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The Fire Within: Desire, Sexuality, Longing, and God
For most religious people, the words God and sex never go together. God is conceived of as holy, pure, sexless, and as morally above the raw desires that so powerfully beset us. Sex, on the other hand, is conceived of as earthy and unholy, something we must snatch, and not without guilt, from the gods. Christianity has struggled mightily with sex; so too have most other religions. And yet when we look at sexual desire and ask where it comes from, there can be only one answer. It comes from God. This is a book on desire, its experience, its origins, its meaning, and how it might be generatively channeled. Sexuality is inside us to help lure us back to God, but dealing with this fire inside us is a lifelong struggle. Ron Rolheiser sheds light on this mystery and the journey it takes us on in these tantalizing fragments that help give us permission to feel what we feel and know that God is still smiling on us.
84 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 17, 2021
28 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 29, 2025
Intriguing, philosophical, yet also relatable and practical collection of essays on the topic of desire, sexuality, what it means to be human, longing and bareness. Maybe I don't agree with everything, or rather don't understand everything the way the author might have wanted me to, but I still enjoyed it and found quite a few jewl quotes and paragraphs to ponder on further
September 23, 2021
Summary: A collection of short meditations on human, and particularly sexual desire, contending these come from God and are meant to draw us to God.
With adolescence, we awaken to desire. Much of that is sexual desire and longing for intimacy. About the last thing most of us think of is any connection between our longings and our sexuality and God. Most of us just don’t think of God and sex going together.
Ronald Rohlheiser, speaks candidly of these longings, including his own experience of these as a young man in the novitiate. During a spiritual conference, a speaker spoke of how they must be “jumping out of their skins” and that this was how they should be feeling and it was healthy. As he studied more deeply, he discovered that far from these desires being distant from God, they came from God. He writes in the preface of this work:
“Sexuality is inside us to help lure us back to God, bring us into a community of life with each other, and let us take part in God’s generativity. If that is true, and it is, then given its origin and meaning, its earthiness notwithstanding, sex does not set us against what is holy and pure. It is a Godly energy” (p. xi).
Rohlheiser offers a series of twenty-two reflections expanding on this idea, each about four pages in length. The reflections are divided into two parts. The first focuses on desire and our complex humanity; the second on how we deal humanly and spiritually with desire.
He begins with how longing is at the center of our experience, that this space is a space for God. Instead of using guilt and shame to deal with raw desire, he proposes we help youth see this as God’s creative energy incarnate in our bodies. Our energies are not sinful or evil; only the misuse of them. He compares virgin youth to Jephthah, mourning her virginity. Too often, we demand satisfaction rather than learning to live in the ache of mourning. We are complex in our desires and need to honor and hallow this, learn through it, and live under God’s patience and understanding. Rohlheiser warns of the danger of grandiosity, a type of self-absorption in which desire is turned in on self in pride instead of drawing us to God. Given our complexity and longings never fully to be realized in this life, married or single, we may understand our lives as “unfinished symphonies.’
One of our challenges in dealing with our desires is how easily distracted we are. God’s invitation is to greater mindfulness and attentiveness. Sex is sacramental, filled with spiritual significance. So is everyday life, and we need to have our world re-enchanted. Other essays deal with barrenness, anger, and waiting. Perhaps one of the most illumining are his reflections on re-imagining chastity. He extends this beyond sexuality. The basic idea of chastity is to not force things but to honor their character and rhythms. He uses the example of metamorphosis, which, if rushed, results in a malformed moth or butterfly. Purity is not a matter, first of all of sexual self-control, but of intention, acting in ways that do not manipulate or use others, but align our actions with our commitments. Ultimately, the invitation is into a greatness of soul that can rejoice in the prodigal who returns rather than exacting payback, aware of the mercies we all have received.
It is a good thing these reflections are short because they are filled with insight. These are worth reading one at a time. More important is that they build on a doctrine of our creation as man and woman in the image of God. Our gender and sexuality and desires were created before the fall. Evil doesn’t create anything. It only distorts. Rohlheiser helps us move beyond shame and guilt about our desires to thanksgiving and celebration. From that, it is only a short step from realizing our desires are from God and for God, to wondering how they might be rightly expressed. Chastity and purity are matters of honor and intent rather than restrictive rules or patriarchal control.
One of the challenges facing the church is the articulation of a redemptive vision of sexuality. There is a beautiful story that has been lost in all the rules, the purity culture, the shaming, and the abuses and scandals. Rohlheiser recovers that beauty with both candor and insight. I wish I’d had this book when I was a much younger man, but his insights into our desires and our complexity, and the mystery and wonder of God’s purposes in it all continue to rejoice this heart.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
With adolescence, we awaken to desire. Much of that is sexual desire and longing for intimacy. About the last thing most of us think of is any connection between our longings and our sexuality and God. Most of us just don’t think of God and sex going together.
Ronald Rohlheiser, speaks candidly of these longings, including his own experience of these as a young man in the novitiate. During a spiritual conference, a speaker spoke of how they must be “jumping out of their skins” and that this was how they should be feeling and it was healthy. As he studied more deeply, he discovered that far from these desires being distant from God, they came from God. He writes in the preface of this work:
“Sexuality is inside us to help lure us back to God, bring us into a community of life with each other, and let us take part in God’s generativity. If that is true, and it is, then given its origin and meaning, its earthiness notwithstanding, sex does not set us against what is holy and pure. It is a Godly energy” (p. xi).
Rohlheiser offers a series of twenty-two reflections expanding on this idea, each about four pages in length. The reflections are divided into two parts. The first focuses on desire and our complex humanity; the second on how we deal humanly and spiritually with desire.
