Fr. Ron Rolheiser maps the spiritual journey across three stages: getting your life together, giving your life away, and — the one no one prepares you for — giving your death away. Drawing on monastic wisdom and the mystics, he shows how marriage, the monotony of daily work, and even illness, aging, and death can each become a deep spiritual practice.
In this conversation, we talk about how loneliness, restlessness, and helplessness can become gifts to ourselves and loved ones.
At seventy-eight, and having lived with stage four cancer for twelve years, Fr. Rolheiser shares half a century of wisdom about what it means to live and die well.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser is an Oblate of Mary Immaculate and the author of many books, including The Holy Longing, Sacred Fire, Bruised and Wounded, Domestic Monastery, and most recently Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years.
https://ronrolheiser.com/en/
Chapters00:00 Get your life together, give your life away, give your death away
03:56 "Vocation isn't something you choose, it chooses you"
08:33 "Nothing has seared me like that": The neighbor who died by suicide
11:54 "Celibacy is Unnatural": Sex and Connection
15:51 Solidarity with the Poor and Lonely
18:38 Social Loneliness vs. Moral Loneliness
23:30 Restlessness is a longing for God
28:35 No Finished Symphony: Why Your Spouse Can't Be Your God
36:03 Forgiving God for not rescuing you
39:38 A Redeeming God, Not a Rescuing God: "Tell the people to learn how to wait"
44:48 Pondering: Carrying Tension Without Passing It On
53:45 The Domestic Monastery
01:02:14 Martha and Mary: Action and Contemplation
01:10:21 Student, Householder, Forest-dweller, & Holy Old Beggar
01:18:44 Twelve Years with Stage Four Cancer
01:22:17 Give up the illusion of self-sufficiency
01:30:33 Your helplessness can be a gift
01:35:21 Letting go of "I don't want to be a burden"
01:40:48 Teaching keeps you real
01:42:41 Prayer as supplication and praying without asking for consolation
Intro and outro music by @BenBigelow3
A note: this episode includes discussion of suicide and of assisted dying. If you are struggling, you can call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
