Fr. Ron Rolheiser | Beloved on Both Sides: Conversations on Death and Faith
Bruce’s guest today is Father Dr. Ron Rolheiser. Father Ron is a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He’s a community builder, lecturer and writer. He now serves on the faculty of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonia Texas, where was President for 15 years. Ron speaks with HNS ED Bruce Adema about a letter of Henri Nouwen in which he reflects on his own near-death experience, and how it affected him.
Resources
Oblate School of Theology
https://ost.edu/
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Book Discussed:
Love, Henri
https://amzn.to/3fpnolF (US)
https://amzn.to/2C2lqcD (Canada)
With Open Hands
https://amzn.to/2UMpR1G (US)
https://amzn.to/2XUtSTw (Canada)
Reaching Out
https://amzn.to/37BuyjZ (US)
https://amzn.to/2AxxCBJ (Canada)
Beyond the Mirror
https://amzn.to/3fAkDhv (US)
https://amzn.to/30RUHcV (Canada)
Book: The Structure of Waiting (Vanstone) -
https://www.amazon.ca/?ref_=cb_interstitial_us_ca_desktop_unrec_location_unk_dp_gw
Book: A Severe Mercy (Vanauken) - https://www.amazon.ca/Severe-Mercy-Sheldon-Vanauken/dp/0060688246
Available On
Transcript
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Bruce Adema: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Love Henri podcast, produced by the Henri Nouwen Society. My name is Bruce Adema and I am the Executive Director of the Henri Nouwen Society. And I'm therefore a part of a great team that encourages others and ourselves in spiritual transformation through the work and legacy of Spiritual Master Henri Nouwen. If you've appreciated Henri for a long time, or if this is an introduction for you to the work of Henri Nouwen, I encourage you to go to our website, henrinouwen.org, where you'll find daily meditations that can remind you every day that you are indeed a beloved child of God.
Bruce Adema: Our guest today is Father Ron Rolheiser. Many of you are familiar with Father Ron. Maybe you've read his books, or read his column in the newspapers or seen videos that he is done, and you think, “Oh, great. This is going to be good!” If he's new to you, well then you're in for a treat. Father Ron has quite the legacy. He is a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He's a community builder, lecturer and writer. His books are popular throughout the English speaking world and have now been translated into many languages. His weekly column is carried by newspapers worldwide. Before his present position, he taught theology and philosophy at Newman Theological College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for 16 years. He served as the provincial superior of his Oblate Province for six years, and he served on the General Counsel for the Oblates in Rome for six years. From 2005 to 2020, Father Ron served as president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. He remains on staff at OST as a full-time faculty member, and he happens to be a board member of the Henri Nouwen Society. Now, Father Ron, that I find it interesting that when I was the pastor of a church in St. Albert, Alberta, and I believe it was the closest church to Newman Theological College.
Ron, you're recognized as a, as a skilled teacher, professor, and a spiritual guide. What do you find particularly exciting in your current service at the Oblate School of Theology?
Father Ron Rolheiser: Well, thanks, first of all, Bruce. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure being with you. And, it's an honor to do this for Henri. But my present work, I work full-time in spirituality a lot with graduate students, but also research and writing. What's not just the word exciting, but important is spirituality. I think today is the way forward. You know, for instance, we have students from every kind of denomination, and denominations don't matter much at the level of spirituality. We're all seeking Jesus, we all have the same issues and so on. I think spirituality is really the way forward. People are hungry in spirit, but also it's the way we're going to move our churches closer together. We're all going to come together as one Christian body.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Spirituality's slowly going to dissolve the problems we have with dogma and church structures and so on. because spirituality transcends that. You know, I taught dogmatic or systematic theology for over 20 years, and I thought it was important, but I just automatically morphed into spirituality, because it's so important. We always say theology are the rules of the game. They're very important. Spirituality is the game. You need to know the rules. It's important to know your church's rules and dogmatic history, but that's just the playing field. That's the field you play on. Spirituality is the game.
