• Giving our Deaths to our Loved Ones

  The poet, Wendell Berry, once wrote: “I almost understand, I almost recognize as a friend the great impertinence of beauty that comes even to the dying, even to the fallen,

  https://ronrolheiser.com/giving-our-deaths-to-our-loved-ones/

• Praying for the Dead

  Recently I received a letter from a woman asking me to explain the Christian teaching about praying for the dead. Her son had been killed in an accident and she

  https://ronrolheiser.com/praying-for-the-dead/

• In Praise of the Ordinary

  Something inside us despises the ordinary. There is something in the ordinary that tells us predictable routines, domestic rhythms, and conscription to duty makes for cheap meaning. Inside us there

  https://ronrolheiser.com/in-praise-of-the-ordinary/

• The Prayer of Helplessness

  In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day shares how she once prayed at a very low time in her life. Dorothy Day, as you know, wasn’t raised into the

  https://ronrolheiser.com/the-prayer-of-helplessness/

• A Child Not Fully Grown

  Have you ever watched a typical, moody adolescent interact with his or her family in public? Picture a sixteen year-old girl in a restaurant with her parents and younger siblings.

  https://ronrolheiser.com/a-child-not-fully-grown/

• Remaining in the Upper Room

  Peter Maurin, the man who helped Dorothy Day found the CATHOLIC WORKER, used say: “When you don’t know what else to do, keep going to meetings!” Sound advice. Jesus, it

  https://ronrolheiser.com/remaining-in-the-upper-room/

• God’s Risk…..Our Freedom

  Why doesn’t God make things easier? Perhaps the most vexing faith-question of all-time is the problem of God’s silence and his seeming indifference: Why does God allow evil? Why do

  https://ronrolheiser.com/gods-risk-our-freedom/

• Practical Hope

  Karl Rahner once defined hope this way: A woman sees the tiny rivulet of her life and fears that it might not mean anything, that it might die out completely.

  https://ronrolheiser.com/practical-hope/

• And the Whole World Changed

  Iris Murdoch once said that the whole world can change in fifteen seconds. She was talking about falling-in-love. Hatred, it seems, can do the same thing: On Tuesday morning, September

  https://ronrolheiser.com/and-the-whole-world-changed/

• God Underneath – A Priest’s Diary

  Several months ago, the religious editor at Doubleday sent me pre-release copy of a book by a young priest from New York named Edward Beck. Entitled, God Underneath, Spiritual Memoirs

  https://ronrolheiser.com/god-underneath-a-priests-diary/