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Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity
When one reaches the highest degree of human maturity, one has only one question left: How can I be helpful?--TERESA OF AVILA
Beloved author Ronald Rolheiser continues his search for an accessible and penetrating Christian spirituality in this highly anticipated follow-up to the contemporary classic, The Holy Longing. With his trademark acuity, wit, and thoughtfulness, Rolheiser shows how identifying and embracing discipleship will lead to new heights of spiritual awareness and maturity. In this new book, Rolheiser takes us on a journey through the dark night of the senses and of the spirit. Here, we experience the full gamut of human life, pleasure and fervor, disillusionment and boredom. But, as Rolheiser explains, when we embrace the struggle and yearning to know God we can experience too a profound re-understanding to our daily lives.
"What lies beyond the essentials, the basics?" Rolheiser writes. "Where do we go once some of the basic questions in our lives have been answered, or at least brought to enough peace that our focus can shift away from ourselves to others? Where do we go once the basic questions in our lives are no longer the restless questions of youthful insecurity and loneliness? Who am I? Who loves me? How will my life turn out? Where do we go once the basic question in life becomes: How can I give my life away more purely, and more meaningfully? How do I live beyond my own heartaches, headaches, and obsessions so as to help make other peoples' lives more meaningful? The intent of this book is to try to address exactly those questions: How can we live less self- centered, more mature lives? What constitutes deep maturity and how do we reach that place? And, not unimportantly, what constitutes a more adult, Christian discipleship? What constitutes a truly mature following of Jesus?"
As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke suggests, "Live the questions now." In Sacred Fire, Rolheiser's deeply affecting prose urges us on in pursuit of the most holy of all passions--a deep and lasting intimacy with God.
Beloved author Ronald Rolheiser continues his search for an accessible and penetrating Christian spirituality in this highly anticipated follow-up to the contemporary classic, The Holy Longing. With his trademark acuity, wit, and thoughtfulness, Rolheiser shows how identifying and embracing discipleship will lead to new heights of spiritual awareness and maturity. In this new book, Rolheiser takes us on a journey through the dark night of the senses and of the spirit. Here, we experience the full gamut of human life, pleasure and fervor, disillusionment and boredom. But, as Rolheiser explains, when we embrace the struggle and yearning to know God we can experience too a profound re-understanding to our daily lives.
"What lies beyond the essentials, the basics?" Rolheiser writes. "Where do we go once some of the basic questions in our lives have been answered, or at least brought to enough peace that our focus can shift away from ourselves to others? Where do we go once the basic questions in our lives are no longer the restless questions of youthful insecurity and loneliness? Who am I? Who loves me? How will my life turn out? Where do we go once the basic question in life becomes: How can I give my life away more purely, and more meaningfully? How do I live beyond my own heartaches, headaches, and obsessions so as to help make other peoples' lives more meaningful? The intent of this book is to try to address exactly those questions: How can we live less self- centered, more mature lives? What constitutes deep maturity and how do we reach that place? And, not unimportantly, what constitutes a more adult, Christian discipleship? What constitutes a truly mature following of Jesus?"
As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke suggests, "Live the questions now." In Sacred Fire, Rolheiser's deeply affecting prose urges us on in pursuit of the most holy of all passions--a deep and lasting intimacy with God.
344 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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May 27, 2023
A book about the concept of maturity and "growing up" from the Christian perspective, by the Canadian theologian Ronald Rolheiser.
My impression in a sentence: overall, I found it way too superficial, especially from the theological standpoint. Too much cloudiness, blurredness and vagueness if I compare it to my favorite spiritual authors (mainly: Ratzinger, Barron and Cardinal Ravasi).
In part one, Rolheiser centers on the first stage of spirituality characterized by emotional swings, restlessness, loneliness, morality, security – the temptations that plague us in our youth. We come to the end of this first stage successfully when we selflessly put others before our own desires and dreams.
In part two, he offers a study of mature discipleship in which we give our lives for others. The struggles at this point are often severe when we become angry and frustrated at our own weaknesses. The author states that desire for maturity does not come without a struggle—a struggle that is fraught with our lingering inclinations to be willful, self-centered and bitter. Ok...
Rolheiser’s talks about Mary praying and pondering the many events in her life from the annunciation to the crucifixion leads her to a higher level of spirituality, where bitterness and pain are transformed into love and forgiveness.
The chapter dedicated to the transformative power of prayer is probably my favorite. The author defines prayer as our attempt to reach God, to express our love for Him and to receive His love. Recognizing that sometimes prayer does not seem to be working, he advises persistence: focus on God, not on ourselves, and in the end we will arrive “at an ever deepening intimacy with our God.” He concludes that prayer gives us “the strength we need to be virtuous.” In the end, prayer helps us to give our lives for others.
Rolheiser writes in a very fluid style, almost as if he was talking instead of writing - including MANY repetitions and, unfortunately, a lot of elusive paragraphs.
It's great that he challenges the reader to step up as a Christian, to not go back to usual cycles or habits but to direct one’s life towards a constant development and growth. This made me think of a quote that I read somewhere (not in this book): "The only person I want to be superior to is myself yesterday". Great.
But there are also passages that didn't resonate with me - mainly because of their lack of precision or even, honestly, their lack of a specific point. The author writes in a very poetic style, but I found that most of the book stops at a rather generic, abstract level. You can never bite into anything.
Examples:
"Jesus does not just ask us to give in charity to the poor, he also asks us to work at correcting all the social, political and economic structures that disadvantage the poor and help keep them poor. Justice seeks to correct the structures that help create that poverty." - Ok, BUT, everyone today has a different opinion about exactly HOW to achieve this, and Rolheiser does not say anything about the "how", which is the most important part, so the whole paragraph feels useless to me.
This made me think of the book “Toxic charity”, that warns about the huge danger of doing social justice work that fails or backfires because it’s not sustainable or for other reasons.
Very easy to "think" and speak and write about social justice, but extremely complicated to put it in action in a truly effective and sustainable way.
"Purity of heart does not mean that we will not have any sexual fantasies. It means that those fantasies will not be lustful." - this is also pointless. I would almost say that it's not even a sentence with a clear meaning. “Sexual fantasies that are not lustful” are never defined. What are they? Is it when you are fantasizing about getting your wife pregnant? : ) Let's try to be real. From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: "Lust = a strong sexual desire". What's abnormal about that?
From one specific perspective, the author comes across as preaching for everyone except for himself: that’s when he talks about adulthood as “letting go of your dreams of fame and success” . All good, until you realize that HE achieved exactly that - fame and success as a popular author, which is a dream that MANY adults, including many priests, have to put away in the closet forever while they go about their daily boring job. So ... the message comes across weakened by that. “Do as I say, not as I do”, a bit like Bernie Sanders when he wants millionaires to pay more taxes, but when he’s asked why he, as a millionaire, doesn’t give the example by paying more taxes, he shouts “I’m already paying all the taxes I need to pay!!”.
And then we come to my biggest gripe: the "water purifier" concept (aka "If you want to be an adult, act like a sponge").
Ohhh, this is a bad one....
"In terms of moving toward deeper maturity, of moving from goodness to greatness, this invitation to become the sponge that absorbs tension inside of family, church, and community is perhaps the premier one. Indeed, it is the criterion for adult discipleship."
