Richard Rohr Quotes

52 Sourced Quotes

Let's state it clearly: One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life, and not through purity codes and moral achievement contests, which are seldom achieved anyway.

Richard Rohr
Salvation is not a divine transaction that takes place because you are morally perfect, but much more is an organic unfolding, a becoming who you already are, an inborn sympathy with and capacity for the very One who created you.

Richard Rohr
If unconditional love, loyalty, and obedience are the tickets to an eternal life, then my black Labrador, Venus, will surely be there long before me, along with all the dear animals in nature who care for their young at great cost to themselves and have suffered so much at the hands of humans.

Richard Rohr
Every time you choose to love, you have also just chosen to die.

Richard Rohr
People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.

Richard Rohr
There are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments-and it is we alone who desecrate them by our blindness and lack of reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it.

Richard Rohr
Prayer is not about changing God, but being willing to let God change us.

Richard Rohr
Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.

Richard Rohr
I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.

Richard Rohr
Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.

Richard Rohr
If you do not transform your pain, you will always transmit it.

Richard Rohr
Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God

Richard Rohr
Group-think is a substitute for God-think. The belief is that God is found only by our group. The next step is to establish that identification with our group as the only way to serve God.

Richard Rohr
God does not love you because you are good, God loves you because God is good.

Richard Rohr
Prayer must lead us beyond mind, words, and ideas to a more spacious place where God has a chance to get in.

Richard Rohr
What we know about God is important, but what we do with what we know about God is even more important. Too often people think it is necessary that we all see God in the same way (which is impossible anyway), but what is really necessary is that we all follow God according to what God tells us. The fact that God has given us so many different faces and temperaments and emotions and histories shows us how God honors each unique journey and culture. God is not threatened by differences. It's we who are.

Richard Rohr
All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.

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

Richard Rohr
Many people I know who are doing truly helpful and healing ministry find their primary support from a couple of enlightened friends, and only secondarily, if at all, from the larger organizations.

Richard Rohr
So much is happening on earth that cannot be fixed or explained, but it can be felt and suffered. I think a Christian is one who, along with Jesus, agrees to feel, to suffer the pain of the world.

Richard Rohr
Being informed is different from being formed, and the first is a common substitute for the second.

Richard Rohr
The world, the system, moves forward out of fear. That's why they have to threaten us to play the game. We're threatened with loss of job, money, reputation, or prestige. It's all based on fear.

Richard Rohr
Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.

Richard Rohr
The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo – even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future.

Richard Rohr
Power should be entrusted only to those who do not seek it.

Richard Rohr