Richard Rohr Quotes

To me, growing into spiritual maturity is becoming less self-conscious and more God-conscious.

You can spend time self-identifying and figuring out what you are on that, but at some point, you just want to be who you are and not walk around telling people.

We spend so much of our early lives trying to figure out who we really are. And we spend the rest of our lives preparing ourselves to let it go.

Old age spiritualizes people naturally

A lot of so-called Christian souls are not fine. People need to look inside themselves and look at the lives they're leading and fix themselves before they try to fix other people.

People are like, 'Be yourself, be yourself,' and I'm still trying to figure out who that is. I know I'm not perfect, but I know I have a lot of people that support me and love me, and I don't want to let anyone down, so I just try to be the best that I can be.

Little works, little thoughts, little loves, little prayers for little Christians, and larger and larger as the years grow.

I’ve often said that I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame, so that they could see that it’s not where they’re gonna find their sense of completion. Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize that there is nothing bigger than myself. My soul is not contained within the limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.

I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.

Discover yourself, otherwise you have to depend on other people's opinions who don't know themselves.

God uses his Word, people and circumstances to mold us. All three are indispensable for character development. God's word provides the truth we need to grow, God's people provide the support we need to grow, and circumstances provide the environment we need to grow.

I have never seen myself as leading for others. What's important is that I know who I am. Not completely. But I'm coming around third base.

All of us have areas of weakness. God wants these character flaws to show us how totally dependent we are upon Him. When we handle them properly, they drive us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Lord. But uncontrolled weakness wreaks havoc in a person's life.

Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes.

There are a lot of parts of who I am that no one in the public has ever known, but the older I've gotten, the more I've appreciated my own strange little self and come to terms with that.

God will bring people and events into our lives, and whatever we may think about them, they are designed for the evolution of His life in us.

What keeps me going is that quest for just being able to be present and be myself. Not for people, but for me.

I've tried to become someone else for a while, only to discover that he, too, was me.

The goal of the pastor is not to get people to show up but to get people to grow up.

Self knowledge puts us on our knees, and it is very necessary for love. For knowledge of God gives love, and knowledge of self gives humility

There's a lot of fear connected with the inner journey because it penetrates our illusions. Taking the inner journey will lead you into some very shadowy places. You're going to learn things about yourself that you'll wish you didn't know. There are monsters in there-monsters you can't control-but trying to keep them hidden will only give them greater power.

If we want spiritual development, the practice of patience is essential.

Faith makes us, and not we it; and faith makes its own forms.

There is always magic to be summoned at any point. I love to live in a world of magic, but not a fake world of magic. We all really basically have a lot of magic... It’s only those of us who choose to accept it, that really understand it. It’s there for everyone. That’s the only thing that I feel I am able to give to people and that’s why I know that they respond to me because I try to give them only their own magic... not mine, but theirs

The movement toward gratitude, authenticity, and union is the natural and organic inner work of the second half of our lives.