The divine fire within
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Fr. Ronald Rolheiser — author, lecturer, retreat leader, columnist and spiritual guide — is one of the most influential voices in Catholic spirituality today. A member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, he is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. Rolheiser’s books and lectures call Catholics to new ways of thinking about church for the 21st century. He is re-imagining and re-formulating Catholic doctrine and spirituality for a younger generation.
A transcript of this inteview is available here: Transcript. Fox can be reached at: thomascfox@gmail.com
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Episode 1: Episode 1: Our restless, insatiable spirit (27 min.)
"We humans are infinite spirits in a finite situation, and that’s a sure formula for restlessness," Fr. Rolheiser tells interviewer Tom Fox. "You want to make love to the whole world, you want to consume the planet but you’re confined to one person, one place. … These energies — this divine fire —make up our spirit. How we direct that spirit is spirituality. Our spirit is restless because it’s divine and insatiable."
Episode 2: Being missionaries to our children (27 min.)
"The real mission field is not Africa and Asia," Fr. Ron Rolheiser tells Tom Fox. "Our missionary work today is with our own children." Rolheiser tells Tom Fox about being at World Youth Day in Toronto with Pope John Paul II. A million young people showed up, he said. The energy was tremendous. But what nagged at the back of his mind, he said, were the 50 million young people who were not there. Those are the people he wants to reach and, he said, the language of dogma and doctrine won’t reach them. He searches for "the language of the soul." "I believe the dogma, I believe the catechism, but something farther has to be done. Somebody has to take this language and say this is what it means in our lives. And that language has to be created."
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Secularity and the Gospel: Being Missionaries to Our Children (Crossroad). Missionary work formerly meant bringing the Gospel to faraway places and other peoples. Today, even our own children know little about the Gospel. Fr. Ronald Rolheiser shows how Christian faith can thrive in a secular world.
Forgotten Among the Lilies: Learning to Love Beyond Our Fears (Doubleday). Rolheiser focuses on the obsessions that can dominate modern lives. "This book is for those who struggle to make this life, such as it is, enough." Rolheiser explores the debilitating obsessions that often dominate our lives and offers guidance for learning to leave our fears, anxieties, and guilt "forgotten among the lilies."
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The Restless Heart: Finding our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness (Doubleday). Rolheiser addresses the problems of loneliness and isolation in the present age. He identifies different types of loneliness and discusses the dangers and opportunities they represent in our lives, offering a distinctively Christian approach to living an examined, involved life.
The Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God (Crossroad). Faith, if not shattered, is shaken by secular culture. Rolheiser looks at the contemplative path in Christian spirituality.
Wow! How did I miss this
Wow! How did I miss this one? I love the non-negotiable pillars of Christianity that he sets out in part one. What can I say, other than, "amen."
I also appreciate tremendously the fact that he is speaking to being missionaries to our children. That is one I have struggled with for most of my adult life (a long time), even though I, myself, am one of those children.
I don't know that I find it consoling to hear that even theologians don't understand what it means that "Jesus died to save us" (however obvious it might be that, if they do, it hasn't filtered down to the rest of us). I struggle and pray about this on a constant, recurring basis. My journal is full of the struggle, and I actually think I am growing into a more satisfying understanding without throwing away the baby with the bath water. "Seek and ye shall find."
On grace building on nature, and on sexuality, I think he is right on. There was so much meat in this conversation that I will certainly be looking into his writings.