He begins with how longing is at the center of our experience, that this space is a space for God. Instead of using guilt and shame to deal with raw desire, he proposes we help youth see this as God’s creative energy incarnate in our bodies. Our energies are not sinful or evil; only the misuse of them. He compares virgin youth to Jephthah, mourning her virginity. Too often, we demand satisfaction rather than learning to live in the ache of mourning. We are complex in our desires and need to honor and hallow this, learn through it, and live under God’s patience and understanding. Rohlheiser warns of the danger of grandiosity, a type of self-absorption in which desire is turned in on self in pride instead of drawing us to God. Given our complexity and longings never fully to be realized in this life, married or single, we may understand our lives as “unfinished symphonies.’
One of our challenges in dealing with our desires is how easily distracted we are. God’s invitation is to greater mindfulness and attentiveness. Sex is sacramental, filled with spiritual significance. So is everyday life, and we need to have our world re-enchanted. Other essays deal with barrenness, anger, and waiting. Perhaps one of the most illumining are his reflections on re-imagining chastity. He extends this beyond sexuality. The basic idea of chastity is to not force things but to honor their character and rhythms. He uses the example of metamorphosis, which, if rushed, results in a malformed moth or butterfly. Purity is not a matter, first of all of sexual self-control, but of intention, acting in ways that do not manipulate or use others, but align our actions with our commitments. Ultimately, the invitation is into a greatness of soul that can rejoice in the prodigal who returns rather than exacting payback, aware of the mercies we all have received.
It is a good thing these reflections are short because they are filled with insight. These are worth reading one at a time. More important is that they build on a doctrine of our creation as man and woman in the image of God. Our gender and sexuality and desires were created before the fall. Evil doesn’t create anything. It only distorts. Rohlheiser helps us move beyond shame and guilt about our desires to thanksgiving and celebration. From that, it is only a short step from realizing our desires are from God and for God, to wondering how they might be rightly expressed. Chastity and purity are matters of honor and intent rather than restrictive rules or patriarchal control.
One of the challenges facing the church is the articulation of a redemptive vision of sexuality. There is a beautiful story that has been lost in all the rules, the purity culture, the shaming, and the abuses and scandals. Rohlheiser recovers that beauty with both candor and insight. I wish I’d had this book when I was a much younger man, but his insights into our desires and our complexity, and the mystery and wonder of God’s purposes in it all continue to rejoice this heart.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
January 7, 2026
“We are built for the infinite, but what we meet in life is always the finite. We ache to achieve the perfect, in love and in art, but what we achieve is always limited and blemished. We ache for the eternal but we are frustrated in time”
“Desire, restlessness, and sexuality constitute a formidable trinity.”
“Each of us is a bundle of untamed eros, of wild desire, of longing, of restlessness, of loneliness, of dissatisfaction, of sexuality, and of insatiability”
“sex does not set us against what is holy and pure. It is a Godly energy”
“love and sin as two kinds of fire, with both saint and sinner feeding off the same divine energy but feeling that fire very differently.”
“this is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved”
“To be a human being is to be fundamentally dis-eased.”
“by never letting us rest with anything less than the infinite and eternal, it guarantees that we will seek God or be frustrated.”
“to direct us toward our final purpose, the experience of longing has another central task in the soul. Metaphorically, it is the heat that forges the soul. The pain of longing is a fire that shapes us inside. How? What does the pain of longing do to the soul? What is the value in living in a certain perpetual frustration? What is gained by carrying tension?”
“All great literature takes its root precisely in this: how carrying tension shapes a soul.”
“Longing shapes the soul in many ways, particularly by helping create the space within us where God can be born”
“where unions that cannot take place at lower temperatures will often take place at higher ones, longing and yearning open us to unions that otherwise would not happen, particularly in terms of our relationship to God and the things of heaven”
“taking that raw desire and linking its energy to the center”
“The youth is driven to seek an outer experience that will match that inner heat”
“We must honor that energy in them but connect it to the heart of life”
“All energy comes from God and all energy is good, but it can be wickedly misused”
“where do sin and evil enter? They enter in when we misuse the good energy that God has given us, and they enter in when we relate in bad ways to the good things of creation”
“Sin and evil, therefore, arise out of the misuse of our energies, not out of the energies themselves”
“They’re good people, irresponsibly and selfishly misusing sacred energy”
“The wise and wicked both feed off the same sacred fire.7”
“In the end, we all die, as did Jephthah’s daughter, as virgins, our lives incomplete, our deepest dreams and deepest yearnings largely frustrated, still looking for intimacy, unconsciously bewailing our virginity”
“In this life there is no completeness. We are built for the infinite”
“Any balanced, truly life-giving spirituality must take this into account and challenge people to understand, integrate, and live out that fact”
“Honor and hallow your complexity”
“roam freely inside your heart and mind. But don’t massage your complexity”
“Befriend your shadow. It’s the luminosity you’ve split off.”
“Hallow the power and place of sexuality within you. You’re incurably sexual, and for a godly reason. Never deny or denigrate the power of sexuality”
“Name your wounds, grieve them, mourn your inconsummation”
“Never let the “transcendental impulse” inside you become drugged or imprisoned”
“All miracles begin with falling in love”
“God is your builder, the architect who constructed you and who is responsible for your complexity. Trust that God understands”
“What most wounds the image and likeness of God inside us?”
“the greatest human pain is the pain of inadequate self-expression”
“On the surface, of course he’s not; his desire seems purely self-centered and the antithesis of holy longing. But, parsed out to its deepest root, his desire is ultimately a longing for divine intimacy”
“He’s longing for God at the very depth of his soul and at the very depth of his motivation, except he isn’t aware of this”
“dying is making love with God, the consummation after a lifetime of flirtations, encounters, meetings in the dark, and constant yearning, longing, and sense of loneliness that does make one insane for the light”
“dying, not necessarily as the body’s disintegration and demise, but rather as the entire transition that I was born destined to make”
“we demand too much from life. We demand the finished symphony.”