A couple of problems with this (number 2 the most important):
1) the author goes on to mention, later in the book, at least another 2 or 3 crucial criteria for adult discipleship, like "giving thanks" and "forgiving", each one "the most important" of all, which weakens this point and makes one think the book wasn’t properly edited;
2) despite addressing the danger of only "taking it all in" and never giving back the negative tension to people (which can literally kill you with cancer or heart problems), Rolheiser provides a guidance on "how to do this" that is, again, extremely vague: for example, according to him, you need to distinguish between situations where you receive "regular negative tension" and situations of actual "abuse", and I guess you need to distinguish that by yourself. Good luck with that interpretative effort. Second, you need to find a "healthy release" to the tension away from the person who gives it to you. Unsurprisingly, Rolheiser never gives practical examples of these healthy releases.
Most importantly, Rolheiser writes without ever acknowledging that different people have VERY, VERY different personalities and different levels of how much they can take in before it's too much for their nervous system. People have different physical or biological strength, and with that I mean also mental strength, but to be clear, I'm talking about the strength that you are born with. People are born with very different nervous strength and physical capacity as well. The stronger you are born, the more generous with your natural energy you can be.
To encourage someone who wasn't born with a strong nervous system (or even someone who is borderline mentally ill, which most of us today are) to become a "water purifier" of all the hatred and negativity around him/her is contrary to ANYTHING that any good psychiatrist or mental health professional would tell you.
Take, for example, a man or a woman who has troubles asserting herself in various relationships. Would she be more “mature” as a Christian because she is taking all the negativity inside of her without ever pushing back? Hell no, that would not be maturity. That would be immature passivity. That would be someone who needs to grow up. To this woman, you should say “don’t let them push you around like that. Push back yourself.”. Of course, she should try to push back with a serene demeanor, and perhaps that is what Rolheiser means with "not giving back in kind", to remain calm when someone is showering you with anger or anxiety, but even that is not something that you should encourage EVERYONE to do, and the book doesn’t provide any clarity on this point. It stops at “don’t give back in kind”, which is, again, not useful.
The less specific you are when you write and give advice, the less useful. Always.
On the other hand, to a man who is naturally and arrogantly spreading his tension around without any problem or remorse, then of course you should say “You need to take in that energy and not constantly give it back in kind.” Although, in my experience, people with that type of personality and God-given energy never listen or learn anything, unless something really atrocious happens to them.
In any case — my point is, I wish the author had talked about the different roles that everyone can and should play in their community, based on their different personalities, instead of generalizing the “be the water purifier” condition. It does not work to determine adulthood for everyone. Some differentiation and more practical examples here would have helped.
That "water purification" process reminds me of the big black guy in the movie "The green mile". No wonder he was a giant in the story: it takes a non-existent superhuman strength to do that. Pushing people to adopt that superhuman behavior without any caveat about personal differences is almost irresponsible.
I just don’t think Rolheiser does enough in this book to push against the deeply wrong stereotype that a mature Christian is someone who just needs to take it, and take it, and take it, without ever pushing back. I think he should have spent at least a few words about the importance of saying "no", because it sounds like, for him, a mature christian should only say “yes”. That’s shallow and horribly incorrect.
The reality of this world is that the people who "do good" get exploited, and the people who think about their own good and intimidate others get to the top. For many people, saying "no" is much more difficult and important than being a water purifier. This would have been a deeper psychological approach. Missed opportunity.
Many people can be very mature even without acting like a remissive sponge. Jesus offering the other cheek had nothing to do with being remissive - and yet, every time I hear that part of the Gospel, almost no one qualifies it the way it should be, which is subtle and has to do with the meaning of purity and impurity (and left and right hands) in the ancient Jewish world. To take the message of Christ as "if they hit you, just offer to be hit again" (I'm not saying this is what Rolheiser is doing here) is not only deeply wrong, it's also something that Jesus would have found stupid.
Finally, a comment on 2 gospel passages that are quoted in the book:
1) The Syrophoenician woman: " Deeper maturity will bring with it the tension of stretched loyalties. Jesus, in his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, offers us a model of how to properly carry that tension .". Really? Does he really? By first totally ignoring her plea and then by calling her a dog? I've studied this gospel passage in depth, and I'm aware that Jesus preached for the Jewish people, and not for anyone else. This woman was a "nobody" to him. A "dog". It seems to me like the only thing that’s being stretched here is the meaning of the story narrated in the gospel, especially in the following part of the chapter, where Rolheiser draws a parallel from this gospel passage to an example where a woman from a different congregation shows up and asks a priest to be baptized even if she hasn't participated to any of the preparation courses. In the example, the priest cannot help the woman, but then the woman wins over the priest by leveraging the universality of Catholicism. This example has very little to do with the episode of the Syrophoenician woman, who, in the gospel, is called a "dog" by Jesus because his message lacked the universality that it took later on, and who wins over Jesus not by quoting the universality of the Christian message or even by showing a special "faith", like it's often repeated by priests, but simply by insisting and by giving a very clever reply.
The Jewish tradition LOVES people with a silver tongue. The woman was quick - good for her, because that impressed Jesus. That’s what I’m taking away from that passage.
2) Martha. " Like Martha in scripture, it is easy to feel resentment because we SEEM to be doing all the work while others are getting more of a free ride." Back up, back up, back up. First of all, Martha does not SEEM to be doing all the work: she IS doing all the work, while Mary is doing nothing and sitting with Jesus. Many commentators focus on the fact that for a woman it was unheard of to be sitting next to the rabbi, and that's the point of the story, and that's important, sure, but also does not explain the deep injustice of Martha being chastised for doing all the work for her guests (by her own guest).
Also: " One of the demons we wrestle with during our adult years is the resentment of Martha, that is, a joylessness bordering on anger for, ironically, being burdened with the privilege of health, work, and status ". In other words, Rolheiser is saying: "Martha should have shut up and felt grateful that she had work to do, instead of complaining about Mary not helping her."
And this makes NO sense to me. The gospel story is not describing two women who are arguing about who is doing more work and who is doing less work: they are arguing because one of them is doing ALL the work, while the other one is enjoying herself, listening to this famous rabbi. This is the DEFINITION of injustice, despite any conceptual somersaults that the author, like many others, tries to do here. Please go on and challenge me on this. I still haven't found one single convincing argument.
This is a gospel passage that works only at the allegorical level, not at a practical level. This is why some early fathers of the Church felt compelled to write “It means you should behave like Martha, but with Mary’s spirit”. That makes sense.
My impression in a sentence: overall, I found it way too superficial, especially from the theological standpoint. Too much cloudiness, blurredness and vagueness if I compare it to my favorite spiritual authors (mainly: Ratzinger, Barron and Cardinal Ravasi).
In part one, Rolheiser centers on the first stage of spirituality characterized by emotional swings, restlessness, loneliness, morality, security – the temptations that plague us in our youth. We come to the end of this first stage successfully when we selflessly put others before our own desires and dreams.
In part two, he offers a study of mature discipleship in which we give our lives for others. The struggles at this point are often severe when we become angry and frustrated at our own weaknesses. The author states that desire for maturity does not come without a struggle—a struggle that is fraught with our lingering inclinations to be willful, self-centered and bitter. Ok...
Rolheiser’s talks about Mary praying and pondering the many events in her life from the annunciation to the crucifixion leads her to a higher level of spirituality, where bitterness and pain are transformed into love and forgiveness.
