By Father Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I. (Image, 2014)
Ronald Rolheiser returns with the second volume of a promised trilogy. Beginning with The Holy Longing: A Search for a Christian Spirituality (Image), he emerged as one of the most respected American Catholic guides to adult Christian faith. Rolheiser sees The Holy Longing as Spirituality 101 to “help us get our lives together.” For a broad audience of spiritual seekers across the Christian spectrum, it did just that. He now offers Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity as a graduate-level course in human and Christian discipleship. In essence, he suggests that the primary work of believers who have succeeded—more or less—in getting their lives in order is to learn how to “give their lives away.”
Among Rolheiser’s gifts to middle-stage Christians is his ability to illumine the gospels with new insights. Chapter by chapter, he invites those who think they have achieved mature faith to go deeper. Charting a new course through Jesus’ parables—especially those thought to have already been mined for every spiritual nugget—he floods familiar stories with complacency-shattering light. Under adult morality, he offers advanced insights into the old seven “deadly sins,” which he calls the seven “subtle sins” of mature Christians. Take gluttony, for example. Rolheiser quotes Thomas Merton, who refers to this fault as that of being “carried away by conflicting concerns” and “committing oneself to too many projects.” As an insight for Catholics confused about the value of praying for the dead, he proposes a new set of revised reasons in favor of this hallowed practice.
Rolheiser promises to complete the trilogy with a focus on the last great act of a Christian’s life: “making our dying our last great gift to our loved ones.” Christian readers “of a certain age” eagerly await its arrival and hope he will not tarry in delivering it.
This article appeared in the September 2014 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 79, No. 9, page 43).
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