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The Ashes of Lent
We begin the season of lent with ashes on our foreheads. What is symbolized by this smudging? Perhaps the heart understands better than the head because more people go to
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Post-Modern Nihilism
Nihilism has a curious variety of faces. Generally we think of it as some gloomy, philosophical ideology within which God does not exist, nothing means anything, and suicide is explored
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In Defense of Chastity in a Post-Chaste Culture
Allan Bloom, the famed educator, with no religious agenda whatsoever, once suggested that lack of chastity is, singularly, the biggest reason why there isn’t a stronger passion for life among
https://ronrolheiser.com/in-defense-of-chastity-in-a-post-chaste-culture/
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Colour and Wisdom in God’s Face
If you were to construct a composite of God’s face, how would you picture this? What features should go into this face? Should God look like Mother Teresa or Alanis
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A Lonely Place from which to Pray and Speak
Robert Coles once wrote a fine biographical essay on Simone Weil. In it, he coined a beautiful phrase to describe a quality which made her so extraordinary and which also
https://ronrolheiser.com/a-lonely-place-from-which-to-pray-and-speak/
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In Defense of Daily Eucharist
The long-standing Catholic practice of daily Eucharist is today being questioned: On the one hand, less and less people are going to daily Eucharist and many parishes in fact no
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The Storm on the Lake
Several years ago I attended a seminar on religious experience where a woman shared this story: A few years before this incident occurred her life had been rather settled. She
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Facing up to the Chaos
Michael Ford, in his biography on Henri Nouwen, tells us how brutally honest Nouwen was emotionally. Sometimes when loneliness, depression, and chaos would threaten to overwhelm him, Nouwen would go
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The Death of Innocence
In 1987 an American educator, Allan Bloom, wrote a book entitled, The Closing of the American Mind. Its thesis is contained in its title. The book contends that today, in
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Celebrating a New Millennium
Certain occasions test a columnist. How to do justice to an event? What do you say at the turn of a millennium? What do you say to propose a toast