Bruce Adema: Okay. I couldn't agree with you more. Now, Henri Nouwen as a spiritual guide, how did you discover him or come to know him?
Father Ron Rolheiser: Interesting. You know, I was a theology student preparing for ministry. And, and for my ordination, somebody gave me what may have been Henri's first or second book in English, the book With Open Hands, a very simple book you can read in a couple of hours. And I was quite taken by it. You know, I thought this was a wonderful book. But you know, it was great, but no big bells went off in my head. And then I spent a year doing graduate studies at University of San Francisco, and I was getting the National Catholic Reporter, and during that year, Henri wrote a series of articles, which later on became the book Reaching Out. And I was just stunned. I was just, it's as if he's talking just to me like where I'm at, you know? I'd never read a spiritual writer that just, you know, being accepted.
Father Ron Rolheiser: But you know what? Just where somebody thought this guy has his finger on the pulse, he's certainly got finger on my pulse. You know, somebody once said about the singer, Karen Carpenter, she sadly died young, but they said, you know what, when she's sang, yet the sense she was just singing into your ear, let's also do Henri . I have an expression. I always say, I felt I was being introduced to myself, my complexities, and so on. And yet at the same time, how these can be handled spiritually. It's a hard thing, first of all, to recognize because we are complicated people inside of ourselves, and oftentimes, we need to suppress that or deny it, or we bring it out, we don't know how he can be spiritual. Henri pulled that trigger, and I was just stunned. In fact, at the time I wrote him a letter, which he never wrote back, about how much that affected me. I was 25 years old. And then later on, that became the basis for his book Reaching Out, which I still think is a great book I give to young people.
Bruce Adema: I hear you saying what I've experienced myself and others have said that they hear in Henri a gentleness and a kindness, perceptiveness and a strong Christ centeredness. And all of that just makes him a wonderful guide for myself.
Father Ron Rolheiser: I think Bruce also his ability to name our complexities and our resistances. Like, you know, and I hope this isn't a bad example, but for instance, a lot of people look at Mother Teresa and say, well, she's wonderful, but I can't do that.
Bruce Adema: Yeah.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Yeah. I can't be Mother Teresa. Obviously, she had her own complexities, but you read Henri: I can do Henri, I can do Henri, like, Henri just laid out all the complexities, resistances, our normal human instincts where they want to take us, our loneliness, our restlessness, and saying, but in spite of that, you can be God's beloved. I think that that was the one thing that really caught me.
Bruce Adema: So, the Theology of Hope, that's a spirituality of great hope. Our pod podcast is called Love Henri, because Henri was a great letter writer. I'm sorry he never wrote back to you.
Father Ron Rolheiser: He did eventually on a different topic.
Bruce Adema: And well, what I've heard is that Henri tended to write back to almost everybody. Part of every day was a significant block of just corresponding with people. And in the Henri Nouwen Archive, which is at the University of Toronto, there are 16,000 of his letters, Henri received lots of letters. He kept every one, he replied to almost everybody, and he made a copy of every letter. So there is a treasure trove of correspondence from Henri. Some of those letters have been collected together in a book called Love Henri. What we're doing in our podcast is taking letters out of this book, and then meeting with somebody like Father Ron and discussing the issues that it raises. It's really a fruitful way for us to talk together.
Bruce Adema: Now, today's letter that we're going to be talking about was written on June 16th, 1989, to a lady named Barb. The context of it is Henri had been walking down the road and got clipped by a car. I think the mirror struck him. He ended up in the hospital, grievously injured, injured to the point that there was a question if he would even survive. That was a spiritual turning point for Henri. And he wrote about it. This person wrote to him about the book that he had just put out. So, I'd like to read for you just a section of this letter. This is to Barb;
Henri writes,
Dear Barb,
Many thanks for your kind response to “A Glimpse Beyond the Mirror.” I really appreciate your taking the time to respond so generously. Try to answer a few of your questions.
As far as the article itself is concerned, there were, of course, many, many more things that happened. Indeed, my father and my sister visited me, and many members of the community. In an epilogue that I am writing now, I mentioned this, but the main purpose of my story was to share my very vivid spiritual experience.
