Though Rolhesier clearly believes that engaging in justice is a key pillar of expressing our faith, he brilliantly describes a naiveté that often makes peace and justice groups ineffective through six fallacies.
I’m re-reading Ronald Rolheiser’s The Holy Longing, and some gems don’t come in 140-character spurts. Like a jeweler turning a stone, he describes spirituality from many different angles, but his main thrust is that spirituality is what we do with desire.
“We had obvious evils to engage; you have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white and blue myth.”
“I am uneasy with the term [religious], for such religion as has been openly practiced in this part of the world has promoted and fed upon a destructive schism between body and soul, Heaven and earth.”
“I was more convinced than ever that the preaching like an apostle, without joining together those that are awakened and training them up in the ways of God, is only begetting children for the murderer.”
“Then there was the nameless carpenter who made the cross … If you questioned him he probably would have said: ‘But I am a poor man who must make a living.’”
“Almost everyone finds their early days in a community ideal … And then comes the let-down. The greater their idealization of the community at the start, the greater the disenchantment.”
Francis gives us a great wake up call, and definitely worth the two or three hours needed to read this short book.
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