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A Hidden Life
Some years ago, while, directing a retreat, a woman shared with me this story: She was a person very admired and respected within her family and circle of friends. From
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Healthy and Unhealthy Fear of Hell
Some years ago, I read a book by a very pious Christian visionary who had visions of the afterlife in which she saw “souls going down into hell like snowflakes.”
https://ronrolheiser.com/healthy-and-unhealthy-fear-of-hell/
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Moral Loneliness
Some years ago, I wrote a book within which I suggested that there are four basic kinds of human loneliness: alienation, restlessness, rootlessness, and psychological depression. Were I to write
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Social Justice – New Knowledge/New Responsibility
Former Jesuit Superior General, Pedro Arrupe, was once asked why there is such an emphasis today on social justice when, in the past, many saintly persons and good spiritual writings
https://ronrolheiser.com/social-justice-new-knowledgenew-responsibility/
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A Dark Night Of Spirit
We are born with deeply greedy hearts, hardwired so that, spontaneously and insatiably, we are driven to possess what we love and find beautiful. Etty Hillesum once described this in
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Young In God’s Eyes
Several years ago, I spent two months living in the guest house of a Trappist monastery.Visitors from many parts of the world would pass through, spend of a few days,
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The Importance Of The Empty Tomb
During my recent sabbatical, I was taking a course at the Center for Science and Religion in Berkeley, California. The professor, a professional scientist and devout Christian, began one lecture
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Invincible Ignorance and Good Friday
The old manuals in moral theology made a distinction between two kinds of ignorance, culpable and inculpable. The latter, also termed invincible ignorance, was seen as something which excused one
https://ronrolheiser.com/invincible-ignorance-and-good-friday/
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Poetic Imagination
The night before he first knelt to become “the most reluctant convert in all of Christendom,” C.S. Lewis spent some long hours walking with J.R Tolkien, the famous novelist (Lord
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The Interrupted Life
022891 Someone once suggested that “life is what happens to you while you’re planning it”; Etty Hillesum’s exceptional diaries are entitled, An Interrupted Life; and Henri Nouwen says: “I used