I can understand your difficulty with my desire to die and be with Jesus, but I do feel that indeed the desire was very real, and that I felt very intimately that my death would not take me away from those who are close to me, but bring me into closer unity with them. I have always been impressed by how closely I am to a lot of people who have died long ago, but still have a very active influence in my life, an influence that is deeper and more lasting than when I had known them in the flesh. I once met Thomas Merton, for instance, and it was not a very life-giving meeting, but since his death I have developed a real closeness to him and cannot think of him as other than a close companion in my journey. As far as my family members are concerned, I, of course, never wish them to be dead so that I could be closer to them spiritually, but, on the other hand, those I have loved deeply continue to have a bond with me after death and in some aspects a different bond from that I had with them during their life. It seems in a way that their spirit can speak more directly to my spirit. With those who have died, I have a great freedom in my relationship. I don’t have anymore to be afraid that I hurt them. I can unburden my heart to them and trust that they will connect my concerns with the heart of God. So, while I in no way desire or hope for the death of anyone, to the contrary, I love life and those who are alive, there is a great mystery that a bond of love continues and even deepens after they have died.
Well I hope these little thoughts are of some support to you. Thanks so much for your wonderful letter. Be sure of my prayers and love.
With warm greetings,
Yours,
Henri
Bruce Adema: That's quite a statement. Ron, what's your reaction to Henri's words there?
Father Ron Rolheiser: Well, first of all, what, I think first of all, it's not fanciful, it's mystical. So that our bond to those who are on the other side is real. That's enshrined in Christian dogma. That's what we call the communion of saints. It's in our creed and so on. So we still have a real life connection to those who are dead. In fact, Chesterton, the great apologist once said, Christianity is the only religion, the only democracy that also gives the vote to the dead. We're part of one. You know? And so that his experience, that's real, and it's really powerful. But he's pointing something out there that we understand in a different way. Let me give you an example. You know, I have a psychologist friend who always says, death washes clean. What does this mean?
Father Ron Rolheiser: Death washes clean, is after somebody dies, it purifies your relationship. So, for instance, my parents died when I was 21. I loved them and so on, but after they were dead, I understood them much better. And, you know, they were good parents. The same happens. You've had bad parents sometimes and realize, oh, I had a terrible father. You don't know that when they're alive, you know, because your relationship to them clarifies, you know? That's Christian doctrine. Incidentally, it's the same with Jesus. Notice in the gospels, we didn't get Jesus when he was alive, he died and they got him. You get his spirit. It washes clean and so on. And, he points things out there. There can also be reconciliation after death, you know, and that's greatly consoling.
Father Ron Rolheiser: You know, somebody dies and you're out of sorts. There been bitterness. There's been anger and non reconciliation. They die like that. Well, it can happen after death. You're still in relationship to this person and so on. But that your loved ones are real. I like what he says, I don't want to die. I don't want anybody to die. But he says, but I'm not afraid of it. Once you've had that kind of experience, he said, that there's a world out there which is even better than this one. It's wonderful as this, as this world is, that's a great piece. That's a great place. And, like I said, it can sound fanciful, you know, well, Joel, he's having a dream because he's dying or whatever. It's mystical, and it's dogmatic. That is the Christian doctrine of communion of saints, that they're alive. They're wonderfully present to us. You know, on our calendar as Christians, we have, well, we celebrate one of 'em, you know, , the secular way. But, Halloween, you know, means all saints, which means everybody's still alive, like all souls and all saints. Some are on the other side, some are on this side. We're all widely alive, still in one family. And Henri points that out there. It's a beautiful passage.
