RonRolheiser,OMI

Relating To Our Loved Ones After They Die

October 5, 2026

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In nineteen seventy-nine, Sheldon Vanauken published a book entitled A Severe Mercy; in it he tells the story of the death of his wife, Davey. The book is an account of an extraordinary romance, cut short while still in full bloom by Davey’s premature death.

This story has intrigued many people, both because of the extraordinary relationship between Sheldon and Davey before her death and because of the relationship between them after her death.

Vanauken describes how after her death he still felt her presence strongly and vividly. She was gone, in that brutal and irrevocable way death takes loved ones away, but he still felt her presence—as real as he had before she died.

In the early months after her death, her presence to him was constant, guiding, sure, consoling, the same as it had been while she was alive. She had died, but inside himself he felt her present – as wife, lover, best friend, soulmate. And during those months he always carried her wedding ring in his pocket, which he fingered tenderly many times each day. Touching it helped keep him aware of her presence.

One day, while on a ship crossing the Atlantic, he felt her presence change. In the silence of his heart and soul, he felt her speaking to him, telling him that, up to now, they had needed that kind of presence with each other, but that this now needed to change. They needed to move to a different plane in their relationship. She was telling him that she needed to “let him go” in the way she had been present to him until now and she needed to ask him to “let her go” in the way they were now present to each other. It was a difficult moment, but Sheldon understood its meaning. He took the ring from his pocket and quietly dropped it into the ocean.

From then onward, Davey was still present to him, but now in a new way. Her presence now was less explicit, though not more distant. Now her presence was less that of the earthly wife, soulmate, and best friend, and more the presence of a person who loves you and holds you in a way that’s harder to describe.

Thousands of persons who have lost loved ones to death, including myself, can identify with that story, both in terms of feeling the presence of a deceased loved one inside ourselves, and in terms of feeling this relationship, at a point, develop and move to a new plane.

In my own case, I lost both parents when I was twenty-three years old. For nearly two years, like Sheldon Vanauken, I felt their presence as sure, guiding, and parental (they were still very much my mom and dad, still very much with me); though, in my case, it was not always a consoling and warm presence. The pain of their loss would occasionally bring me feelings and tears that were not warm. My mom and dad were still with me, but at this early stage their deaths still left a cold scar.

However, sometime between the first and second year after their deaths this changed. For me, unlike for Vanauken, there wasn’t a clear moment when this happened. It happened gradually and imperceptibly, their presence to me and within me changed.

But, parallel to Vanauken’s experience, what I experienced was a shift in presence from one plane to another. I still felt their presence, just as before, but now something had let go, even as something else took its place.

I felt their presence now as a deep consolation and their loss no longer hurt as before. I no longer felt a need to pray for them. Instead, now I felt a need (which I still feel today) to pray to them.

They were still my parents, but something had changed. I hesitate to use words to describe this because they might sound vague and wishful, but what I felt can only be characterized this way: They were still my parents—alive, deeply concerned for me, and more present in my life than they ever could be while still in this life. But now I felt that presence as something higher, more universally shared with others, and more tied to God’s love and presence to me. It became harder to differentiate their presence from the general feeling of divine providence that I sense in my life,

I come from a large family. Basically, all my siblings had a similar experience. Moreover, many people have shared similar stories concerning how they continue to feel their relationships with their deceased loved ones change and grow even after their deaths.

Vanauken’s story of an ongoing, developing relationship with a loved one who has died is paralleled everywhere. Relationships continue to grow and develop even after death. Exotic stuff? No! Tis the stuff of dogma. One of the essential articles of our faith teaches that death doesn’t end a relationship.

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An Anniversary

September 28, 2026

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In telling his faith story, C.S. Lewis shares that at the moment of his conversion, he was “the most reluctant convert in the history of Christianity”, but that he gave himself over to Christ because “God’s compulsion is our liberation”.

That phrase spoke to me recently when, on September 8th, I celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of making my first vows as a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate. I was eighteen years old then, far too young by today’s assessment to be making that kind of commitment.

But I wasn’t too young. Intuitively, I knew what I was signing up for. I wasn’t starry-eyed and unaware that taking religious vows is a serious business. The decision I made to enter religious life with the hope of becoming a priest was the most difficult decision I have ever made in life and wasn’t predicated on a natural attraction to that vocation. The opposite. That was something I didn’t want, but something I felt called to and not morally free to resist. I was a reluctant novice, but there because of God’s compulsion. Here’s the story.

Until one month before I entered novitiate as a novice, I resisted the call, planning instead to go to university to become psychologist. I made the decision to pursue religious life and the priesthood during the summer immediately after my high school graduation. During that summer I worked on a farm and spent long hours alone on a tractor working in fields. During those long hours alone, a tension that I had long suppressed began to build up in me, namely, one between my natural desire regarding my choice in life and a call, a compulsion, inside me that simply would not go away, calling me to the priesthood. Eventually I gave in. I said yes to that call.

So, at the tender age of seventeen, I made the most difficult (but paradoxically, the clearest, freest, and most life-giving) decision I have ever made. And as I look back on it now, sixty-one years later, I see it as pure grace. There have been some difficult times, but there have been no regrets. From day one, I knew that this was right for me. All these years later, I have only deep gratitude for the grace to have made that decision and the ocean of grace that has surrounded me throughout these sixty years.