The chapter dedicated to the transformative power of prayer is probably my favorite. The author defines prayer as our attempt to reach God, to express our love for Him and to receive His love. Recognizing that sometimes prayer does not seem to be working, he advises persistence: focus on God, not on ourselves, and in the end we will arrive “at an ever deepening intimacy with our God.” He concludes that prayer gives us “the strength we need to be virtuous.” In the end, prayer helps us to give our lives for others.
Rolheiser writes in a very fluid style, almost as if he was talking instead of writing - including MANY repetitions and, unfortunately, a lot of elusive paragraphs.
It's great that he challenges the reader to step up as a Christian, to not go back to usual cycles or habits but to direct one’s life towards a constant development and growth. This made me think of a quote that I read somewhere (not in this book): "The only person I want to be superior to is myself yesterday". Great.
But there are also passages that didn't resonate with me - mainly because of their lack of precision or even, honestly, their lack of a specific point. The author writes in a very poetic style, but I found that most of the book stops at a rather generic, abstract level. You can never bite into anything.
Examples:
"Jesus does not just ask us to give in charity to the poor, he also asks us to work at correcting all the social, political and economic structures that disadvantage the poor and help keep them poor. Justice seeks to correct the structures that help create that poverty." - Ok, BUT, everyone today has a different opinion about exactly HOW to achieve this, and Rolheiser does not say anything about the "how", which is the most important part, so the whole paragraph feels useless to me.
This made me think of the book “Toxic charity”, that warns about the huge danger of doing social justice work that fails or backfires because it’s not sustainable or for other reasons.
Very easy to "think" and speak and write about social justice, but extremely complicated to put it in action in a truly effective and sustainable way.
"Purity of heart does not mean that we will not have any sexual fantasies. It means that those fantasies will not be lustful." - this is also pointless. I would almost say that it's not even a sentence with a clear meaning. “Sexual fantasies that are not lustful” are never defined. What are they? Is it when you are fantasizing about getting your wife pregnant? : ) Let's try to be real. From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: "Lust = a strong sexual desire". What's abnormal about that?
From one specific perspective, the author comes across as preaching for everyone except for himself: that’s when he talks about adulthood as “letting go of your dreams of fame and success” . All good, until you realize that HE achieved exactly that - fame and success as a popular author, which is a dream that MANY adults, including many priests, have to put away in the closet forever while they go about their daily boring job. So ... the message comes across weakened by that. “Do as I say, not as I do”, a bit like Bernie Sanders when he wants millionaires to pay more taxes, but when he’s asked why he, as a millionaire, doesn’t give the example by paying more taxes, he shouts “I’m already paying all the taxes I need to pay!!”.
And then we come to my biggest gripe: the "water purifier" concept (aka "If you want to be an adult, act like a sponge").
Ohhh, this is a bad one....
"In terms of moving toward deeper maturity, of moving from goodness to greatness, this invitation to become the sponge that absorbs tension inside of family, church, and community is perhaps the premier one. Indeed, it is the criterion for adult discipleship."
A couple of problems with this (number 2 the most important):
1) the author goes on to mention, later in the book, at least another 2 or 3 crucial criteria for adult discipleship, like "giving thanks" and "forgiving", each one "the most important" of all, which weakens this point and makes one think the book wasn’t properly edited;
2) despite addressing the danger of only "taking it all in" and never giving back the negative tension to people (which can literally kill you with cancer or heart problems), Rolheiser provides a guidance on "how to do this" that is, again, extremely vague: for example, according to him, you need to distinguish between situations where you receive "regular negative tension" and situations of actual "abuse", and I guess you need to distinguish that by yourself. Good luck with that interpretative effort. Second, you need to find a "healthy release" to the tension away from the person who gives it to you. Unsurprisingly, Rolheiser never gives practical examples of these healthy releases.
Most importantly, Rolheiser writes without ever acknowledging that different people have VERY, VERY different personalities and different levels of how much they can take in before it's too much for their nervous system. People have different physical or biological strength, and with that I mean also mental strength, but to be clear, I'm talking about the strength that you are born with. People are born with very different nervous strength and physical capacity as well. The stronger you are born, the more generous with your natural energy you can be.
To encourage someone who wasn't born with a strong nervous system (or even someone who is borderline mentally ill, which most of us today are) to become a "water purifier" of all the hatred and negativity around him/her is contrary to ANYTHING that any good psychiatrist or mental health professional would tell you.
Take, for example, a man or a woman who has troubles asserting herself in various relationships. Would she be more “mature” as a Christian because she is taking all the negativity inside of her without ever pushing back? Hell no, that would not be maturity. That would be immature passivity. That would be someone who needs to grow up. To this woman, you should say “don’t let them push you around like that. Push back yourself.”. Of course, she should try to push back with a serene demeanor, and perhaps that is what Rolheiser means with "not giving back in kind", to remain calm when someone is showering you with anger or anxiety, but even that is not something that you should encourage EVERYONE to do, and the book doesn’t provide any clarity on this point. It stops at “don’t give back in kind”, which is, again, not useful.
The less specific you are when you write and give advice, the less useful. Always.
On the other hand, to a man who is naturally and arrogantly spreading his tension around without any problem or remorse, then of course you should say “You need to take in that energy and not constantly give it back in kind.” Although, in my experience, people with that type of personality and God-given energy never listen or learn anything, unless something really atrocious happens to them.
In any case — my point is, I wish the author had talked about the different roles that everyone can and should play in their community, based on their different personalities, instead of generalizing the “be the water purifier” condition. It does not work to determine adulthood for everyone. Some differentiation and more practical examples here would have helped.
That "water purification" process reminds me of the big black guy in the movie "The green mile". No wonder he was a giant in the story: it takes a non-existent superhuman strength to do that. Pushing people to adopt that superhuman behavior without any caveat about personal differences is almost irresponsible.
I just don’t think Rolheiser does enough in this book to push against the deeply wrong stereotype that a mature Christian is someone who just needs to take it, and take it, and take it, without ever pushing back. I think he should have spent at least a few words about the importance of saying "no", because it sounds like, for him, a mature christian should only say “yes”. That’s shallow and horribly incorrect.
The reality of this world is that the people who "do good" get exploited, and the people who think about their own good and intimidate others get to the top. For many people, saying "no" is much more difficult and important than being a water purifier. This would have been a deeper psychological approach. Missed opportunity.
Many people can be very mature even without acting like a remissive sponge. Jesus offering the other cheek had nothing to do with being remissive - and yet, every time I hear that part of the Gospel, almost no one qualifies it the way it should be, which is subtle and has to do with the meaning of purity and impurity (and left and right hands) in the ancient Jewish world. To take the message of Christ as "if they hit you, just offer to be hit again" (I'm not saying this is what Rolheiser is doing here) is not only deeply wrong, it's also something that Jesus would have found stupid.
Finally, a comment on 2 gospel passages that are quoted in the book:
1) The Syrophoenician woman: " Deeper maturity will bring with it the tension of stretched loyalties. Jesus, in his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, offers us a model of how to properly carry that tension .". Really? Does he really? By first totally ignoring her plea and then by calling her a dog? I've studied this gospel passage in depth, and I'm aware that Jesus preached for the Jewish people, and not for anyone else. This woman was a "nobody" to him. A "dog". It seems to me like the only thing that’s being stretched here is the meaning of the story narrated in the gospel, especially in the following part of the chapter, where Rolheiser draws a parallel from this gospel passage to an example where a woman from a different congregation shows up and asks a priest to be baptized even if she hasn't participated to any of the preparation courses. In the example, the priest cannot help the woman, but then the woman wins over the priest by leveraging the universality of Catholicism. This example has very little to do with the episode of the Syrophoenician woman, who, in the gospel, is called a "dog" by Jesus because his message lacked the universality that it took later on, and who wins over Jesus not by quoting the universality of the Christian message or even by showing a special "faith", like it's often repeated by priests, but simply by insisting and by giving a very clever reply.
