Ronald Rolheiser

An award-winning author and theologian presents a study of Christian spirituality, offering an explanation of God and the Church, and provides guidelines on how to apply spirituality within one's own life

The Search for a Christian Spirituality

The Holy Longing

Offers advice for achieving greater spiritual maturity by embracing the struggle of discipleship, looking at the spiritual steps beyond the point where basic insecurities have been addressed and service to others becomes the central issue.

A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity

Sacred Fire

Domestic Monastery

This prequel and companion to "The Holy Longing" is thoroughly re-edited, with an attractive layout and guide for reflection.

Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God

The Shattered Lantern

Prayer: Our Deepest Longing looks at the issues facing people of faith in today’s culture, and offers a way of more effectively dealing with them by seeking out opportunities for prayer. With simple, down-to-earth language, Rolheiser illustrates the importance of prayer and offers techniques on how to pray, using examples from daily life, Scripture, and contemporary writers. He delves into the places that we fear to go with our issues about prayer, encouraging us with gentle kindness and words of hope and inspiration. The book is divided into five sections. 1. Why Pray? Illustrates the purposes and benefits of prayer for ourselves, as well as for the broader Catholic community and even the world. 2. Why Is It so Hard? Notes how our contemporary culture conspires against taking time out for solitude and prayer, and how our own ego—with its fears, restlessness, and narcissism—can work against developing a deeper relationship with God through prayer. 3. What Is Prayer? Outlines the two basic types of prayer, that is, affective (personal) and priestly (for the world). This section also notes the many ways or methods for each type of prayer, such as meditation, contemplation, the divine office, the Mass, and Scripture. 4. Sticking with It When It Gets Hard. This section covers the development of mature prayer, discussing ways to pray in times of boredom, disillusionment, crisis, helplessness, or after a loved one’s death. 5. Mysticism. Here we learn about this increasingly popular form of intimate relationship with God. There will be a leader’s guide for this book, making it an ideal resource for use with prayer groups, small faith communities, and retreats. This is a book for all manner of believer, whether your faith is solidly rooted in Catholicism, wavering between the Christianity of childhood and non-participatory faith as an adult, or just not sure what you believe—or whether you believe at all. It addresses topics that typify our culture, such as narcissism, pragmatism, efficiency, and self-gratification, and that work against a healthy spiritual life. Finally, the book takes us to a place of contact and comfort, in relationship not only with God but with our true selves as well.

Our Deepest Longing

Prayer

Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness

The Restless Heart

In this wide-ranging text, Ronald Rolheiser gives information and practical advice on how to build a spi rituality for today and for the next century. He also explai ns what Christian spirituality is and why we struggle with it.

Seeking Spirituality

Rolheiser points readers to the proximity of God in the seeming insignificance of life. He sheds new light on issues such as marriage and family life and the presence of God, loneliness and sexuality, language and prayer, and most of all, the all-encompassing, unconditional love of God.

The Finger of God in Our Everyday Lives

Against an Infinite Horizon

The bestselling author of The Holy Longing provides an inspiring message of hope and perseverance for all of us struggling with our faith in tumultuous times The last few decades have rapidly birthed a modern world that would have been unrecognizable fifty years ago. As long-held beliefs on love, faith, and God are challenged by the aggregate of changes that have overhauled our world, many of us are left feeling confused and uncertain while old norms are challenged and redefined at breakneck speed. In Wrestling with God, Ronald Rolheiser offers a steady and inspiring voice to help us avow and understand our faith in a world where nothing seems solid or permanent. Drawing from his own life experience, as well as a storehouse of literary, psychological, and theological insights, the beloved author of Sacred Fire examines the fears and doubts that challenge us. It is in these struggles to find meaning, that Rolheiser lays out a path for faith in a world struggling to find faith, but perhaps more important, he helps us find our own rhythm within which to walk that path.

Finding Hope and Meaning in Our Daily Struggles to Be Human

Wrestling with God

When someone is stricken with cancer, one of three things can happen: Doctors treat the disease and cure it; professionals can't cure the disease but can control it so that the person suffering can live with the disease for the rest of his or her life; or the cancer can be of a kind that cannot be treated and all the medicine and treatments in the world are powerless - the person dies. Emotional depression leading to suicide can work the same way. Sometimes a person can be treated so that, in effect, they are cured; sometimes they can't ever really be cured, but can be treated in a way that they can live with the disease for their whole life; and sometimes, just as with certain kinds of cancer, the disease is untreatable, unstoppable, and no intervention by anyone or anything can halt its advance - it eventually kills the person and there is nothing anyone can do. Thus, Ronald Rolheiser begins this small, powerful book. With chapters also on "Removing the Taboo," "Despair as Weakness Rather than Sin," "Reclaiming the Memory of Our Loved One," and "The Pain of the Ones Left Behind," Fr. Rolheiser offers hope and a new way of understanding death by suicide.