Bruce Adema: So it's both the, the church, or the communion of saints or the church of God, that we talk about it transcending place. So people in different continents, are part of the same body as us. And yeah. People of different cultures can be united in faith, but also in terms of time, right? That the church of the Ancients is still the church which we and generations to come are part. So, I think what Henri is reflecting a little bit, or echoing that kind of doctrine of the church itself.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Yeah. You know, I want to give you some examples, and people have different examples. You continue to relate to these people in a real way. For instance, my parents died when I was 21, you know, and at the time I was a seminarian, it was pretty hard, but you know what? It was sad for about two years, but afterwards realized they're giving me more now than when they were alive. But a concrete story, there's a book written by a man called Sheldon Vanauken (A Severe Mercy). He was a student of CS Lewis in the fifties in England, and he went there with his wife to study, and they were young people in their twenties, newlyweds, very much in love, and she gets cancer and dies. And he went into a suicidal depression.
Father Ron Rolheiser: And, CS Lewis, the book is how CS Lewis talked him out of suicide and gave him hope. And so on the death of his young wife. But he tells this story, he says what he did after she died, he had her cremated, and for two years, he carried her ashes. Remember? He went, he just carried the ashes with him. So he's always with him. So he said, one day, about two years later, he's sailing the Atlantic. In those days, they went by ship, and he said, he went out on the deck one night to pray. He had to, the vase where their ashes are sitting, his clearly standing beside, said, Sheldon, it's enough now. Dump the ashes into the ocean. Get on with your life. I'll see you later. He said, like, see, those things happen. That's not fanciful.
Father Ron Rolheiser: You know, we are still in real relationship. You can talk to, or a psychologist friend of mine says, he had a woman come in one day. She was distraught. And she said, doctor, she says, I was married for 32 years to this wonderful man, and we had a great relationship. And on the day he died, she said, we got in an argument at breakfast over nothing. I left, and I slammed the door and so on. And that day he got killed in a car accident. So our last interaction was this anger. And, so the psychiatrist said, if he were here right now, what would you say? He said, well, not tell him. It was, was nothing, you know, he said it, tear down, said, tell him he's here right now, you know, sit on this chair. You know, tell him that. See, that's the doctrine of communion of Saints, and it's a very consoling doctrine. It gives wonderful articulation that in that passage he read, you know, he's saying, and he said, and I'm no longer afraid to die. He said, I want to be on this side. Life is beautiful. I want my friends to be alive on this side, but it's going to be okay on the other side.
Bruce Adema: Yeah. So Henri in this time of, injury, being in the hospital, fighting for life, he had a gift from God that said, you are beloved Henri. And then that transformed and helped him to become the spiritual guide that he is. And so he was not in a place of fear as he was in this struggle between life and death. Many people, when they think about their ultimate eventual passing, unless the Lord returns, you'll find that a very frightening idea. People are afraid of death. How can these words, or how can people be helped to have some trust or tranquility as they anticipate, their own eventual death?
Father Ron Rolheiser: Good question. Because , now I'm going to sound like Henri. because we're complicated. See, at one level, we're human beings. We are mammals. I mean, best that, so all your physical instincts and that you want to, and they're playing this like, is to stay alive, to protect yourself, to go against death. So the deepest instinctual thing inside of every human being is to resist death, to push it away, and so on. First of all, that's your normal instinct, and that's healthy. You know, that's exactly what, lets go when people are clinically depressed and so on. So it's healthy to resist death, you know, see, and then fear. The fear is a double thing. The fear is the fear of the unknown. No matter what your life is like on this side, you know it's better than the devil.
Father Ron Rolheiser: You don't know what's on the other side. So that's that fear. But then also, in many of us, probably in all of us, to a certain extent, there is a certain fear of God, you know, of facing ourselves and so on. And that's a misplaced fear as Henri found out in that near-death experience, that that meeting God is not going to be a fearful experience, it’s going to be the most incredible, ecstatic experience of your whole life. But, we all nurture this fear of God. So to overcome it, we need faith. See, like I said, Bruce, everything in you is going to resist death. And it should. It should. That's the way you're hardwired, you know? If you go into a severe clinical depression that breaks down, that's unhealthy, you know, that's when people do suicide and so on.