“We enter this world with mind and heart built for the infinite, with tortured complexity, and with deep insatiable congenital longings. We ache for a great love, to embrace the whole world and everyone in it”
“God is always speaking to us, but normally we aren’t aware, aren’t listening. Accordingly, pain is God’s microphone to a deaf world”
“God must be akin to a loving parent or grandparent, looking at his or her children at the family gathering, happy that they have interesting lives that so absorb them, content not to be always the center of their conscious attention.”
“for married persons the marriage bed is their daily Eucharist. Sex as a sacrament. Sex as Eucharist.”
“Each Eucharist also has those five possibilities: In that encounter we say to Christ and Christ says to us: “My life is consecrated, displaced, for you.” Through that encounter, as well, we reinforce our identity as Christians, are embraced in a super-reconciliation, announce through word and action that we want to continue in a deep relationship with Christ, and are imbued with and express gratitude.”
“ each act of sexual intercourse is a reminder of (and a celebration of) the fact that they are the most important person in each other’s life”
“You think that your love will sustain your marriage. Well, I give you the opposite advice: let your marriage sustain your love”
“intercourse is one of the most powerful acts through which a couple reinforce each other’s sexual identity, making, as Dominian put it, the woman feel fully feminine and the man fully masculine.”
“act of reconciliation, healing, and forgiveness”
“the most powerful way a couple has of telling each other that they wish to continue in this consecrated relationship”
“thanksgiving”
“gratitude”
“Barrenness describes the universal human condition in its incapacity to be generative in the way it would like and the vacuum and frustration this leaves inside lives”
“They release me into a childlike place where I need to be held and find comfort in embrace—in the arms of others and in the arms of God”
“Tears are a consent to what is”
“everything is matter for sacrament”
“ Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, the food we eat is sacramental, and in our work and in sexual embrace we are co-creators with God”
“Most of our eating isn’t sacramental because we don’t connect the food we eat to its sacred origins”
“solitude is the experience of being taken, against our own choosing, where we would rather not go.”
“a conspiracy of circumstances, more accurately called divine providence, that puts a rope around us and leads us where we would rather not go”
“Good anger does not let hurt blind one to what was good in the past so as to allow a revisionist distortion of the truth. Honest anger is real anger; it feels and points out what is wrong, but it doesn’t, on that account, lie about what is and what was good. It lets the good remain good.”
“Honest anger never sees itself as an end, a substitute for the lost love”
“its every energy seeks for the road beyond, the way out, reconciliation, an embrace that heals the fracture.”
“What animated Jesus also animates everything else, except that nothing else is as perfectly responsive to it as Jesus was.”
“to have God, personally and gently, pronounce her name”
“a fully pregnant moment,” namely, a moment when we can say to ourselves: “Right now, I don’t want to be any other place, with any other persons, doing anything else, than what I am doing right now!””
“our lives precisely “either a variant of, or a substitute for, waiting” and an activity that does not have full relevance on its own”
“describes here is a violation of chastity. Properly understood, chastity is precisely a question of having the patience to bear the tension of the interminable slowness of things. To be chaste is to not prematurely force things”
“chastity is proper reverence and respect. To be chaste is to stand before reality, everything and everybody, and fully respect the proper contours and rhythm of things”
“To be chaste then means to let things unfold as they should.”
“to not violate someone else’s beauty and sexuality”
“To be chaste is to let gift be gift”
“yearning is meant precisely for sublimation, in the sense of making things sublime, of orientating what aches in us toward great love”
“Premature experience has precisely the effect of clipping our wings in that it drains us of great enthusiasm and great expectations.”
“ Only sublimation, tension, and waiting (the proper definition of patience) allow for the sublime”
“To wait in tension, in incompleteness, in longing, in frustration, in inconsummation, and in helplessness in the face of the interminable slowness of things”
“I’ve given you all, but it’s hard, Lord. It’s hard to give one’s body, it would like to give itself to others. It’s hard to love everyone and claim no one. It’s hard to shake a hand and not want to retain it. It’s hard to inspire affection, only to give it to you. It’s hard to be nothing to oneself in order to be everything to others. It’s hard to be like others, among others, but to be other. It’s hard always to give without trying to receive. It’s hard to seek out others and be, oneself, unsought…. 13”
“our lack of purity is, I believe, one of the deep causes of sadness in our lives”
“intention. We need a certain purity and chastity of intention or we will always manipulate others in everything”
“We are pure when our hearts don’t greedily or prematurely grab what isn’t theirs”
“blind to what we’re doing to others as we struggle to create meaning, pleasure, and power for ourselves”
“the fierce, restless, and sometimes obsessive desires and jealousies we feel there”
“be so addicted to the pursuit of experience and sophistication that we sacrifice even our happiness on that altar”
“Impurity can bring a certain richness of experience, a certain sophistication, and a certain pleasure. Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, not closed, after their sin,”
“it also brings a certain sadness, a cynicism, a split inside of ourselves, and a lack of self-worth into our lives.”
“the word “repent” is often misunderstood. It seems to imply that we have already done something wrong, regret it, and now commit ourselves to live in a new way. Repentance, understood in this way, means to live beyond a sinful past”
“to turn around, to face in an entirely new direction” to take your attention from the idol and reorient it to god
“metanoia means to move beyond our present mindset, beyond our present way of seeing things”
“what Jesus is doing in these miracles is attaching the eyes, ears, and tongue to the great soul so that what a person is now seeing, hearing, and speaking is not bitterness, hurt, and pettiness but rather compassion, gratitude, and praise.”
