional, is that they actually do the first half of life very well. They are often very happy people.
Richard Rohr
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When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself.
Richard Rohr
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If you don't transform your suffering, you'll transmit it.
Richard Rohr
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There is nothing to prove and nothing to protect. I am who I am and it's enough.
Richard Rohr
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People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.
Richard Rohr