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"Final authority in the spiritual world does not tend to come from any kind of agenda success but from some kind of suffering. Insecurity and impermanence are the best spiritual teachers."
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"We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination."

"I knew then why I had to suffer. The older we get, the more reasons God gives us to seek His comfort. In the end, He sends us just enough pain and suffering so that we will want to leave. If everything were perfect, we would never choose to go. He wants us to seek an end to our suffering because He wants us to want to come Home."

"He panted over me, winded by his own absurd lecture. The stench of his alcoholic breath stung my nose. Again I didn't answer. I hoped he'd tire out and end his speech and hobble back to the living room without touching me. Such hopes were unlikely, as was the case this time. "Answer me, you good-for-nuthin' wench! The pain bit instantly as his hand connected with my cheek. I shook my head in answer to his crazy questions, feeling a rise of warm tears."

"There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer-committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear."

"The man who was once starved may revenge himself upon the world not by stealing just once, or by stealing only what he needs, but by taking from the world an endless toll in payment of something irreplaceable, which is the lost faith."

"More commonly suffering breaks people, crushes them, and is simply unilluminating. You see how gruesomely human beings are destroyed by pain, when they have the added torment of losing their humanity first, so that their death is a total defeat..."
Explore more quotes by Richard Rohr

"The Church, as Jesus seems to be defining it, is the gathering of accepted brokenness. It's not the gathering of the saved."

"You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life."

"I hope we can inaugurate a new humility in our use of religious language, which for me is the very proof that it is authentic."

"When you get your, 'Who am I?', question right, all of your, 'What should I do?' questions tend to take care of themselves"

"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."

"True spirituality is not taught, it's caught. Once our sails have been unfurled to the Spirit, henceforth our motivation for the journey toward holiness and wholeness is immense gratitude."

"The way to transmute the pain of life is to reveal the wounded side of things, evil, even, and then place the wound inside of sacred space. The Bible is about naming, facing, and then forgiving the wounds of history."

"A lot of us pray as if prayer is really twisting the arm of God or convincing God to do something. We think by saying more words we'll talk God into it. We think, 'If I say it one more time, God will agree with me. That very attitude is an alienating attitude. It keeps us in the role of doing it 'right or often enough to convince an unready or unwilling God. Wrong, wrong, wrong!19 minutes ago"
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