Father Ron Rolheiser: That's a clinical disease, you know, so everything resists. But we have to look at it in faith, and Henri, this is a great expression in faith. Incidentally, like you said, this was a life changing experience for Henri. You know, when you read Henri and those who knew Henri before that, Henri, for all his popularity and all the love that was shown, he had trouble accepting that he was loved. It was always, yeah, nobody loves me, and so on. And then after that, that's when he wrote his fine books, the Life of the beloved, the return of the prodigal Son. Not, you don't have to, you're loved, you're absolutely held in God's hands. There's nothing to be afraid of. You know, when you do Henri's spirituality, that's a pivotal transitional moment in his life, you know? And there's Henri before that, and there's Henri after that, you know?
Bruce Adema: Yes. A real turning point.
Bruce Adema: One of the things that I personally also have found encouraging about the legacy of Henri is that, as you said, he wasn't perfect. He had his struggles, he had his weaknesses, he had his own questions, but he worked through them. He found, through the help of the spirit, to come to a place of understanding that gave this great hope. And for those that are struggling, and even among our listeners. Barb, when she wrote this original letter to Henri, into which he replied, Barbara wasn't depressed, she was questioning, she had a theological question which Henri engaged with her very well. But I do worry about people that receive these kinds of words, maybe they are experiencing depression. How can we help them to receive words of Henri's like saying, don't be afraid of death, but say, but value life. And we were made for life. We weren't made to die. We were created, that we might live and serve God and have joy and love and peace, and all those good things. Um, so how do we help people with these kinds of issues and these kinds of words?
Father Ron Rolheiser: Well, that's a good question. It's a practical, pastoral question. You know, I write on suicide. I've written a book on suicide, and it's a book written to help people understand suicide, help people who have lost people to suicide, and make peace with that. You know, I always assure people, these people haven't gone to hell or whatever. But I get a lot of pushback where people say, by taking that hard stigma away, you're enabling people to commit suicide. That's true. It's just a disease, you know? So that we have to walk a fine line between, as I was just said, telling people when you're healthy, your instinct for health at every level, psychological, physical, spiritual is going to say, no, I don't want to die.
Father Ron Rolheiser: I can't, I can't die. You know, when that breaks down, that's a clinical disease. And, that has to be treated, precisely in the clinic so you try to help these people one-on-one. But we don't write spirituality the same as health books for those who are dying of cancer or whatever. You know, you have oncologists for that. So I guess, again, we need oncologists for suicide who work in a special branch of health. I know that's complex, but, you know, we have to stay with both. We have to offer consolation to those who die in that way. At the same time, we have to affirm life, which Henri does wonderfully in this letter. Notice at the end, he's really clear, love life, stay alive, don't want to die. You don't want people to die. You're meant to stay on this side as long as he can.
Bruce Adema: Yes. We have a calling. Each one of us has something that God wants us to accomplish, in some way. And it's a joy to discover it. Henri, in his own times of depression , did seek treatment. He went to places where he could get the help that he needed to overcome the depression and carry on with joy in his life. If you want to be someone who takes inspiration from Henri, if you need help, find it, get it, receive it, and experience the healing that can come through these specialists and professionals and resources.
Father Ron Rolheiser: You know, Bruce, that's why I call him a saint for our times, you know, Henri, on a couple of occasions, went into a clinical depression, checked himself into a clinic and, handled that pain and handled it honestly. In fact, he wrote one of his very fine books, the Inner Voice of Love, while he was in a Clinic for Depression and so on. But, you know, as I said at the beginning, he's a saint you can relate to. That, you know, he had every problem we all have, and every temptation we all have, but he lived it through. He was faithful to the end. This was in one of his diaries when he was trying to become a monk. And I was really struck by that. He wrote the words he said, why my life is a struggle.
Father Ron Rolheiser: He said, I want to become a great saint, but I also want to experience all the sensations that sinners experience. He said, I want to have a deep life of prayer, but I don't want to miss anything in the world. He said, I want to have a radical life of poverty, but I want to fly on airplanes and fly around the world. He said, I want it all. And he said, but I have to choose, you know, to be a saint. This is to will the one thing, but, but he struggled. So, honestly, and oftentimes you don't see that in the literature of Saints, obviously in their lives, they have to make those choices. But Henri articulated that he said, this is going to be your struggle.