The Jewish tradition LOVES people with a silver tongue. The woman was quick - good for her, because that impressed Jesus. That’s what I’m taking away from that passage.
2) Martha. " Like Martha in scripture, it is easy to feel resentment because we SEEM to be doing all the work while others are getting more of a free ride." Back up, back up, back up. First of all, Martha does not SEEM to be doing all the work: she IS doing all the work, while Mary is doing nothing and sitting with Jesus. Many commentators focus on the fact that for a woman it was unheard of to be sitting next to the rabbi, and that's the point of the story, and that's important, sure, but also does not explain the deep injustice of Martha being chastised for doing all the work for her guests (by her own guest).
Also: " One of the demons we wrestle with during our adult years is the resentment of Martha, that is, a joylessness bordering on anger for, ironically, being burdened with the privilege of health, work, and status ". In other words, Rolheiser is saying: "Martha should have shut up and felt grateful that she had work to do, instead of complaining about Mary not helping her."
And this makes NO sense to me. The gospel story is not describing two women who are arguing about who is doing more work and who is doing less work: they are arguing because one of them is doing ALL the work, while the other one is enjoying herself, listening to this famous rabbi. This is the DEFINITION of injustice, despite any conceptual somersaults that the author, like many others, tries to do here. Please go on and challenge me on this. I still haven't found one single convincing argument.
This is a gospel passage that works only at the allegorical level, not at a practical level. This is why some early fathers of the Church felt compelled to write “It means you should behave like Martha, but with Mary’s spirit”. That makes sense.
April 9, 2014
Everything that Ronald Rolheiser writes is filled with meaning, wisdom, and grace. I'm almost always challenged to take a new step of faith after reading one of his works. This is technically a followup to his classic work "A Holy Longing", but one could read this work without reading that one first--but both are simply awe-inspiring. The humility of the writer, combined with deep soul-searching about what constitutes Christian maturity in discipleship, is never harsh or demanding, but speaks softly and with clarity that marks the truth of the words on the page. My favorite quote, which is so timely in a world filled with ugly culture wars and mud-slinging: ""We are mature when we define ourselves by what we are for rather than by what we are against. The capacity to praise more than to criticize defines maturity. The crowning glory of maturity and discipleship, as we saw, is the capacity and willingness to bless others." Get your HANDS on it.
October 27, 2015
I'd give this six stars if I could - perhaps the best book I've ever read about what it means to live a good life as a middle-aged person; it has already changed my perspective and approach to daily love. It is a Christian book, but I imagine would be helpful to many who don't claim to be people of faith.
April 2, 2024
An absolutely fantastic book on spirituality. The emphasis is on Catholic spirituality, but it is applicable to most of Christianity.
The journey that the author takes us on is one exemplified by common situations. They are also ones that most people can easily relate to in their lives.
A really good book that I completely enjoyed!
The journey that the author takes us on is one exemplified by common situations. They are also ones that most people can easily relate to in their lives.
A really good book that I completely enjoyed!
August 5, 2017
Christian spiritual writer, Fr Ron Rolheiser, OMI, is seeking to cover the span of life in three main works. 'The Holy Longing' looked at how we began the Christian journey and the themes that we are initiated into when embracing a Christian lifestyle. In this book, 'Sacred Fire', Rolheiser looks at how we mature on the way. It is about giving our life away in service of family, Church, work and world. It looks at prayer, at witness, at celebration and loss, at ageing. In a final section, it looks towards another book he is writing about giving our death away. Those familiar with Rolheiser's style of personal anecdotes, stories, poems, quotes and exercises seasoned throughout the text, will feel home. An enriching read for anyone seeking to explore how the Christian life is a life we give away.
September 27, 2017
I gained a lot from The Holy Longing, and while Rolheiser and I don't land in the same theological tribe, there is so much to gain from his writing and experience. This book is worth the read in particular if you're over 40 (which I barely am, but the content is towards the latter part of life). Chapter 7 on blessing others was challenging in a way that brings life!
August 7, 2019
This book is about purposely having a life of meaning. From a standpoint of writing and examples, this book does not deserve five stars. But, if one considers the importance of the subject matter and the no holds barred discussion, five stars is justified in my opinion. The author provides excellent source material for those who want to consider the subject more deeply.
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August 27, 2020What I really needed from this book was in the last section: Giving Our Deaths Away. As I watch and participate in my mother’s decline, this chapter offered me much to reflect on regarding the process of accepting without bitterness the necessary passivity as our bodies decline, and seeing this stage as God’s good design which can be a lasting gift to our friends, family, community.
February 11, 2025
I bought this book because it was supposed to be a magisterial, almost definitive guide to the mature Christian life, particularly from the thirties to the sixties. It lives up to that billing. I should read it again sometime soon.
April 21, 2023
Lots of beauty in here. Mature discipleship is about giving our lives away. It’s about breaking the pleasure principle as the basic source of motivation in our lives, so that our motivation for acting is more for the good of others than for ourselves…
March 29, 2020
Though I found the first half much more instructive than the second, there was a sense of, “Yes! That’s exactly how I feel!” Learning to give your life away during the second and longest portion of life comes with embracing the mundane routines, letting go of what your life is not, and looking outward.
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December 21, 2015Rolheiser has written one of the wiser commentaries that I've read on what it means to be a Christian. At the heart of his commentary is a passage in the middle of the book which tells the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus who fail to recognize Christ. It is not because of a lack of faith, but a lack of imagination. He sees Christ as potentially present in anyone's life, but it's difficult to recognize him because of our narrowness of vision. To make Christ meaningful involves an effort of the imagination. If we overcome the obstacles that stand in our way, then God, Christ, and an ensuring church enter our lives in a deeper way.
The author discusses four qualities of a Christian. He or she is a person who practices private prayer and private integrity, is committed to personal charity and public justice, is committed to public worship, and believes that these can be done with a "mellow and forgiving heart."
Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks facing a g a Christian, especially in the second half of life, is acquiring the ability to forgive. As the author puts it, "in the end, it is our greatest psychological, moral, and religious struggles. It is not easy to forgive." People reach adulthood with all kinds of grievances, and in both small and large ways have "been treated unjustly, violated, hurt, ignored, not properly honored, and unfairly cast aside. We all carry wounds, and with these wounds, we all carry anger, bitterness, and some unforgiveness."
I think Rolheiser is most insightful in mediating on the meaning of death.. Jesus Christ, the paradigm of Christianity, had an existence made up of both what he did and said in his life, and how he died, and the focus of his followers is often on his life. Equally important is his death. In a sense Christ made a gift of his death, but it is so entangled with what he did with his life, that it's hard to see it for what it was. The question for the author is how individuals might live so their deaths are "gifts" to their families, and to the world. What we leave behind is either anger, regret, and bitterness, or forgiveness, the same choices that Christ made in the garden of Gethsemane.