“To repent is let the great soul, the image and likeness of God, reign within us so that, like Merton on the corner of Fourth and Walnut, we are so overwhelmed with compassion that indeed we do turn and face in a completely new direction.”
“a protest for the soul” mental illness as
“Religion, medicine, and psychology, he believes, are not hearing the soul’s cry. They’re forever trying to fix the soul, cure the soul, or save the soul, rather than listening to the soul, which wants and needs neither to be fixed nor saved.”
“its insatiability, its dissatisfactions, and its protests. A soul isn’t explained, it’s experienced, and soul experience always comes soaked in depth, in longing, in eros, in limit”
“Soullessness: We understand the make-up of something best when we see it broken”
“Against suffocating clerics, he asserted the freedom of the human mind; then, against narrow atheism, he turned around and asserted the central importance of the question of God’s existence”
“who can bear their solitude”
“who can stand solitary”
“speak and minister out of that lonely place”
“persons who confuse truth with personal anger”
“To bear one’s solitude at a high level is to exalt the freedom of the human spirit”
“sleeping alone in that area where you would most need intimacy, and praying from that desert that Jesus frequented, “the lonely place.”
“Desire, restlessness, and sexuality constitute a formidable trinity.”
“Each of us is a bundle of untamed eros, of wild desire, of longing, of restlessness, of loneliness, of dissatisfaction, of sexuality, and of insatiability”
“sex does not set us against what is holy and pure. It is a Godly energy”
“love and sin as two kinds of fire, with both saint and sinner feeding off the same divine energy but feeling that fire very differently.”
“this is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved”
“To be a human being is to be fundamentally dis-eased.”
“by never letting us rest with anything less than the infinite and eternal, it guarantees that we will seek God or be frustrated.”
“to direct us toward our final purpose, the experience of longing has another central task in the soul. Metaphorically, it is the heat that forges the soul. The pain of longing is a fire that shapes us inside. How? What does the pain of longing do to the soul? What is the value in living in a certain perpetual frustration? What is gained by carrying tension?”
“All great literature takes its root precisely in this: how carrying tension shapes a soul.”
“Longing shapes the soul in many ways, particularly by helping create the space within us where God can be born”
“where unions that cannot take place at lower temperatures will often take place at higher ones, longing and yearning open us to unions that otherwise would not happen, particularly in terms of our relationship to God and the things of heaven”
“taking that raw desire and linking its energy to the center”
“The youth is driven to seek an outer experience that will match that inner heat”
“We must honor that energy in them but connect it to the heart of life”
“All energy comes from God and all energy is good, but it can be wickedly misused”
“where do sin and evil enter? They enter in when we misuse the good energy that God has given us, and they enter in when we relate in bad ways to the good things of creation”
“Sin and evil, therefore, arise out of the misuse of our energies, not out of the energies themselves”
“They’re good people, irresponsibly and selfishly misusing sacred energy”
“The wise and wicked both feed off the same sacred fire.7”
“In the end, we all die, as did Jephthah’s daughter, as virgins, our lives incomplete, our deepest dreams and deepest yearnings largely frustrated, still looking for intimacy, unconsciously bewailing our virginity”
“In this life there is no completeness. We are built for the infinite”
“Any balanced, truly life-giving spirituality must take this into account and challenge people to understand, integrate, and live out that fact”
“Honor and hallow your complexity”
“roam freely inside your heart and mind. But don’t massage your complexity”
“Befriend your shadow. It’s the luminosity you’ve split off.”
“Hallow the power and place of sexuality within you. You’re incurably sexual, and for a godly reason. Never deny or denigrate the power of sexuality”
“Name your wounds, grieve them, mourn your inconsummation”
“Never let the “transcendental impulse” inside you become drugged or imprisoned”
“All miracles begin with falling in love”
“God is your builder, the architect who constructed you and who is responsible for your complexity. Trust that God understands”
“What most wounds the image and likeness of God inside us?”
“the greatest human pain is the pain of inadequate self-expression”
“On the surface, of course he’s not; his desire seems purely self-centered and the antithesis of holy longing. But, parsed out to its deepest root, his desire is ultimately a longing for divine intimacy”
“He’s longing for God at the very depth of his soul and at the very depth of his motivation, except he isn’t aware of this”
“dying is making love with God, the consummation after a lifetime of flirtations, encounters, meetings in the dark, and constant yearning, longing, and sense of loneliness that does make one insane for the light”
“dying, not necessarily as the body’s disintegration and demise, but rather as the entire transition that I was born destined to make”
“we demand too much from life. We demand the finished symphony.”
“We enter this world with mind and heart built for the infinite, with tortured complexity, and with deep insatiable congenital longings. We ache for a great love, to embrace the whole world and everyone in it”
“God is always speaking to us, but normally we aren’t aware, aren’t listening. Accordingly, pain is God’s microphone to a deaf world”
“God must be akin to a loving parent or grandparent, looking at his or her children at the family gathering, happy that they have interesting lives that so absorb them, content not to be always the center of their conscious attention.”
“for married persons the marriage bed is their daily Eucharist. Sex as a sacrament. Sex as Eucharist.”
“Each Eucharist also has those five possibilities: In that encounter we say to Christ and Christ says to us: “My life is consecrated, displaced, for you.” Through that encounter, as well, we reinforce our identity as Christians, are embraced in a super-reconciliation, announce through word and action that we want to continue in a deep relationship with Christ, and are imbued with and express gratitude.”
“ each act of sexual intercourse is a reminder of (and a celebration of) the fact that they are the most important person in each other’s life”
“You think that your love will sustain your marriage. Well, I give you the opposite advice: let your marriage sustain your love”
“intercourse is one of the most powerful acts through which a couple reinforce each other’s sexual identity, making, as Dominian put it, the woman feel fully feminine and the man fully masculine.”
