• Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Fear of the Lord

  St. John of the Cross once proposed this axiom” “Learn to understand more by not understanding than by understanding.” A curious statement, though obviously a profound one. What does he

  https://ronrolheiser.com/gifts-of-the-holy-spirit-fear-of-the-lord/

• Gifts of The Holy Spirit – Piety

   031998 Ernst Kasemann once commented that the problem with the world is that the liberals aren’t pious and the pious aren’t liberal. A wise comment, one that puts some perspective

  https://ronrolheiser.com/gifts-of-the-holy-spirit-piety/

• Gifts of the Spirit: Fortitude

  Many of us are familiar with the story Dead Man Walking. It’s about a Catholic nun, Helen Prejean, who is working among prisoners on death row, helping prepare them for

  https://ronrolheiser.com/gifts-of-the-spirit-fortitude/

• The Gift of Counsel

  There is a striking parallel in the bible between two stories. In each, an innocent woman, threatened by crowd, is saved because one person intervenes, gives counsel, and alters things.

  https://ronrolheiser.com/the-gift-of-counsel/

• The Gifts of the Holy Spirit

  The American poet, Robert Frost, once wrote that there is a congenital something in us that hates a wall. Well, there is also something, just as non-eradicable, that loves a

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• The Myth of Redemptive Violence

  Few things warm the heart as does the myth of redemptive violence. This myth, very different than that taught us by Jesus, lies in the root of the Western soul.

  https://ronrolheiser.com/the-myth-of-redemptive-violence/

• Choosing Against Happiness

  Some years ago, counseling a young nun who was trying to make sense of her struggle with religious life, I learned something about religious ambivalence. Her life embodied it. On

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• Sacred Violence

  In October 1993, Robert Latimer, a Saskatchewan farmer, looked at his severely handicapped daughter, Tracy, and decided she should no longer have to live with her constant pain. He gently

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• The Effects of Pornography

  Some years ago, CBC TV aired a drama that ran something like this: Three middle-aged couples from Ontario decided to take a summer camping holiday together. The holiday was meant

  https://ronrolheiser.com/the-effects-of-pornography/

• Managing an Ascension

  A friend of mine, who is somewhat bitter and cynical about the church, recently remarked: “What the institutional church today is trying to do is to put the beat face

  https://ronrolheiser.com/managing-an-ascension/