The strange thing about death is that the essence of the dying person is only grasped on their demise. Their presence is finally understood in a much deeper way than when they were alive. But to enter into death, that "dark night of the spirit" and realize what is happening is not easy. "We are alone, mostly without preparation, without mentors, and without communal support." No wonder that most people put off the thought of death until it is thrust upon them. and in our society, obsessed with living, the journey into death is especially difficult. Rolheiser stresses, though, that there is much examination of what this dark journey means in the tradition of the great Christian mystic writers, beginning with the desert monks such as Evagrius and continuing with John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila, as well as the wisdom found in Buddhist and Hindu teachings.
The author's conclusion is that in some form the Christian rites of Ascension and Pentecost occur after every good death. "Ascension", originally referring to Christ's departure from earth, relates to the individual's death, and "Pentecost", originally the infusion of the Holy Spirit on Christ's despondent, followers, relates to the spirit and memory that the individual leaves on those left behind. If it is a good and nurturing one, lacking bitterness and regret, it will be, imaginatively, biblical blood and water - that is to say, a force that is alive and cleansing.
The author discusses four qualities of a Christian. He or she is a person who practices private prayer and private integrity, is committed to personal charity and public justice, is committed to public worship, and believes that these can be done with a "mellow and forgiving heart."
Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks facing a g a Christian, especially in the second half of life, is acquiring the ability to forgive. As the author puts it, "in the end, it is our greatest psychological, moral, and religious struggles. It is not easy to forgive." People reach adulthood with all kinds of grievances, and in both small and large ways have "been treated unjustly, violated, hurt, ignored, not properly honored, and unfairly cast aside. We all carry wounds, and with these wounds, we all carry anger, bitterness, and some unforgiveness."
I think Rolheiser is most insightful in mediating on the meaning of death.. Jesus Christ, the paradigm of Christianity, had an existence made up of both what he did and said in his life, and how he died, and the focus of his followers is often on his life. Equally important is his death. In a sense Christ made a gift of his death, but it is so entangled with what he did with his life, that it's hard to see it for what it was. The question for the author is how individuals might live so their deaths are "gifts" to their families, and to the world. What we leave behind is either anger, regret, and bitterness, or forgiveness, the same choices that Christ made in the garden of Gethsemane.
The strange thing about death is that the essence of the dying person is only grasped on their demise. Their presence is finally understood in a much deeper way than when they were alive. But to enter into death, that "dark night of the spirit" and realize what is happening is not easy. "We are alone, mostly without preparation, without mentors, and without communal support." No wonder that most people put off the thought of death until it is thrust upon them. and in our society, obsessed with living, the journey into death is especially difficult. Rolheiser stresses, though, that there is much examination of what this dark journey means in the tradition of the great Christian mystic writers, beginning with the desert monks such as Evagrius and continuing with John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila, as well as the wisdom found in Buddhist and Hindu teachings.
The author's conclusion is that in some form the Christian rites of Ascension and Pentecost occur after every good death. "Ascension", originally referring to Christ's departure from earth, relates to the individual's death, and "Pentecost", originally the infusion of the Holy Spirit on Christ's despondent, followers, relates to the spirit and memory that the individual leaves on those left behind. If it is a good and nurturing one, lacking bitterness and regret, it will be, imaginatively, biblical blood and water - that is to say, a force that is alive and cleansing.
February 1, 2015
Christian writer Ronald Ronheiser, in his new book Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity, makes the point that spirituality and discipleship have stages and seasons and, accordingly, different challenges and tasks. (The developmentalist in me stood up and cheered! Seriously, I could not stop underlining this book.) He explains:
The first phase, essential discipleship, is the struggle to get our lives together.*
The second phase, mature discipleship, is the struggle to give our lives away.
In the first phase we struggle largely with external things, physical appetites, and our place in the world--who to be. In the second phase the struggle is more internal as we figure out how to be (and specifically how to focus away from ourselves and be generous--a la Erickson's stage of generativity). To illustrate his point he uses the parable of the prodigal son in a really interesting way:
"Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment (Thou shalt not commit adultery) and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth commandment (Thou shalt not kill). That may be a simplification but it is a fertile image. Indeed the famous parable of the prodigal son and his older brother can serve as a paradigm for this: the prodigal son, illustrating the first half of life, is very much caught up in the fiery energies of youth and is, metaphorically, struggling with the devil; the older brother, illustrating the second half of life, struggling instead with resentment, anger, and jealousy, is metaphorically and in reality, wrestling with God" (page 6).
In my church (as with life, actually), there are a parade of milestones that happen in the first 20-30 years of your life--covenants and rites of passage that serve as religious training wheels and give a sense of spiritual momentum. After that flurry, I have found the next phase to be a different kind of challenging in the quest to sustain progression in what seems like a developmentally stagnant time.
Sacred Fire gave me a lot to think about, reframed some old assumptions, and generally reinvigorated my thinking about Christian spiritual progression.
---
*Rolheiser's earlier book, The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality addresses this first phase
The first phase, essential discipleship, is the struggle to get our lives together.*
The second phase, mature discipleship, is the struggle to give our lives away.
In the first phase we struggle largely with external things, physical appetites, and our place in the world--who to be. In the second phase the struggle is more internal as we figure out how to be (and specifically how to focus away from ourselves and be generous--a la Erickson's stage of generativity). To illustrate his point he uses the parable of the prodigal son in a really interesting way:
"Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment (Thou shalt not commit adultery) and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth commandment (Thou shalt not kill). That may be a simplification but it is a fertile image. Indeed the famous parable of the prodigal son and his older brother can serve as a paradigm for this: the prodigal son, illustrating the first half of life, is very much caught up in the fiery energies of youth and is, metaphorically, struggling with the devil; the older brother, illustrating the second half of life, struggling instead with resentment, anger, and jealousy, is metaphorically and in reality, wrestling with God" (page 6).
In my church (as with life, actually), there are a parade of milestones that happen in the first 20-30 years of your life--covenants and rites of passage that serve as religious training wheels and give a sense of spiritual momentum. After that flurry, I have found the next phase to be a different kind of challenging in the quest to sustain progression in what seems like a developmentally stagnant time.
Sacred Fire gave me a lot to think about, reframed some old assumptions, and generally reinvigorated my thinking about Christian spiritual progression.
---
*Rolheiser's earlier book, The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality addresses this first phase
September 28, 2014
Ronald Rolheiser may be the wisest man who has ever lived. Or not...but he has a lot of great things to say.
In Sacred Fire, Rolheiser continues the thoughts he began to develop in Holy Fire and promises to bring to a conclusion in the third volume in his work.
Sacred Fire deals mainly with the 'middle years' of spiritual development. He talks about our need to give way our lives and prepare to give away our deaths.
Whereas the earlier book was pro-scriptive in it's scope, this book is more descriptive in its orientation. He talks about the big picture, the things that people will and do struggle with rather than giving 'spiritual practices' that we can easily examine our lives with.
The only weakness about this book is that he spends a great deal of time telling us what he's already told us in the first book and explaining what he is going to tell us in the third book. After a while, we want to know about the subject he promised to deal with. He does this, but I think if you compare this book to the Two Towers you will see the obvious weakness in being the middle part of a trilogy.
Not to say that you can't learn a great deal from this book and you will.
I highly recommend this book to pastors and to all interested in the spiritual life.
Grade: B+
April 18, 2014
How can I give my life away more purely, and more meaningfully? How do I live beyond my own heartaches, headaches, and obsessions so as to help make other peoples' lives more meaningful? These are some of the questions that Ronal Rolheiser attempts to answer in his new book Sacred Fire. You may know Ronald Rolheiser from his book The Holy Longing, which was written as a foundational book - a Spirituality 101 course. Or possibly you know him from his column in the Catholic Herald or one of his other books. Or maybe you don't know him at all. Either way, you should read this book!