“act of reconciliation, healing, and forgiveness”
“the most powerful way a couple has of telling each other that they wish to continue in this consecrated relationship”
“thanksgiving”
“gratitude”
“Barrenness describes the universal human condition in its incapacity to be generative in the way it would like and the vacuum and frustration this leaves inside lives”
“They release me into a childlike place where I need to be held and find comfort in embrace—in the arms of others and in the arms of God”
“Tears are a consent to what is”
“everything is matter for sacrament”
“ Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, the food we eat is sacramental, and in our work and in sexual embrace we are co-creators with God”
“Most of our eating isn’t sacramental because we don’t connect the food we eat to its sacred origins”
“solitude is the experience of being taken, against our own choosing, where we would rather not go.”
“a conspiracy of circumstances, more accurately called divine providence, that puts a rope around us and leads us where we would rather not go”
“Good anger does not let hurt blind one to what was good in the past so as to allow a revisionist distortion of the truth. Honest anger is real anger; it feels and points out what is wrong, but it doesn’t, on that account, lie about what is and what was good. It lets the good remain good.”
“Honest anger never sees itself as an end, a substitute for the lost love”
“its every energy seeks for the road beyond, the way out, reconciliation, an embrace that heals the fracture.”
“What animated Jesus also animates everything else, except that nothing else is as perfectly responsive to it as Jesus was.”
“to have God, personally and gently, pronounce her name”
“a fully pregnant moment,” namely, a moment when we can say to ourselves: “Right now, I don’t want to be any other place, with any other persons, doing anything else, than what I am doing right now!””
“our lives precisely “either a variant of, or a substitute for, waiting” and an activity that does not have full relevance on its own”
“describes here is a violation of chastity. Properly understood, chastity is precisely a question of having the patience to bear the tension of the interminable slowness of things. To be chaste is to not prematurely force things”
“chastity is proper reverence and respect. To be chaste is to stand before reality, everything and everybody, and fully respect the proper contours and rhythm of things”
“To be chaste then means to let things unfold as they should.”
“to not violate someone else’s beauty and sexuality”
“To be chaste is to let gift be gift”
“yearning is meant precisely for sublimation, in the sense of making things sublime, of orientating what aches in us toward great love”
“Premature experience has precisely the effect of clipping our wings in that it drains us of great enthusiasm and great expectations.”
“ Only sublimation, tension, and waiting (the proper definition of patience) allow for the sublime”
“To wait in tension, in incompleteness, in longing, in frustration, in inconsummation, and in helplessness in the face of the interminable slowness of things”
“I’ve given you all, but it’s hard, Lord. It’s hard to give one’s body, it would like to give itself to others. It’s hard to love everyone and claim no one. It’s hard to shake a hand and not want to retain it. It’s hard to inspire affection, only to give it to you. It’s hard to be nothing to oneself in order to be everything to others. It’s hard to be like others, among others, but to be other. It’s hard always to give without trying to receive. It’s hard to seek out others and be, oneself, unsought…. 13”
“our lack of purity is, I believe, one of the deep causes of sadness in our lives”
“intention. We need a certain purity and chastity of intention or we will always manipulate others in everything”
“We are pure when our hearts don’t greedily or prematurely grab what isn’t theirs”
“blind to what we’re doing to others as we struggle to create meaning, pleasure, and power for ourselves”
“the fierce, restless, and sometimes obsessive desires and jealousies we feel there”
“be so addicted to the pursuit of experience and sophistication that we sacrifice even our happiness on that altar”
“Impurity can bring a certain richness of experience, a certain sophistication, and a certain pleasure. Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, not closed, after their sin,”
“it also brings a certain sadness, a cynicism, a split inside of ourselves, and a lack of self-worth into our lives.”
“the word “repent” is often misunderstood. It seems to imply that we have already done something wrong, regret it, and now commit ourselves to live in a new way. Repentance, understood in this way, means to live beyond a sinful past”
“to turn around, to face in an entirely new direction” to take your attention from the idol and reorient it to god
“metanoia means to move beyond our present mindset, beyond our present way of seeing things”
“what Jesus is doing in these miracles is attaching the eyes, ears, and tongue to the great soul so that what a person is now seeing, hearing, and speaking is not bitterness, hurt, and pettiness but rather compassion, gratitude, and praise.”
“To repent is let the great soul, the image and likeness of God, reign within us so that, like Merton on the corner of Fourth and Walnut, we are so overwhelmed with compassion that indeed we do turn and face in a completely new direction.”
“a protest for the soul” mental illness as
“Religion, medicine, and psychology, he believes, are not hearing the soul’s cry. They’re forever trying to fix the soul, cure the soul, or save the soul, rather than listening to the soul, which wants and needs neither to be fixed nor saved.”
“its insatiability, its dissatisfactions, and its protests. A soul isn’t explained, it’s experienced, and soul experience always comes soaked in depth, in longing, in eros, in limit”
“Soullessness: We understand the make-up of something best when we see it broken”
“Against suffocating clerics, he asserted the freedom of the human mind; then, against narrow atheism, he turned around and asserted the central importance of the question of God’s existence”
“who can bear their solitude”
“who can stand solitary”
“speak and minister out of that lonely place”
“persons who confuse truth with personal anger”
“To bear one’s solitude at a high level is to exalt the freedom of the human spirit”
“sleeping alone in that area where you would most need intimacy, and praying from that desert that Jesus frequented, “the lonely place.”
January 1, 2024
3.5 stars
This is a great read with countless morsels of spiritual insight for pause and reflection. My reasoning for a slightly diminished rating is that the book was not indicated to be a series of mini essays combined to cover the topic, nor do I think the topic of sexuality was particularly well covered. There remains much room for exploration and conversation on that aspect.
