evangelical 360°

Ep. 41 / Bridging Catholic and Evangelical Spirituality ► Ronald Rolheiser

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 41

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Father Ronald Rolheiser, renowned Catholic theologian and best-selling author, offers profound insights into Christian spirituality that transcend denominational boundaries. When asked to define spirituality, Rolheiser provides both practical and theoretical frameworks: "Spirituality is the game, not just the rulebook," he explains, describing it simply as "what we do with our spirit" – how we channel the deep longing within us.

A fascinating distinction emerges between "Jesus" and "Christ" – not as first and last names, but as complementary spiritual realities. "We need to learn from evangelicals about Jesus, and evangelicals need to learn from mainline churches about Christ," Rolheiser suggests. This perspective illuminates how evangelicals excel at fostering intimate personal relationships with Jesus while Catholics often emphasize the ongoing mystical reality of Christ's presence through the church community.

The conversation explores Rolheiser's "four pillars of spiritual life" – personal morality and charity, social justice, community participation, and having a "mellow heart." This final pillar proves particularly thought-provoking, as Rolheiser connects it to the elder brother in the prodigal son parable who does everything "right" but remains too bitter to join the celebration. "You can be doing everything right and it can still all be wrong," he cautions.

When discussing spiritual disciplines, Rolheiser borrows wisdom from Dietrich Bonhoeffer about marriage: "Today you're in love and think your love will sustain your marriage, but it won't. Your marriage can sustain your love." Similarly, spiritual rituals and habits carry us through periods when emotions fade. This reframes potentially "legalistic" practices as faithful persistence – showing up regardless of feelings.

Perhaps most encouraging is Rolheiser's conviction that the gulf between Catholics and evangelicals is "much less than we imagine" – merely "500 years of misunderstanding." He shares Pope Francis's surprising statement: "I have no interest in converting evangelicals," reflecting a mutual respect that allows traditions to learn from each other without demanding conversion. This conversation offers a powerful vision for how different Christian traditions can enrich one another while maintaining their distinctive voices. 

You can learn more from Ronald Rolheiser through his website and books and you can find him on Facebook.

And don't forget to share this episode using hashtag #Evangelical360 and join the conversation online! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, brian Stiller, and I'm pleased to share with you another conversation I have with leaders, changemakers and influencers those impacting Christian life around the world. We'd love for you to be a part of the podcast by sharing this episode. Use hashtag Evangelical360 and join the conversation on YouTube. My guest today is Father Ronald Ruhlheiser, a renowned Catholic priest, writer, speaker and theologian. As a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, father Rolheiser has spent decades helping people navigate the deep longings of the soul. His best-selling books, including the Holy Longing, the Search for Christian Spirituality in Sacred Fire, a Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Mat, christian maturity, have resonated with Christians across traditions. Today, we'll discuss the growing hunger for spirituality in our time and what evangelicals can learn from our Catholic siblings and their spiritual traditions. Ron Rollheiser, thank you for joining us today on Evangelical 360.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Thank you for having me, Brian Thanks.

Brian Stiller:

Ron, you have become a global voice for understanding spirituality, that ubiquitous phrase that seems to sweep across so many ideas and movements and voices. But as we begin today, maybe we best start with give me a definition of Christian spirituality.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Okay, brian, I can give you a theoretical definition. I'm going to give you a practical one first. You know, okay, discipleship. If you look at discipleship of Jesus, like when you look at all the theology we have, it's like the rules for a game. I'm a systematic theologian. It tells you how you do theology, but spirituality is the game. It's almost like soccer. You have rules but the game is placed by the rules. Spirituality is the game.

Ronald Rolheiser:

That's a practical definition, theoretically, the way I define it in the Holy Longing. It's what we do with our spirit. We all have a spirituality. It doesn't have to be a churchy spirituality, but whatever you do with all the longing and stuff inside of you, that is your spirituality. And as you saw in the book, if you saw the book Holy Longing, I contrast three people. Like somebody like Mother Teresa she's a spiritual figure, you know. And you look at somebody like Janice Joplin, the rock star. We don't look at her as a spiritual figure, but that was her spirituality which eventually actually killed her. Or then I contrast somebody like Princess Diana, who's half Mother Teresa, half rock star. That's her spirituality. Spirituality isn't first of all something you do in church, it's the way you live out your soul, the fire inside of you live out your soul, the fire inside of you.

