Richard Rohr Quotes

Faith, and hope, and patience and all the strong, beautiful, vital forces of piety are withered and dead in a prayerless life. The life of the individual believer, his personal salvation, and personal Christian graces have their being, bloom, and fruitage in prayer.

It has been said by church historians that in those periods of Christian history where renewal, revival, and awakening took place and the church was at its strongest, that coincidental with those periods in church history, there was a strong focus on the psalms in the life of God's people-particularly in the worship of God's people.

If the Christian religion, as I understand it, or as you understand it, should maintain its ground, as I believe it will, yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and cabalistical Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.

You cannot be a Christian without being a mystic

I pray the breviary every morning. I like to pray with the psalms. Then, later, I celebrate Mass. I pray the Rosary. What I really prefer is adoration in the evening, even when I get distracted and think of other things, or even fall asleep praying. In the evening then, between seven and eight o'clock, I stay in front of the Blessed Sacrament for an hour in adoration. But I pray mentally even when I am waiting at the dentist or at other times of the day.

Love is kindled in a flame, and ardency is its life. Flame is the air which true Christian experience breathes. It feeds on fire; it can withstand anything rather than a feeble flame; but when the surrounding atmosphere is frigid or lukewarm, it dies, chilled and starved to its vitals. True prayer must be aflame.

I was raised with a strong belief in prayer. And that's never really left me. I find it great to close your eyes, breathe, and just talk to the universe. It really comforts me.

A Christian who does not pray is like prince in beggars clothes who stands but a few inches from His father's throne and yet does not ask.

Prayer as a relationship is probably your best indicator about the health of your love relationship with God. If your prayer life has been slack, your love relationship has grown cold.

Prayer is the greatest force that we can wield. It is the greatest talent which God has granted us. He has given it to every Christian.

Oh Lord, let me not live to be useless.

I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him, when he is full already with something else. Before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray Him to empty us.

I wore the gold for some reasons. One, as a Christian.When Jesus was born wise men bring him gold.No wise man brought bling. Bling is not in The Bible.

Speaking as a minister it is my strong feeling that no man has a right to preach to a crowd that he has not prayed for.

If our age in its pride laughs at and rejects Our Lady's Rosary, a countless legion of the most saintly men of every age and of every condition have not only held it most dear and have most piously recited it but have also used it at all times as a most powerful weapon to overcome the devil, to preserve the purity of their lives, to acquire virtue more zealously, in a word, to promote peace among men.

I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the country for their constant prayers and consolations; and to no one of them, more than to yourself.

How often I failed in my duty to God, because I was not leaning on the strong pillar of prayer.

The only influence that can really upset the injustice and iniquity of men is the power that breathes in the Christian tradition, renewing our participation in the Life that is the Light of men.

You cannot pray at home, like you can at church, where there is a great multitude; where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the unions of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of priests.

Banning prayer in school in effect made God unconstitutional.

Don't ever hesitate to take to [God] whatever is on your heart. He already knows it anyway, but He doesn't want you to bear its pain or celebrate its joy alone.

Dear brothers and sisters...The Lord is calling me to "climb the mountain", to devote myself even more to prayer and meditation. But this does not mean abandoning the Church, indeed, if God is asking me to do this, it is so I can continue to serve the Church with the same dedication and the same love with which I have done thus far, but in a way that is better suited to my age and my strength

It is true that the Muslim world is not totally mistaken when it reproaches the West of Christian tradition of moral decadence and the manipulation of human life. ... Islam has also had moments of great splendor and decadence in the course of its history.

Our minds can be kept free of anxiety as we dump the load of our cares on the Lord in prayer.

American Psalms challenges Christian patriots to put aside personal agendas, prejudices and partisanship, and pray for our leaders as God commands.