Bruce Adema: But I would add to what you said, Henri had a very interesting life. Sometimes people say, oh, to be a saint, or to be a godly person, that means to be a real bore, to not do anything fun, to not experience anything but going to sit in your room praying all the time. Whereas Henri, I know that he traveled extensively. He got a really great education. He had all kinds of opportunities. When I read of his life, I'm, can I say I'm a little bit jealous of the opportunities God gave to him. So being a faithful servant, I think should open up vistas. Give, give us opportunities. Henri certainly was a man who saw the opportunities that God had provided to him.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Well, you know, Bruce, there's different kinds of saints, so for instance, Mother Teresa, that's one kind of saint, you know? It's almost like she's the radical John the Baptist. And then there are saints like Henri and Henri was in, in, in some ways, no offense to Mother Teresa, she's more of a Baptist figure. Henri's more of a Jesus figure. Jesus enjoyed good suppers. Jesus scandalized people by the way he ate and drank and so on. Jesus wasn't an ascetic, you know? Neither was Henri. But he was a saint. Because in the end, he was faithful. He was faithful despite all the struggles, and that's what gives us hope. We're complicated and tempted to say it's just to be human. But you can do this. You just have to remain faithful.
Bruce Adema: That's the, that's the trick, isn't it? ,When I was reading this letter from Barb, it seemed to me that what upset her was almost Henri's sense of peace. That he went through this. He said, I'm not afraid to die. I can get closer to people. I've been thinking about, I'm actually wondering, I wish actually that we had Barb's letter as well, to see exactly what her concerns are. The hints in the letter certainly are that, he says, I understand your difficulty with my desire to die and be with Jesus. I think that she's somehow also misunderstood what Henri was trying to say.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Well, maybe not misunderstood. She may be reacting, just normally said, like, you know, if you sit down today, Bruce with a friend, the friend, this friend says, you know, I'm not afraid to die. I think I'd prefer to die. Wouldn't you get a little nervous to say, whoa, whoa?
Bruce Adema: Okay, that's true.
Father Ron Rolheiser: I think that's the jitters she got, like, says like, no, if you're a healthy human being, you don't want to die. You know? But just think today, if you had lunch today with somebody and they sat down and said, you know, you know what, Bruce? I think I'd prefer to die, be on the other side, and so on. Um, wouldn't you get a little jittery about that and say, whoa, whoa, you know, that's not the way you should feel normally.
Bruce Adema: Yeah. Yeah.
Father Ron Rolheiser: But I think that's where she's coming from, and that that's a normal healthy response. Say, nobody should want to die. You know?
Bruce Adema: Yeah. Yeah. There's so many angles that we could pursue in this. I'm in Canada where medical assistance in dying has become fairly common. People that have terminal diseases and unending pain and torment, seek and have permission to end their lives. This is edging into a whole sphere of ethics, but also of compassion. And I wonder what Henri would've said to the current environment in which we're in, where questions of life and death are rising to the fore around us.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Well, it's interesting, Bruce, because he did kind of speak to that, you know, way back in 1975. That's 50 years ago, and, and I got it off a series of tapes he did for Ave Maria Press. He wrote about it where he was helping this man who was dying with terminal cancer, and he talked to him about the value of passivity. You know, when you're passive and you can't do anything, you may be doing more than when you're active and doing everything. He had a very deep thing on that. So, I think Henri would say, as long as you can suffer, and, in a certain sense, give yourself over to it. That's his book. Your last Greatest gift, your last greatest gift is how you give your death over, you know?
Father Ron Rolheiser: But that is predicated on certain human and spiritual maturity, you know, so that a lot of people just aren't there, you know? So that whole question of MAID, medically assisted, you know, it's a tricky one. You know, ideally, no, no, no, never. That's what Henri would say, compassionate in this situation, Jack, who's there. It could mean different things, you know? So Henri had a deep theoretical understanding of this, gospel based, but he also had a deep compassion, and so the tension here is between what's highest and what's compassion in some situations. Pope Francis is also trying to walk that line to say you can be compassionate with somebody who's doing that, and yet at the same time disagree with what they're doing, you know?