This is a great read with countless morsels of spiritual insight for pause and reflection. My reasoning for a slightly diminished rating is that the book was not indicated to be a series of mini essays combined to cover the topic, nor do I think the topic of sexuality was particularly well covered. There remains much room for exploration and conversation on that aspect.
January 19, 2025
Ronald Rolheiser’s The Fire Within is not merely a book; it is a roadmap to understanding the restless longing that resides within every human soul. In this deeply introspective and transformative work, Rolheiser reframes spiritual yearning—not as a flaw to be fixed but as a divine gift, drawing us toward a deeper relationship with God and our true selves. It is a call to embrace the fire within, not extinguish it, and to allow its light to illuminate the path of purposeful and spiritually rich living.
The Gift of Spiritual Restlessness
One of the most striking insights Rolheiser offers is his reframing of our inner dissatisfaction. Often, we view longing as a sign of something missing in our lives, but Rolheiser teaches us that this yearning is a sacred energy. It is our soul’s way of reminding us that we are made for more, for something eternal. This idea has stayed with me as a lens to reinterpret the moments of emptiness I encounter—not as deficits but as opportunities for growth and deeper connection.
Desire as a Force for Holiness
The book delves into the paradox of desire. Rolheiser challenges us to see our desires not as distractions from spirituality but as powerful forces that, when channeled and purified, can lead us to God. This is not about suppressing human wants and needs but rather integrating them into a higher purpose. I found this particularly transformative, as it offered a way to reconcile my earthly desires with my spiritual aspirations, instead of feeling perpetually divided between the two.
The Cross as a Metaphor for Growth
Rolheiser’s use of the cross as a metaphor for spiritual tension resonated deeply. He emphasizes that true growth often comes through pain and discomfort. Just as Christ endured the cross, we, too, are called to remain present in the tensions of life, trusting that something sacred is unfolding even in the struggle. This understanding has given me a new perspective on challenges, urging me to stay present in moments I might otherwise want to escape.
The Vital Role of Community
Another profound takeaway is Rolheiser’s emphasis on community. He reminds us that spirituality is not a solitary endeavour. Our growth is nurtured and sustained by relationships with others—through faith communities, shared vulnerability, and accountability. For someone like me, who can often lean toward introspection, this was a powerful reminder of the relational nature of faith. It pushed me to reflect on how I might contribute to and draw strength from my spiritual communities.
Living with Intentionality and Purpose
Perhaps the most actionable lesson from The Fire Within is the call to align one’s life with a divine mission. Rolheiser urges readers to discover their unique calling and to live intentionally, transforming even mundane tasks into acts of service and love. This idea gave me clarity on how I can better integrate spirituality into my everyday life, not as a separate practice but as a guiding force behind all my actions.
Practical Spiritual Discipline
Rolheiser does not leave his readers with abstract ideas alone; he offers practical guidance. Prayer, meditation, and mindfulness are essential practices for maintaining one’s spiritual fire. For me, this reinforced the importance of consistency in spiritual discipline—not perfection, but small, deliberate steps that reconnect me to God amid the distractions of daily life.
The Healing Power of Reconciliation
The book’s reflections on forgiveness and reconciliation are particularly poignant. Rolheiser highlights how unresolved guilt and resentment can extinguish our inner fire, while forgiveness restores wholeness and peace. This has encouraged me to reflect on areas of my life where forgiveness—both given and received—might create space for spiritual renewal.
A Timeless Guide to Spiritual Growth
The Fire Within is more than a book; it is a spiritual companion for anyone seeking to live with greater intentionality, purpose, and connection to the divine. Rolheiser’s insights are timeless and universal, offering wisdom that can be revisited again and again. What makes this work so profound is its practical applicability—it is not just about understanding spiritual concepts but about living them daily.
In the future, when I return to this review, I will remember to embrace my restlessness as a holy longing, to channel my desires toward divine purposes, and to stay present in the tension of life’s challenges. I will remind myself to seek strength in community, to live with purpose, and to practice reconciliation and discipline as tools for spiritual growth. Most of all, I will remember that the fire within is not something to be quenched, but a sacred force that guides me toward God and the fullness of life.
The Gift of Spiritual Restlessness
One of the most striking insights Rolheiser offers is his reframing of our inner dissatisfaction. Often, we view longing as a sign of something missing in our lives, but Rolheiser teaches us that this yearning is a sacred energy. It is our soul’s way of reminding us that we are made for more, for something eternal. This idea has stayed with me as a lens to reinterpret the moments of emptiness I encounter—not as deficits but as opportunities for growth and deeper connection.
Desire as a Force for Holiness
The book delves into the paradox of desire. Rolheiser challenges us to see our desires not as distractions from spirituality but as powerful forces that, when channeled and purified, can lead us to God. This is not about suppressing human wants and needs but rather integrating them into a higher purpose. I found this particularly transformative, as it offered a way to reconcile my earthly desires with my spiritual aspirations, instead of feeling perpetually divided between the two.
The Cross as a Metaphor for Growth
Rolheiser’s use of the cross as a metaphor for spiritual tension resonated deeply. He emphasizes that true growth often comes through pain and discomfort. Just as Christ endured the cross, we, too, are called to remain present in the tensions of life, trusting that something sacred is unfolding even in the struggle. This understanding has given me a new perspective on challenges, urging me to stay present in moments I might otherwise want to escape.
The Vital Role of Community
Another profound takeaway is Rolheiser’s emphasis on community. He reminds us that spirituality is not a solitary endeavour. Our growth is nurtured and sustained by relationships with others—through faith communities, shared vulnerability, and accountability. For someone like me, who can often lean toward introspection, this was a powerful reminder of the relational nature of faith. It pushed me to reflect on how I might contribute to and draw strength from my spiritual communities.