Brian Stiller:

Ron your book the Holy Longing the Search for a Christian Spirituality. That book received an unprecedented response from people around the world. Were you surprised by that kind of response?

Ronald Rolheiser:

Yes, I was. You know, especially. You know publishing religiously, you know being. You know publishing religiously. You know, if you write a book and you get a religious publisher, if you sell 10 or 20,000, that's a success. This thing went viral. I mean, I think it's up to about 800,000 copies, you know. So it was a surprise, but it hit a vein. It just hit the right vein surprised, but it hit a vein.

Brian Stiller:

It just hit the right vein. Ron, you and I are boys of the same generation, born and raised in the Western Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Our lives kind of parallel. You went into Catholic ministry and I went into Protestant ministry, but your life has centered around helping people understand what that spirituality is about. What do you think is abroad, in our culture that breeds this interest in people's lives for something that is interior, that's deeper, that's more profound, that's more satisfying? What is what's creating that in your experience?

Ronald Rolheiser:

A double thing, brian. One of them is them is, first of all, it's inside of us. Remember saint augustine's famous line where saint augustine said you've made our hearts for yourself, lord our hearts and the rest of them, they rest in you. So everybody's going to be, you know. But see, spirituality, um, today, a lot of people you've heard this expression they say I'm spiritual but not religious. So our churches tend to struggle, um, and that that's the downside. The upside is, people say they're still going to try to learn spirituality. That's what is a big interest. The numbers in our churches are dropping, but spirituality isn't dropping, you know. So it's a compensation, partly healthy and partly not healthy, you know, in terms of you've heard that expression many times I'm spiritual but not religious, which means I can do spirituality, I can't do a church, which means I can do spirituality I can't do a church.

Brian Stiller:

Is the church sensing that need and responding to it in ways that you find are satisfying or meaningful to people in their search for something deeper and more fulfilling?

Ronald Rolheiser:

Yes and no, brian, I tell you. You know, today a church is a wide definition. Take your own congregation, the denomination. Some people yes, some people are moving the opposite direction. You know that, instead of going, they're trying to pull back and re-entrench more, and that's in all of the churches. There's a deep split in the churches, some of which are trying to move and incorporate into spirituality. Others are saying we've got to pull back, we've got to re-entrench, we've got to get more fundamentalistic about this. It's true in Catholicism, I'm sure it's true in your denomination.

Brian Stiller:

Ron, my father was a Pentecostal pastor in Saskatchewan. Pastor in Saskatchewan and with my buddies who were Catholic in elementary and high school and university, it seemed to me that my spirituality was more alive and vibrant and leading to self-discovery beyond what I saw in their lives. And yet here I'm coming back to you as a Pentecostal evangelical, asking you, a Catholic, about spirituality. It seems to be an interesting progress. So I'm wondering what can I learn from you as a Catholic about spirituality, when it seems that my life was built around spirituality as its very crux, as its very essence of what we believed Very good question.

Ronald Rolheiser:

I want to venture something there. You know we have different strengths. So when you're saying when you were a child, you know your faith in Jesus seemed much more alive than the Catholics, it doesn't surprise me at all. See, right now, you know, I'm teaching a doctoral program here we have a lot of evangelical students, a lot of Roman Catholics and so on, and I'm noticing a difference. The strength of evangelicals is precisely their aliveness, their kind of that intimacy with Jesus and so on, which we need to learn from. You know, for instance, your congregations tend to be much younger. You can get people on fire. You know Roman Catholicism, the mainline Protestantism, we struggle with that. Our strength is more the sustaining. So I'll give you an example. We have a number of evangelical ministers who come here to do our doctoral program and they come for that reason.

Ronald Rolheiser:

We have a young man. He started 26 churches. He met his wife in Africa. He said I needed help in sustaining. I know how to start it. I know how to get people fired. You know he came to want to learn about dark nights of the soul and different things. How do you sustain this over 40 or 50 years? And that's where we need to learn from each other. I'm learning a lot from evangelicals in terms of even giving an expression we use the word.

Ronald Rolheiser:

I want to put something very simple. We need to learn from the evangelicals about Jesus, and evangelicals need to learn from the main churches about Christ. That's not just Jesus' second name, see. In evangelicalism, the intimacy, one-to-one relationship with Jesus is so central, and that's John's gospel, john's entire gospel is there are no rules. You need to be one-to-one intimacy with Jesus.