Struggling to Understand Suicide

Bruised and Wounded

We are incurably sexual, deeply sexed not just in our bodies but in every dimension of our being. Sexuality is a powerful fire inside of us, the best of all fires and the most dangerous of all fires. It is also a sacred fire, meant to be enjoyed as God s great gift to us even as it is guarded by chastity. This workshop will attempt to articulate both an essential anthropology and an essential spirituality of sexuality."

An Anthropologyand Spirituality of Sexuality

The New York Times bestselling author of The Holy Longing turns his attention to one of the stigmas of our time. “Unique insights on the nature of suicide, its devastating effects, and God’s embracing love throughout. Fr. Ron is exactly who I would have wanted at my side when my daughter died.” —Marjorie Antus, author of My Daughter, Her Suicide, and God: A Memoir of Hope “Don’t let the size of this book fool you into thinking it doesn’t have much to say about suicide. Each page—each sentence—is rich in insight, wisdom, compassion, and most of all, comfort. Ronald Rolheiser gently dismantles the age-old myths and taboos associated with suicide, and gives brokenhearted survivors of suicide loss genuine reasons for hope.” —Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, California A new way of understanding death by suicide with chapters on • Removing the Taboo • Despair as Weakness rather than Sin • Reclaiming the Memory of our Loved One Ronald Rolheiser is a Catholic priest, internationally renowned speaker and spiritual writer whose books appeal to Christians of all backgrounds and spiritual seekers of all kinds. He is the author of several books and the award-winning weekly column “In Exile” carried by more than seventy newspapers worldwide. “Ronald Rolheiser's books have changed my life. This one will do the same for many readers desperate for mercy, understanding, and the love of God.” — James Martin, SJ, author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage

What is a monastery? A monastery is a place set apart--a place to learn the blessings of powerlessness, and that time is not ours but God's. Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. The vocation of monastic men and women is to physically withdraw from the world. But the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation, and provide a desert for reflection. In ten brief and powerful chapters, Fr. Ron explores how monastery life can apply to those who don't live in a cloister: * Monasticism and Family Life * The Domestic Monastery * Real Friendship * Lessons from the Monastic Cell * Ritual for Sustaining Prayer * Tensions within Spirituality * A Spirituality of Parenting * Spirituality and the Seasons of Our Lives * The Sacredness of Time * Life's Key Question

A thoughtful exploration of loneliness, in the tradition of Henri Nouwen's classic Reaching Out. Loneliness may be more pervasive now than at any other time in human history. Cell phones and "instant messaging" not withstanding, our longing for meaningful connections seems to increase in direct proportion to our accessibility. In The Restless Heart, Ronald Rolheiser identifies different types of loneliness and discusses the dangers and opportunities they represent in our lives. Using contemporary parables from literature, film, and his own life, he shows that loneliness can be a tremendously creative and even valuable force when it is recognized, accepted and used as a dynamic catalyst. With his trademark clarity of vision, honesty, and intelligence, Rolheiser offers a distinctively Christian approach to living an examined, involved life and presents suggestions that will free readers to discover greater meaning and fulfillment in their own lives.

Ronald Rolheiser, one of the most influential spiritual writers of our day, offers profound reflections on the central mystery of our Christian faith. His beautifully written meditations on the passion and the cross invites you to a new understanding of redemption and offers insight into the meaning of your own loss and suffering. Take a journey into the deeper meaning of pain with guidance from a trusted spiritual advisor. The audio edition of this book can be downloaded via Audible.

The Passion and the Cross

From the author of the bestselling, The Holy Longing, comes a book about the central expression of faith for hundreds of millions of Christians, the Eucharist. More so than anything else, the Eucharist is what anchors many peoples' life, prayer, and ultimately the way they live their lives. In this deeply personal book, Father Ronald Rolheiser delves into the history and meaning of this sacred tradition, drawing upon the insights of various scripture scholars, theologians, and church teachings. With personal warmth and great insight, he reflects on his own particular Roman Catholic upbringing and the centrality that the Eucharist has within that tradition. At the same time, he looks at other denominations’ traditions around the Eucharist. Our One Great Act of Fidelity is an investigation into the ways people secure their faith and belief and discover true intimacy with God and each other. Ultimately, however, it is a spiritual and a personal statement of how Ronald Rolheiser understands the Eucharist and why he celebrates it every day. Ronald Rolheiser is a specialist in the field of spirituality and is currently President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. Father Rolheiser is the author of The Holy Longing, The Restless Heart, Forgotten Among the Lilies, The Shattered Lantern, and Against an Infinite Horizon. He writes a weekly column that appears in more than 90 Catholic publications. More information on his work can be found at RonRolheiser.com.

Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist

Our One Great Act of Fidelity

From best-selling author and speaker Fr. Ronald Rolheiser comes The Fire Within: Desire, Sexuality, Longing, and God.

Desire, Sexuality, Longing, and God

The Fire Within

Exploring the obsessions and anxieties that rule and destroy one's life, the author argues that the true path to joy and contentment lies in trusting in God's grace and providence.

Ronald Rolheiser

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