Bruce Adema: Yes.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Yeah. But if your readers, if they can find Henri's book, our last Greatest gift, and I think he has in there, and he refers to a very famous little English book, by a man called Van Stone. And it's a book called The Structure of Waiting, which is very powerful gospel piece on Passivity.
Bruce Adema: Okay.
Father Ron Rolheiser: Okay. In fact, Henri read that book to a Dying Man. Okay.
Bruce Adema: Oh, really?
Father Ron Rolheiser: Yeah.
Bruce Adema: Okay. Yeah. Well, that book and other books that we have referenced in our conversation in this show, notes that accompany this podcast, that there will be links where you can find where they are, how to get them. And I would certainly encourage people to continue to discover, the wisdom and the spiritual insight of Henri and the faith when we think about life and death and spirituality. There is so much to grow into, so much to learn, to read, to be blessed by. And this is a part of our journey, together. Father Ron, you are a man of deep faith. God has gifted you with that, and you've received many blessings. I know that in life, that there were also harder times for you. I could say the same, but what, for you personally, what was your spiritual practice that sustained you, through hard times, and lets you continue to grow in the good times?
Father Ron Rolheiser: You're going to laugh when I say this, pure stubbornness,
Bruce Adema: <laugh>,
Father Ron Rolheiser: No, maybe that's my own word for, for fidelity, you know? I got that from spiritual mentors, beginning with my own dad. And that is in tough times. Don't say what's wrong, say no, you get one foot in front of the next, you get one foot in front, and you remain faithful, you know? So for instance, my journey in the priesthood is now 52 years and so on. It's been blessed, it's been wonderful. Sometimes it's been agony, but it's always, you know, like pure stubbornness, I'm called to do this. I need to do this. I want to remain faithful, and I'm not going to betray this. And no matter how painful it gets, so Michael Buckley, the Jesuit was one of my great mentors, and Michael always says, you know, you get one foot in front of the next, and sometimes that's all you can do.
Father Ron Rolheiser: I always say, you know, Bruce, that faith works this way. There's seasons when you walk on water and there's seasons, you sink like a stone <laugh>. And during those other seasons, you just sustain yourself. You keep doing it. It's pure stubbornness, you know, but that can be another word for fidelity. You see, I'm going to be faithful, you know, and if it kills me, and my, my older brother was a priest. He died now, but he used to say, if you die for a good reason, it's something you can live with.,
Bruce Adema: A wise man.
Father Ron Rolheiser: But, so just, I'll end with just the word, just the stubbornness. I'm called to do this and I'm going to do it.
Bruce Adema: Okay, well, God bless you, and you're continuing your ongoing service of the church and its Lord. So, I'm really grateful that you took the time to meet with all of us, and to share your insight and your faith and your hope.
Father Ron Rolheiser: I say something else about this last question. Which brings in Henri. One of the mentors who's helped me through this is Henri, precisely because he walked a complicated road, he'd fall in love and get clinically depressed and so on. You know, he showed us how you can do this. So one of the, the models of fidelity in my life is Henri. Mother Teresa was also a model of fidelity, but she's harder. I can't do Mother Teresa, but Henri has been a very big model. You can feel all this stuff and all this anguish and you can keep going, and you're going to come out the other side.
Bruce Adema: Alright, thank you. Thank you. Well, I've said thank you to you, Ron. I also want to say thank you to you, our listeners. If you're listening to this as an audio version, you can go to the Henrinouwen.org website and find a link there to the YouTube version of this conversation.
Bruce Adema: We'd like to smile on you as well. On the website, you can not only find the link to the podcast, you can also find information about the many different offerings of the Henri Nouwen Society, including our daily meditations. And there you can receive every morning a reminder that you are a beloved child of God. So, thank you for listening and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Goodbye.
