Quotes from Fr. Richard Rohr

Authentic Christianity is not so much a belief system as a life-and-death system that shows you how to give away your life, how to give away your love, and eventually how to give away your death. Basically, how to give away—and in doing so, to connect with the world, with all other creatures, and with God.

Incarnation did not just happen two thousand years ago. It has been working throughout the entire arc of time, and will continue. This is expressed in the common phrase the "Second Coming of Christ," which was unfortunately read as a threat ("Wait till your Dad gets home!"), whereas it should more accurately be spoken of as the "Forever Coming of Christ," which is anything but a threat. In fact, it is the ongoing promise of eternal resurrection.

Grace must and will edge you forward. "God has no grandchildren. God only has children," as some have said. Each generation has to make its own discoveries of Spirit for itself.

Contemplation is really the change that changes everything—especially, first of all, the seer.

Just the existence of a single mentally challenged or mentally ill person should make us change any of our theories about the necessity of some kind of correct thinking as the definition of "salvation." Yet we have a history of excluding and torturing people who do not "think" right.

Mary is all of us both receiving and handing on the gift. We liked her precisely because she was one of us—and not God!

Gospel is not a fire insurance policy for the next world, but a life assurance policy for this world.

Mercy unearned undeserved, unnecessary. If it isn't all of those it isn't Mercy. If you think people have to earn it, deserve it, or it is necessary to do it, you have lost the mystery of Mercy and forgiveness

Whatever we are living through, we are in it together. It is not a contest between us. We are good by one another's goodness; we are sinners by one another's sin. In other words, both love and sin are highly contagious.

In the many images of Mary, humans see our own feminine soul. We needed to see ourselves in her, and say with her, "God has looked upon me in my lowliness. From now on, all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:48).

Three steps forward, two steps back.

As Mary Oliver puts it, "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?