Living with Intentionality and Purpose
Perhaps the most actionable lesson from The Fire Within is the call to align one’s life with a divine mission. Rolheiser urges readers to discover their unique calling and to live intentionally, transforming even mundane tasks into acts of service and love. This idea gave me clarity on how I can better integrate spirituality into my everyday life, not as a separate practice but as a guiding force behind all my actions.
Practical Spiritual Discipline
Rolheiser does not leave his readers with abstract ideas alone; he offers practical guidance. Prayer, meditation, and mindfulness are essential practices for maintaining one’s spiritual fire. For me, this reinforced the importance of consistency in spiritual discipline—not perfection, but small, deliberate steps that reconnect me to God amid the distractions of daily life.
The Healing Power of Reconciliation
The book’s reflections on forgiveness and reconciliation are particularly poignant. Rolheiser highlights how unresolved guilt and resentment can extinguish our inner fire, while forgiveness restores wholeness and peace. This has encouraged me to reflect on areas of my life where forgiveness—both given and received—might create space for spiritual renewal.
A Timeless Guide to Spiritual Growth
The Fire Within is more than a book; it is a spiritual companion for anyone seeking to live with greater intentionality, purpose, and connection to the divine. Rolheiser’s insights are timeless and universal, offering wisdom that can be revisited again and again. What makes this work so profound is its practical applicability—it is not just about understanding spiritual concepts but about living them daily.
In the future, when I return to this review, I will remember to embrace my restlessness as a holy longing, to channel my desires toward divine purposes, and to stay present in the tension of life’s challenges. I will remind myself to seek strength in community, to live with purpose, and to practice reconciliation and discipline as tools for spiritual growth. Most of all, I will remember that the fire within is not something to be quenched, but a sacred force that guides me toward God and the fullness of life.
December 5, 2025
This is my favorite type of nonfiction book. Short and sweet, full of wisdom without any unnecessary fluff text to meet a page count.
I really loved what he had to say about Jephthat’s daughter and how it relates to us(below).
“In the end, as did Jephthat’s daughter, as virgins are lives, incomplete, our deepest dreams and deepest, yearnings, largely frustrated, still looking for intimacy, unconsciously bewailing our virginity. This is true of married people just as it is true for celibates. Ultimately, we sleep alone. Whatever form this might take each of us must at some point go into the desert in Bow whale our virginity – mourn the fact that we will all die unfulfilled, incomplete. It’s when we failed to do this and because we failed to do it that we go through life being too demanding too angry, too bitter to disappointed and two prone to constantly blame others in life itself for our frustrations. When we failed the more properly, our incomplete lives, then this incompleteness becomes a haunting, depression, and unyielding restlessness, and a bitter center that robs our lives of all delight. It is because we do not mourn our virginity that we demand that someone or something, a marriage partner, a sexual partner and ideal family having children and achievement, a vocational goal or a job take all of our loneliness away. In this life, there is no completeness. We are built for the infinite. Our hearts minds and souls our Grand Canyon without a bottom. Because of that we will, this side of eternity, always be lonely, restless, and complete, still a virgin, living in the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable.”
I really loved what he had to say about Jephthat’s daughter and how it relates to us(below).
“In the end, as did Jephthat’s daughter, as virgins are lives, incomplete, our deepest dreams and deepest, yearnings, largely frustrated, still looking for intimacy, unconsciously bewailing our virginity. This is true of married people just as it is true for celibates. Ultimately, we sleep alone. Whatever form this might take each of us must at some point go into the desert in Bow whale our virginity – mourn the fact that we will all die unfulfilled, incomplete. It’s when we failed to do this and because we failed to do it that we go through life being too demanding too angry, too bitter to disappointed and two prone to constantly blame others in life itself for our frustrations. When we failed the more properly, our incomplete lives, then this incompleteness becomes a haunting, depression, and unyielding restlessness, and a bitter center that robs our lives of all delight. It is because we do not mourn our virginity that we demand that someone or something, a marriage partner, a sexual partner and ideal family having children and achievement, a vocational goal or a job take all of our loneliness away. In this life, there is no completeness. We are built for the infinite. Our hearts minds and souls our Grand Canyon without a bottom. Because of that we will, this side of eternity, always be lonely, restless, and complete, still a virgin, living in the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable.”
March 18, 2021
I heartily recommend this short book.
About twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to teach the course “Introduction to Catholicism” at Iowa State University. As I was looking at how to discuss Catholic thought on sexuality, I remembered the chapter in Ronald Rolheiser’s Holy Longing, and decided to use it. I thought of beginning the class discussion with the Rolling Stone’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” but decided on U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
I don’t remember the class discussions but one student, who entered the seminary and later left and got married, told me that this article helped him make sense of celibacy.
I am trying to write a series of articles on the celibate deacon. It was with great longing that I awaited Fr. Rolheiser’s small book, The Fire Within: Desire, Sexuality, Longing, and God.
The book has 22 chapters, each short enough to inspire a profound meditation, many inspired by his newspaper columns. Most of the chapters are directly related to the relation of the fire of God within us and our sexuality.
My only “complaint” is that the book is too short. I would have liked more on celibacy and chastity, but this is based on my current project on the celibate deacon. But I will have to seek that in some of his other books as well in some of the authors he mentioned.
About twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to teach the course “Introduction to Catholicism” at Iowa State University. As I was looking at how to discuss Catholic thought on sexuality, I remembered the chapter in Ronald Rolheiser’s Holy Longing, and decided to use it. I thought of beginning the class discussion with the Rolling Stone’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” but decided on U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
I don’t remember the class discussions but one student, who entered the seminary and later left and got married, told me that this article helped him make sense of celibacy.
