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A Father’s Blessing
My father died when I was twenty-three, a seminarian, green, still learning about life. It’s hard to lose your father at any age, and my grief was compounded by the
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Atheists, Dark Nights, Good Friday, and Revelation
The classical atheistic thinkers of the Enlightenment, philosophers such as Frederick Nietzsche and Ludwig Feuerbach, taught that all religious experience is simply human projection. God does not exist. We create
https://ronrolheiser.com/atheists-dark-nights-good-friday-and-revelation/
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Becoming a Practicing Mystic
I teach a course on the renowned mystic John of the Cross. Since this is never a required course for any student, I usually begin the first class by asking
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Mourning our Unfinished Symphony
There are parts of scripture that should come with a warning label, the kind they sometimes flash at the end of a movie which reads: No animals were harmed. One
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What Makes a Good Marriage?
No amount of preaching shapes a soul as much as seeing someone living an honest life. If that’s true, and it is, then no marriage course is ever as powerful
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An Unnatural Wound
Few things in life are as difficult as the death of a young person, particularly one’s own child. There are many mothers and fathers, with broken hearts, having lost a
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Losing Our Innocence
What is innocence? Perhaps in its ideal form, innocence might be described as a human heart stripped of ego and lust, something akin to what James Joyce describes in A
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God’s Nudge Inside of Us
God’s presence inside us and in our world is rarely dramatic, overwhelming, sensational, impossible to ignore. God doesn’t work like that. Rather God’s presence is something that lies quiet and
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Suicide and Jesus’ Descent into Hell
In a book entitled Peculiar Treasures, the renowned novelist and spiritual writerFrederick Buechner reflects on the character of Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus with a kiss and then died
https://ronrolheiser.com/suicide-and-jesus-descent-into-hell/
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Purgatory as Purification Through Love
Imagine being born blind and living into adulthood without ever having seen light and color. Then, through some miraculous operation, doctors are able to give you sight. What would you
https://ronrolheiser.com/purgatory-as-purification-through-love/