Sacred Fire is the follow on book to The Holy Longing. Where The Holy Longing answered the basic questions, Sacred Fire goes a little deeper. He follows the concepts of St John of the Cross and tries to apply them to regular folks (instead of to priests).
This is a thought provoking, meditational book. I really enjoyed it and find that it has helped me a lot. I am sure I'll be referring back to it quite often.
I'm so excited to have an extra copy to give away! Not only do I have a copy of Sacred Fire to give but I also have a copy of The Holy Longing!! If you'd like to enter the drawing, visit my blog and leave a comment.
http://melosbookshelf.blogspot.com
Sacred Fire is the follow on book to The Holy Longing. Where The Holy Longing answered the basic questions, Sacred Fire goes a little deeper. He follows the concepts of St John of the Cross and tries to apply them to regular folks (instead of to priests).
This is a thought provoking, meditational book. I really enjoyed it and find that it has helped me a lot. I am sure I'll be referring back to it quite often.
I'm so excited to have an extra copy to give away! Not only do I have a copy of Sacred Fire to give but I also have a copy of The Holy Longing!! If you'd like to enter the drawing, visit my blog and leave a comment.
http://melosbookshelf.blogspot.com
December 23, 2022
Such a magnificent book and one that I needed to read, especially since I've recently approached midlife. Rolheiser writes about what it looks like to move beyond what he calls Essential Discipleship (the struggle to get our lives together) and move towards Mature Discipleship (the struggle to gives our lives away) and eventually to Radical Discipleship (the struggle to give our deaths away). He's helping to call us further up and further in, to move from activity to contemplation, from doing to being, and ultimately to a deeper, richer intimacy with God.
Rolheiser presented several helpful ideas that will continue to stick with me. He calls us to ponder (transforming and purifying tension/sin) instead of being amazed (mindlessly letting the energy of the crowd flow through). He points out that the lack of silence and solitude in our lives is turning us into people who are "not very deep: not bad, just busy; not immoral, just distracted", and how prayer is the antidote to our restlessness. And finally, he talks about how the mark of maturity is blessing others, delighting in them, giving away some of our lives that others might have more life.
I long to enter into this way of life and am thankful for books like this that stir up that longing.
Rolheiser presented several helpful ideas that will continue to stick with me. He calls us to ponder (transforming and purifying tension/sin) instead of being amazed (mindlessly letting the energy of the crowd flow through). He points out that the lack of silence and solitude in our lives is turning us into people who are "not very deep: not bad, just busy; not immoral, just distracted", and how prayer is the antidote to our restlessness. And finally, he talks about how the mark of maturity is blessing others, delighting in them, giving away some of our lives that others might have more life.
I long to enter into this way of life and am thankful for books like this that stir up that longing.
January 27, 2016
I really wanted to like this book, but in the end, I couldn't stand it. The way Rolheiser puts together arguments (particularly in his treatment of language, history, and authorial intent) simply isn't compatible with the kind of thinking that I respect. A few of the more practical chapters have some interesting insights to think about, but on the whole, I can't really recommend the book. The worst part, I found, was that Rolheiser's entire approach to spiritual formation seems to run along the lines of "Buckle down and try harder, because your spiritual transformation is up to you!" I do not take this to be representative of the gospel or to leave much room for the working of the Holy Spirit, and I certainly do not find it encouraging.
March 13, 2023
there is so much that i could say about this book. the author breaks down Christian discipleship into three stages: the struggle to get our lives together, the struggle to give our lives away, and the struggle to give our deaths away. in this book, he mostly focuses on the middle stage and since that is where i find myself in my journey now, SO much resonated with me. (i’m also curious to read his book on the first stage because his summary in the first couple of chapters was super interesting).
ultimately, he describes growing in maturity in our faith as the ability to give our lives away. he accurately describes the boredom that can set in during the maturity years, when relationship with God no longer seems new and exciting and passionate.
i was really compelled by the author’s compassion toward humanity and our unfortunate capacity to sin and do evil. he carefully humanizes those we might easily distance ourselves from because of their sin, reminding us that we are always a few decisions away from doing evil ourselves.
there are a few areas where i think he might take a bit too much liberty with what scripture is saying, but i’m also not convinced all of those are necessarily wrong. i would however caution someone who is still working out the foundation of their faith in God.
another personal preference- i didn’t love the organization of the book, it’s basically a very large outline that didn’t always make sense to me.
overall, i was really challenged by much of what he shared here, and i’m inspired by his call to live with the intention to bless others and bless the world (instead of the opposite- cursing others and the world by the way we live).
ultimately, he describes growing in maturity in our faith as the ability to give our lives away. he accurately describes the boredom that can set in during the maturity years, when relationship with God no longer seems new and exciting and passionate.
i was really compelled by the author’s compassion toward humanity and our unfortunate capacity to sin and do evil. he carefully humanizes those we might easily distance ourselves from because of their sin, reminding us that we are always a few decisions away from doing evil ourselves.
there are a few areas where i think he might take a bit too much liberty with what scripture is saying, but i’m also not convinced all of those are necessarily wrong. i would however caution someone who is still working out the foundation of their faith in God.
another personal preference- i didn’t love the organization of the book, it’s basically a very large outline that didn’t always make sense to me.
overall, i was really challenged by much of what he shared here, and i’m inspired by his call to live with the intention to bless others and bless the world (instead of the opposite- cursing others and the world by the way we live).
April 26, 2024
This is a book I will return to and need to mine for its depth and challenge. I would give it 5 stars but at times I found myself slogging through portion’s that felt unnecessarily verbose or vague.
I think that portions of this book will hit people differently, depending where they are on their journey (age, life with God, suffering, etc.)
The substance of the book is summed up in his Ten Commandments for Mature Living:
1. Live in gratitude and thank your Creator by enjoying your life.
2. Be willing to carry more and more of life’s complexities with empathy.
3. Transform jealousy, anger, bitterness, and hatred rather than give them back in kind.
4. Let suffering soften your heart rather than harden your soul.
5. Forgive—those who hurt you, your own sins, the unfairness of your life, and God for not rescuing you.
6. Bless more and curse less!
7. Live in more radical sobriety.
8. Pray, affectively and liturgically.
9. Be wide in your embrace.
10. Stand where you are supposed to be standing, and let God provide the rest.
I think that portions of this book will hit people differently, depending where they are on their journey (age, life with God, suffering, etc.)