I am trying to write a series of articles on the celibate deacon. It was with great longing that I awaited Fr. Rolheiser’s small book, The Fire Within: Desire, Sexuality, Longing, and God.
The book has 22 chapters, each short enough to inspire a profound meditation, many inspired by his newspaper columns. Most of the chapters are directly related to the relation of the fire of God within us and our sexuality.
My only “complaint” is that the book is too short. I would have liked more on celibacy and chastity, but this is based on my current project on the celibate deacon. But I will have to seek that in some of his other books as well in some of the authors he mentioned.
September 25, 2023
“To be a human being is to be perpetually distracted. We aren’t persons who live in habitual spiritual awareness who occasionally get distracted. We’re persons who live in habitual distraction who occasionally become spiritually aware. We tend be so preoccupied with the ordinary business of living that it takes a hurricane of some sort for God to break through.”
Ronald Rolheiser is a catholic priest and theologian. There’s so much to be learned from his words, that I have to read, think and reread. I’m thankful for his thoughts, and I hope to be able to experience the life with Jesus he points us towards.
“Our restlessness makes sense and God is smiling on it.”
Ronald Rolheiser is a catholic priest and theologian. There’s so much to be learned from his words, that I have to read, think and reread. I’m thankful for his thoughts, and I hope to be able to experience the life with Jesus he points us towards.
“Our restlessness makes sense and God is smiling on it.”
September 30, 2023
Easy 4.9 stars. The only problem with this book is that it's too short and while the chapters do relate I wish Fr. Rolheiser would have added parts to tie the ideas within them more. However, besides that, this is a great read from cover to cover. This book focuses on what it means for us to be made in the imago dei and how that relates to our desire. Personally, I loved how Rolheiser tackled purity and chastity. These subjects often bring many negative connotations because of how they have been explained in the past, but Rolheiser defines them with great beauty and simply complexity. Overall a great short read that everyone should pick up.
August 3, 2022
Another gem from Ronald Rolheiser
I’ve read most of Ronald Rolheiser’s books. This book is another beautiful and sensitive gem, an expression of our total person made in the image and likeness of God. Rolheiser explains how all of our longings come from God who is the source of all energy. God is the author of all yearnings and longings leading us back to God. We all must grieve our unfinished symphonies, our losses, our failures in order to remain open, compassionate and loving and to resist bitterness. I believe anyone could benefit from reading this.
I’ve read most of Ronald Rolheiser’s books. This book is another beautiful and sensitive gem, an expression of our total person made in the image and likeness of God. Rolheiser explains how all of our longings come from God who is the source of all energy. God is the author of all yearnings and longings leading us back to God. We all must grieve our unfinished symphonies, our losses, our failures in order to remain open, compassionate and loving and to resist bitterness. I believe anyone could benefit from reading this.
June 7, 2023
lost in translation
In the Christian tradition this book helps us to relearn much of what we have even wrongly taught! Without throwing the baby out with the bath water.
A very lovely interpretation of the Scriptures which rings true with the ethos of the same. Love is a fire that comes from God but the word Love in the English language falls short to allow us to understand what Jesus is trying to communicate into our minds to renew everything.
In the Christian tradition this book helps us to relearn much of what we have even wrongly taught! Without throwing the baby out with the bath water.
A very lovely interpretation of the Scriptures which rings true with the ethos of the same. Love is a fire that comes from God but the word Love in the English language falls short to allow us to understand what Jesus is trying to communicate into our minds to renew everything.
February 29, 2024
Still thinking about this one... we live an unconsummated existence. Our sexual desire is a mirror of our longing for God. Thomas Merton - the big issue, if we saw one another's souls, is that we would fall down to worship each other because of our beauty. The struggle to overcome the daily monotony. Re-capturing the sacredness of life, the sacrament of the ordinary. Building virtue through patience and tension.
Read
December 11, 2025As I understand it, Fr. Rolheiser wrote a trilogy of books addressed to the young (I guess puberty to 25 or 30), the adult (actively raising a family and/or engaged in a career), and the elderly (The Fire Within, Sacred Fire, and Insane for the Light). I read Sacred Fire first, then Insane for the Light, and just finished The Fire Within, after taking a gamble and sending copies to my grandsons before reading. Now I’m glad I sent it. There was a lot there for me (age 77) too.
December 1, 2024
I expected a thick book with lots of deep theology and possibly some how-tos. Instead, this was a short book containing essays for reflection. Though small, the articles evoked much thought and insight for me. I find that I need to read it again at some future date to revisit and gain more insights.
March 19, 2021
Solid and thought provoking
Ronald Rolheiser explores the topic of desire that he touched upon in "The Holy Longing" and other writings going into more depth. He writes in a way that draws the reader in without academic language and dense theology.
Ronald Rolheiser explores the topic of desire that he touched upon in "The Holy Longing" and other writings going into more depth. He writes in a way that draws the reader in without academic language and dense theology.
October 25, 2021
At peace
There are so many reasons today to be angry. For many of my friends that anger has become depression. And this book is a very good read and very much worth the time. I believe it is sensitive and loving. I encourage everyone to read it.
There are so many reasons today to be angry. For many of my friends that anger has become depression. And this book is a very good read and very much worth the time. I believe it is sensitive and loving. I encourage everyone to read it.
July 1, 2023
A provocative, thoughtful and gentle read. I found it perfect for reading one chapter at night or in the morning as it inspired reflection and greater awareness of the grace of God at work in the darkest parts of the soul.
October 28, 2021
Vintage Rolheiser, full of wisdom and generosity, expanding and normalizing the role of desire in the spiritual life. Highly recommended!
August 14, 2023
A quick read, and easy to understand. Contains some helpful ideas for thinking more holistically about humanity and our desires.
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