552 Quotes by Richard Rohr

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.

...organized religion is no longer good news for most people, but bad news indeed. It set us up for the massive atheism, agnosticism, hedonism, and secularism we now see in almost all formerly Christian countries.

True masters deconstruct as well as reconstruct.

True baptism allows us to reframe, and contain, the reality of evil, without needing to blame anyone else, without any need for shame or vengeance. We are all in this together, and our common wound shows itself in different ways.

It seems that in the spiritual world, we do not really find something until we first lose it, ignore it, miss it, long for it, choose it, and personally find it again--but now on a new level.

We actually respond to one another's energy more than to people's exact words or actions. In any situation, your taking or giving of energy is what you are actually doing. Everybody can feel, suffer, or enjoy the difference, but few can exactly say what it is that is happening. Why do I feel drawn or repelled? What we all desire and need from one another, of course, is that life energy called eros! It always draws, creates, and connects things.

Setting out is always a leap of faith, a risk in the deepest sense of the term, and yet an adventure too. The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push--usually a big one--or we will not go.

God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.

Once you see that your skin and your gift are two sides of the same coin, you can never forget it. It preserves religion from any arrogance and denial.