Richard Rohr, OFM

Our world is filled with contradictions needing to be reconciled, inconsistencies within us and between us. Life is neither perfectly consistent and rational nor is it a chaotic mess. It does contain, however, constant paradoxes, exceptions, and flaws. That is the shocking and disappointing revelation of the cross. It is also a great weight off our backs. It leads to patience, humility, non-judgment, and suffering love. Now we have the right sense of proportion, limits, and expectations, with no room for utopianism, ideologies, any “final solutions,” cynicism, or needless discouragement.

If we don’t get forgiveness, we’re missing the whole mystery. We are still living in a world of meritocracy, of quid-pro-quo thinking, of performance and behavior that earns an award. Forgiveness is the great thawing of all logic, reason, and worthiness. It is a melting into the mystery of God as unearned love, unmerited grace, the humility and powerlessness of a Divine Lover. Forgiveness is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the whole gospel, as far as I can see. Without radical and rule-breaking forgiveness — received and given — there will be no reconstruction of anything.

Rituals create families, in a sense. Any parent knows that when they do something at least two years in a row, the little ones wait for it in the third year. Children have a natural sense of timing, ritual, seasons, and feasts. Ritual is the key to re-sacralizing the home. I don’t want to suggest the particular rituals that a family should name and claim. Certainly, each family has its own customs, and there are a number of religious resources that suggest new family rituals for those who need ideas.

The word change normally refers to new beginnings. But transformation, the mystery we’re examining, more often happens not when something new begins, but when something old falls apart. The pain of something old falling apart—chaos—invites the soul to listen at a deeper level. It invites, and sometimes forces, the soul to go to a new place because the old place is falling apart. Most of us would never go to new places in any other way. The mystics use many words to describe this chaos: fire, dark night, death, emptiness, abandonment, trial, the Evil One.

Change happens, but transformation is always a process of letting go, living in the confusing, shadowy space for a while, and eventually being spit up on a new and unexpected shore. You can see why Jonah in the belly of the whale is such an important symbol for many Jews and Christians. In moments of insecurity and crisis, shoulds and oughts don’t really help; they just increase the shame, guilt, pressure, and likelihood of backsliding. It’s the deep yeses that carry us through. It’s that deeper something we are strongly for that allows us to wait it out.

Most of us are not free to say “yes” before we say “no.” Our first response is normally “no”: “I don’t trust that. I don’t like that. I don’t agree with that.” The word enthusiasm (en-theos in Greek) means “filled with God.” I’m not encouraging mindless enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm that is based on intelligence, wisdom, and the great gift of hope. Hope is a participation in the very life of God. This hope has nothing to do with circumstances or events going well. It can even thrive in adversity and trial.

To live with healthy Tradition is not an individual experience—it is a communal one. Perhaps this is why Catholicism emphasizes liturgy so much. It is the one thing that pulls us into a communal space where we can ask different questions, look at reality from a different perspective, and be told different truths, beyond the small truths of the private “I.” The endless telling of “this is me” stories eventually becomes self-validating, self-imprisoning, and, frankly, boring. Personal anecdotes become too small and aimless, unless they are a part of some larger life narratives.