The renowned novelist Morris West published his autobiography sometime after his seventieth birthday. It’s a slim little volume entitled A View From the Ridge and begins with these words: When you reach the age of seventy there should only be three phrases left in your vocabulary: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

 I’m over seventy years of age now and were I to write an autobiography, like Morris West, I would begin with the words: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

And I remember clearly that day of my vows, sixty years ago. My mother and father were there, proud of me. I have a cherished photo of them with me, made even more precious because both of them, still young, died within the next six years. As well, I have sixty years of cherished friendship with some of my fellow novices – a couple of them who were even younger than I was.

And so, in celebrating this anniversary, I want to say thank you.

First, to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate for accepting me and through sixty years providing me with support, good community, friendship, exceptional educational opportunities, and with grace-filled, life-giving ministries. In these sixty years, I estimate that I have lived in community with over four hundred different men. That wasn’t always without its tensions, but it was aways supportive and life-giving – and full of the kind of healthy banter that breathes oxygen into a room.

As well, a huge thanks to my family, a large amorphous tribe, now spanning three generations. We have managed to stay close, despite distance, and I have always felt their unfailing support. They are still an anchor, a home, which helps steady me when things get confusing.

Next, and no superlative is up to the task here, a huge thank you to the untold number of people, friends and others, whom I have met in ministry through these sixty years. I was ordained sacramentally by a bishop but have been continually re-ordained by the people in my life. They’ve shown me what priesthood means. The highlights in my priesthood have been hearing the word “thank you” from people with whom I have had the privilege of being with.

Finally, the biggest thank you of all to God. Thank you for calling me. Thank you for the compulsion and the persistence in that call, for knowing what was best for me. Thank you for sustaining me during some difficult, obsessive, and depressive periods in my ministry. Thank you for staying with me all these years.

Indeed, God’s compulsion is our liberation – and pure grace.

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The Original Sin

September 21, 2026

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I once had the privilege of taking a course from James Mackey. In class one day he shared this story.

A man he knew was part of a hunting expedition in Africa. His group was camped in a jungle. One morning he left camp early, hiked a few miles into the bush by himself, and shot two wild turkeys. Buckling these to his belt, he was walking back toward camp when he heard noises and realized he was being followed. Frightened, his hands tightened on his rifle, he scanned the woods for movement.

His fear was quickly dispelled. What he saw stalking him was a young boy, about twelve years old, naked and hungry. He realized instantly that what the boy wanted was not him but food. He stopped, opened his belt, let the turkeys fall to the ground, and backed away. The young boy ran up to the turkeys but didn’t pick them up. Instead, he looked towards the man and in his native language began asking him for something. Not understanding what the boy was asking but sensing that he wanted permission to take the birds, the man began gesturing to him that it was okay. But the boy still was not at ease. He kept asking and gesturing that he wanted something more.

Finally, in desperation, the boy took several steps back from the turkeys and stood silently with his hands out, open in front of him – waiting until the man came and placed the turkeys into his hands. Then he ran off into the jungle. Despite his hunger and need, he had refused to take the birds but had waited until they were given to him.

This story, in essence, illustrates the antithesis of original sin. This young boy did what Adam and Eve didn’t do. He accepted that life needed to be given to him, that he could not take it on his own, despite his hunger.

What’s at stake here? To answer that we need to look at what constituted the original sin. What did Adam and Eve do that so badly violated God’s plan? How is their action the opposite of this young boy’s?

The story of the fall of Adam and Eve is colored throughout, especially at the end (nakedness and shame), with sexual imagery, so much so that we might conclude that their transgression was of a sexual nature. It wasn’t. The sexual motif in the story is a metaphor for rape. Adam and Eve took, as by force, something that can only be received in love.

The condition that God gave Adam and Eve might be summarized this way: “I will give you life. I will bathe you in life. But you must receive it and never take it. If you receive it, it will always be life-giving, but on the day you begin to take it rather than to receive it, your actions will begin to bring about distrust, alienation, nakedness, shame, and death.”

That single commandment summarizes the Ten Commandments.

Indeed, we might ask why God gave a commandment to Adam and Eve in the first place. Why a condition? Why not paradise without conditions? The question is a valid one; but in answering it, we must be careful not to see the commandment as a test, as some arbitrary thing that God might have asked or not asked. The condition here isn’t arbitrary. It’s something inherent within love itself. How so?

God made a love-contoured universe so that in the order of things, everything is gift. In life, nothing may be snatched, grabbed by force, or claimed by right. Life can only be received as gift, respectfully, in its own time. The same with love. Something is only love and can only give life when it is freely given and freely received. This is written into love’s DNA.

Love is not unconditional and never can be because there’s a condition innate in love itself, namely, to be love, something must be received as gift. Conversely, if love is snatched by force rather than respectfully received as gift, we have a word for that – we call it rape.

The original sin of Adam and Eve wasn’t sexual, but it was akin to rape. They wrongfully took what was intended as gift. Our culture, which rewards aggressiveness and tells us that we are foolish not to take for ourselves the good things we want, too often invites us to do the same thing.

It’s interesting to note that the story of Adam and Eve was written centuries after the Ten Commandments were given and is an attempt to summarize all of them in a single condition: “You may receive, but you may never take!”

That’s also the lesson in Jesus’ gentle correction of the rich young man: The man had asked, “How can I possess eternal life?” Jesus corrects his verb: “You can only receive eternal life” – and you must, like the young African boy, stand before life with empty hands and wait until it’s given you.

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