The substance of the book is summed up in his Ten Commandments for Mature Living:
1. Live in gratitude and thank your Creator by enjoying your life.
2. Be willing to carry more and more of life’s complexities with empathy.
3. Transform jealousy, anger, bitterness, and hatred rather than give them back in kind.
4. Let suffering soften your heart rather than harden your soul.
5. Forgive—those who hurt you, your own sins, the unfairness of your life, and God for not rescuing you.
6. Bless more and curse less!
7. Live in more radical sobriety.
8. Pray, affectively and liturgically.
9. Be wide in your embrace.
10. Stand where you are supposed to be standing, and let God provide the rest.
July 28, 2019
Wow, what a powerful and challenging book on growing in spiritual maturity in the second stage of life. I was looking for something that would explore and push me deeper into what it means to follow Jesus well in this season and it didn’t disappoint. Rolheiser has a way of getting the scalpel right down into the crevices of the human heart to ensure that nothing is left there to rot, but does so with such grace, hope and understanding that it is inspiring rather than intimidating. Apart from one or two chapters where a different theological perspective meant I needed to adjust the application of the principle a little, I found the content to be highly relevant and the writing style accessible. This is a work I will return to and highly recommend it to those in middle age. What a joy to have a book that deals particularly with the challenges of radical discipleship for this life stage! 4.5 stars
Read
March 10, 2020I don't know how to comment on this. I read it over too long of a period. There were quotes and ideas that were helpful, but a lot that I just did not get. One of the problems of books on the Christian life is that they can be either trite or unintelligible. This one was recommended by several in my spiritual direction class as helpful. I found it mostly unintelligible. Not unreadable, but I just wasn't really sure what it was doing too often. I probably would get more from it if I read it again more quickly a second time. But it is also intended to be a more advanced book to one of his earlier books. So maybe I should read that earlier books first and then come back to this.
The problem is that I have way too many books. And I never know when a book is worth spending more time on to understand better and when the book is just not for me and I should move on to something else.
The problem is that I have way too many books. And I never know when a book is worth spending more time on to understand better and when the book is just not for me and I should move on to something else.
Read
October 5, 2025Recommended by James Martin S.J. This seems to be a book for the long haul of adulthood--job/career, raising a family. I am 77, retired, looking forward to his next book, Insane for the Light , which comes out this month, regarding old age.
April 20, 2021
I usually find christian books BORING but this was a real slow burn giving me much to think about. I find his style endearing if a little opaque from time to time. The last chapter was odd.
At the end I thought if many parts to go back to read so that's a good sign for me.
At the end I thought if many parts to go back to read so that's a good sign for me.
June 16, 2023
Ronald Rolheiser writes beautifully about the three stages of life, and how to do them well and with deeper discipleship. The book is worth it even just for the third section, which describes radically and maturely giving your death away so it is a blessing to others.
April 2, 2024
The kind of book I’m going to re-read several times.
November 10, 2024
If you’ve been following Jesus a long time and you feel like you are in need of some guidance for this middle part of your faith journey, this is the book for you. I finished it and immediately wanted to reread it, it was that refreshing for my soul.
November 2, 2023
In the reading I’ve done to date on the Christian life, Catholic authors have me hooked on the way they view and articulate the spiritual life.
December 18, 2024
This one took me a little while to get into it. It wasn’t until 100 pages in that I really felt invested. The points about prayer, dry seasons, our faith walk, and commitment are what I really needed to hear. These are things I’ve been wrestling with lately and this book game me some really good assurance and encouragement that I’m walking the right path.
- I’ve never thought about there being spiritual differences between stages of life.
- I liked where he talked about the importance of a private relationship with Jesus, as Jesus often talked about. I feel this is something I struggle with. I feel like the modern day church pushes too much structure on a personal relationship with Jesus to the point to where if you follow these “rules”, the relationship does not feel personal at all. My personal relationships are different with each person, but it often feels like in the attempt to provide feedback and guidance, the church pushes formality, structure and rigidity on my personal relationship with Jesus
- “The disciples walking towards emmaus are deeply discouraged their faith once firm has been shattered, but they are walking with Jesus and yet are unable to recognize him. the situation of today’s Christians in our secularized culture is basically the same. We are walking on the road to Emmaus discouraged, and our youthful faith crucified talking with Christ, but unable to recognize him. as adult Christians today we often find ourselves living in the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday when the God we were raised on has been crucified, but a sense of the resurrection is not yet sufficiently illumined our imagination so that we can recognize the God who is walking beside us. In our journey of discipleship, we will, a number of times, have to undergo a certain dynamic of crucifixion and resurrection in our faith: our vision of faith and hope will be crucified and humiliated. God Christ in the church as we understand them will die in our experience. In discouragement that sues, we will be tempted to walk away from our faith, our church, our hope, our Christ in our God toward someplace of consolation. But somewhere on that road as we walk toward consolation, Christ will appear in a new guys, and we will appear unable initially to recognize him. Eventually, however, that encounter will restructure our imagination in our faith, we will recognize Christ and I knew in much deeper way, and that recognition will turn us away from the place of consolation, Emmaus and send us back to our dream of faith in our church Jerusalem. This is an experience that we will all undergo at various times during our adult lives: for all of us there will come times when everything that is precious to us religiously will get crucified, and we will find ourselves, discouraged, shattered, religiously, and tempted to walk towards someplace of consolation. God, Christ, and church will still be very much alive in our lives, but we will not be able to recognize them because our eyes and hearts have been trained to see God, Christ, and church only in the way that they were integrated into our lives before the crisis beset us. But as the Mystic say, this is not a crisis of faith, but a crisis of the imagination, a particular dark night of the soul within which we have to sort through a death of what is precious to us religiously, so as to receive God, Christ, and church and into our lives in a new and deeper way. Deeper maturity and more faithful discipleship Are found on the road to Emmaus, when discouraged, in darkness, and tempted, we let our imaginations be structured by deeper vision of what God, Christ, and church mean.”
- “ one of the major trials within mature discipleship is that a Fidelity, of remaining steadfast, and loving with our commitments over the long haul, after our initial emotional further has weighed, and some disillusionment has set in. The challenge then will be to act out of value rather than out of feeling and to act out of trust rather than out of understanding.”
- After Jesus says we just eat his body and drink his blood, the disciples are appalled and Jesus asks if they want to walk away. Peter essentially says:” yes I would like to walk away! Except that I know better! What I have just heard,I don’t get - and what I get, I don’t like! Except I know, deep down, that I am better off, not getting it with you than getting it some other place!” “ anyone who has ever been in a commitment for a long time, be in a marriage, and a religious vocation, or some service to the community, knows that there are days and seasons when your commitment looks like death and you’d like to walk away. Except, except, you are smart enough to know that, long range, this commitment is bringing you life”
- I love this following message as it’s something I’ve been wrestling with: The boredom and dryness of prayer and my relationship with God. “ if we pray only occasionally, we might well experience some pretty deep emotions in our prayer. However, if we pray, faithfully every day, year in and in out, we can expect a little excitement, lots of boredom, and regular temptations to look at the clock during prayer; but we can also expect through the years and ever deepening intimacy with our God. Prayer is like eating, and, as we know from experience, you do not always want a banquet. Eating has a natural rhythm: banquets and quick snacks, rich meals, and simple sandwiches, high times with linen and Servet and low times with paper, napkins, meals that take whole evening and meals that you eat on the run. And to depend upon each other: you can have a high season only if you have most ordinary of times. Healthy, eating habits, respect our natural rhythms: our time, energy, tiredness, the season, the hour, our boredom, our taste. Prayer needs to be sustained by regular routine. Refuse to be seduced by any spirituality that does not tell you that, because you’re tiredness will soon enough for your refusal. Prayer cannot always be high celebration, upbeat, with high energy, with constant variety, and with a naïve belief that longer is better than shorter. Time and tiredness must, save on particular occasions, be a consideration. Do not punish yourself for glancing at your watch or falling asleep during prayer. The solution to our struggle, boredom, and lack of energy in prayers, rarely more variety and imagination. Too many people already lack the energy to pray and want to avoid church services. The rhythm of monastic prayer can be our paradigm here. Monks know that if you pray regularly boredom and lack of energy will soon begin to wear you down. The answer that is not much new prayer forms and more variety, but rhythm routine And clearly established ritual. For monks, the key to sustaining a daily life is the expected, the familiar, repetitious, the ritual, the defined prayer form that gives you, as well as it clearly define durational expectancy and does not demand you an energy that you cannot master on a given day. We think that good intentions and energy will sustain our rituals of prayer, but they cannot. Rather, our rituals of prayer consist our goodwill and our energy. We show our Fidelity to God, not in our feelings, but in our commitments.”
- I’ve never thought about there being spiritual differences between stages of life.
- I liked where he talked about the importance of a private relationship with Jesus, as Jesus often talked about. I feel this is something I struggle with. I feel like the modern day church pushes too much structure on a personal relationship with Jesus to the point to where if you follow these “rules”, the relationship does not feel personal at all. My personal relationships are different with each person, but it often feels like in the attempt to provide feedback and guidance, the church pushes formality, structure and rigidity on my personal relationship with Jesus
- “The disciples walking towards emmaus are deeply discouraged their faith once firm has been shattered, but they are walking with Jesus and yet are unable to recognize him. the situation of today’s Christians in our secularized culture is basically the same. We are walking on the road to Emmaus discouraged, and our youthful faith crucified talking with Christ, but unable to recognize him. as adult Christians today we often find ourselves living in the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday when the God we were raised on has been crucified, but a sense of the resurrection is not yet sufficiently illumined our imagination so that we can recognize the God who is walking beside us. In our journey of discipleship, we will, a number of times, have to undergo a certain dynamic of crucifixion and resurrection in our faith: our vision of faith and hope will be crucified and humiliated. God Christ in the church as we understand them will die in our experience. In discouragement that sues, we will be tempted to walk away from our faith, our church, our hope, our Christ in our God toward someplace of consolation. But somewhere on that road as we walk toward consolation, Christ will appear in a new guys, and we will appear unable initially to recognize him. Eventually, however, that encounter will restructure our imagination in our faith, we will recognize Christ and I knew in much deeper way, and that recognition will turn us away from the place of consolation, Emmaus and send us back to our dream of faith in our church Jerusalem. This is an experience that we will all undergo at various times during our adult lives: for all of us there will come times when everything that is precious to us religiously will get crucified, and we will find ourselves, discouraged, shattered, religiously, and tempted to walk towards someplace of consolation. God, Christ, and church will still be very much alive in our lives, but we will not be able to recognize them because our eyes and hearts have been trained to see God, Christ, and church only in the way that they were integrated into our lives before the crisis beset us. But as the Mystic say, this is not a crisis of faith, but a crisis of the imagination, a particular dark night of the soul within which we have to sort through a death of what is precious to us religiously, so as to receive God, Christ, and church and into our lives in a new and deeper way. Deeper maturity and more faithful discipleship Are found on the road to Emmaus, when discouraged, in darkness, and tempted, we let our imaginations be structured by deeper vision of what God, Christ, and church mean.”
- “ one of the major trials within mature discipleship is that a Fidelity, of remaining steadfast, and loving with our commitments over the long haul, after our initial emotional further has weighed, and some disillusionment has set in. The challenge then will be to act out of value rather than out of feeling and to act out of trust rather than out of understanding.”
- After Jesus says we just eat his body and drink his blood, the disciples are appalled and Jesus asks if they want to walk away. Peter essentially says:” yes I would like to walk away! Except that I know better! What I have just heard,I don’t get - and what I get, I don’t like! Except I know, deep down, that I am better off, not getting it with you than getting it some other place!” “ anyone who has ever been in a commitment for a long time, be in a marriage, and a religious vocation, or some service to the community, knows that there are days and seasons when your commitment looks like death and you’d like to walk away. Except, except, you are smart enough to know that, long range, this commitment is bringing you life”
- I love this following message as it’s something I’ve been wrestling with: The boredom and dryness of prayer and my relationship with God. “ if we pray only occasionally, we might well experience some pretty deep emotions in our prayer. However, if we pray, faithfully every day, year in and in out, we can expect a little excitement, lots of boredom, and regular temptations to look at the clock during prayer; but we can also expect through the years and ever deepening intimacy with our God. Prayer is like eating, and, as we know from experience, you do not always want a banquet. Eating has a natural rhythm: banquets and quick snacks, rich meals, and simple sandwiches, high times with linen and Servet and low times with paper, napkins, meals that take whole evening and meals that you eat on the run. And to depend upon each other: you can have a high season only if you have most ordinary of times. Healthy, eating habits, respect our natural rhythms: our time, energy, tiredness, the season, the hour, our boredom, our taste. Prayer needs to be sustained by regular routine. Refuse to be seduced by any spirituality that does not tell you that, because you’re tiredness will soon enough for your refusal. Prayer cannot always be high celebration, upbeat, with high energy, with constant variety, and with a naïve belief that longer is better than shorter. Time and tiredness must, save on particular occasions, be a consideration. Do not punish yourself for glancing at your watch or falling asleep during prayer. The solution to our struggle, boredom, and lack of energy in prayers, rarely more variety and imagination. Too many people already lack the energy to pray and want to avoid church services. The rhythm of monastic prayer can be our paradigm here. Monks know that if you pray regularly boredom and lack of energy will soon begin to wear you down. The answer that is not much new prayer forms and more variety, but rhythm routine And clearly established ritual. For monks, the key to sustaining a daily life is the expected, the familiar, repetitious, the ritual, the defined prayer form that gives you, as well as it clearly define durational expectancy and does not demand you an energy that you cannot master on a given day. We think that good intentions and energy will sustain our rituals of prayer, but they cannot. Rather, our rituals of prayer consist our goodwill and our energy. We show our Fidelity to God, not in our feelings, but in our commitments.”
June 25, 2019
This is the follow-up to Rolheiser's book, The Holy Longing. If the first book could be considered Spirituality 101, this one is the graduate level course. It took me longer to read and I wasn't underlining as much but I still found the book helpful. Some of the concepts introduced in Holy Longing are revisited in Sacred Fire but with more depth. Both books should be read by anybody who is interested in developing his/her spiritual life but it would be important to read them in the proper order.
The spiritual life is like the natural life in that maturity consists in a deepening knowledge about things. In our youth, when everything is new, our discoveries are exciting. When we become more mature, new discoveries are rarer and the depth of knowledge and experience are not as exciting but, in the long run, are more important as we grow into adulthood. Ultimately, our life is supposed to be a blessing to others. This book sets us on the journey. The author promises us a third book that will deal with the final stages of life as we make our deaths a gift that crowns our lives.
The spiritual life is like the natural life in that maturity consists in a deepening knowledge about things. In our youth, when everything is new, our discoveries are exciting. When we become more mature, new discoveries are rarer and the depth of knowledge and experience are not as exciting but, in the long run, are more important as we grow into adulthood. Ultimately, our life is supposed to be a blessing to others. This book sets us on the journey. The author promises us a third book that will deal with the final stages of life as we make our deaths a gift that crowns our lives.
November 25, 2018
This book is a follow-up to Fr. Rolheiser's The Holy Longing. Those who found the first book rewarding - as I did - will no doubt be equally challenged and enriched by this book. I took a long time to read it, as each section demanded time for reflection and self-examination. Fr. Rolheiser's vision of "giving your death away" - based on John of the Cross's "dark night of the spirit" - is one of the most challenging things I've read by a contemporary spiritual author.
Time engaging this book will be time well spent.
Time engaging this book will be time well spent.
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