Ronald Rolheiser:

You know, see, but Christ isn't Jesus' second name, it's Jesus, the Christ. You know, see. So you're not part of the body of Jesus, you're part of the body of Christ, which is the corporate thing, which brings in many other things. You know and see, that's one of our strengths, but one of our weaknesses. We're not enough about Jesus. One of our weaknesses we're not enough about Jesus that in Catholicism or mainline religion, sometimes Jesus becomes a philosophy. He becomes an ethics, a philosophy of ethics, but doesn't become a person. See, jesus is a person that you relate to. You know, one to one. Jesus wants the friendship. Jesus wants you to be his lover. You know one-to-one Jesus wants the friendship. Jesus wants you to be his lover. You know, see, and that's been weaker in the mainline churches and much stronger in Pentecostalism, but just the evangelical tradition. You know, I'm convinced we need to learn from each other.

Brian Stiller:

Ron, I love this quote in your book the Holy Longing. Let me just quote it. You say the central mystery within all of Christianity, undergirding everything else, is the mystery of the incarnation. Unfortunately, it is also the mystery that is the most misunderstood or, more accurately, to coin a phrase, under under understood. It is not so much that we misunderstand what the incarnation means, it is more that we grasp only the smallest tip of a great iceberg. We miss its meaning by not seeing its immensity. You're saying, then, that our spirituality is really our walk with Christ.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Yeah for a Christian, yes, but walk with Christ. You know, I'm getting more as I'm getting older. In writing, I'm getting very cautious how I use the words, when I use Jesus, when I use Christ, when I use Jesus Christ. You know, see, jesus is a person where we link to Jesus is a friend, and so on, and link to Jesus is a friend and so on, and he's also died for us and so on. But Christ is a mystery. The incarnation, which didn't stop, see, when I talk about it's under understood. I think the common sense thing is that when Jesus ascended into heaven 40 years after he left the planet, but see, jesus did, but Christ didn't Like. St Paul says we are the body of Christ on earth. So he doesn't say we're like a body, or he doesn't say we replaced Jesus, we're Christ's body, see, and that goes on. Like you're still giving flesh to Christ, i're still giving flesh to Christ. I'm still giving flesh to Christ, you know and see, and that, as you can see, the holy longing has immense implications, you know. So, for instance, one of the examples I give in there so, for instance, if you forgive somebody, you're part of the body of Christ, they're forgiven, they're touching the body of Christ. I say that to parents. A lot of people today their kids don't go to church. They'll tell me what can I do with my kids? Keep loving them, keep attached to them. They can't be lost. You're the body of Christ, they're connected to you, they're connected to Christ. Body of Christ. They're connected to you, they're connected to Christ. Remember that powerful quote in Scripture where the woman of the hemorrhage says if I just sneak up and touch this garment, I'll be healed. She touches, she's healed. You're that garment, you're part of that garment. So that Jesus gave us immense power. See everything Jesus left behind for us to do. See, that's part of the mystery of Christ. It's interesting.

Ronald Rolheiser:

I got a lot of pushback on the chapter. I'll give you an example. Some man wrote. He says how can you say that you can forgive sins? Only Christ can forgive sins. Well, he's answering his own question. You are the body of Christ. You know he's right. Only Christ can forgive sins. But you are part of the body of Christ. So is every believer, and that, first of all, is immensely consoling. It gives you immense power. You know, do you have kids? You can say my habit includes them.

Brian Stiller:

They're connected to you, they're connected to the body of Christ, whether they're going to church or not your line that Christ is not the second name of Jesus is a great line, but it's immensely profound. What is Christ, what does it mean, and how does Christ we, the body, operate on this planet? What does that look like?

Ronald Rolheiser:

Let me start with. It's not his second name, see, they didn't have second names. He's Jesus, the son of Joseph, so is Jesus actually the Christ? He's Jesus the son of Joseph, so is Jesus actually the Christ? Christos, which means Christ, means the anointed one of God, that place on earth where God takes flesh. See, jesus was that place on earth where God has concrete flesh on earth. But see, jesus ascended into heaven 40 days after Easter. But the body of Christ is still here. It's here in all Christian believers, you know, and that's Pauline, we are the body of Christ, see, so you're still giving flesh to the mystery of Christ. Okay, and so, just to use those images, the woman in Scripture sneaks up and touch Christ's garment. She's healed. People touch you, they're healed. Your table is a church, your family is a monastery. It's a mystery which is incredible.

Ronald Rolheiser:

I gave you an example of a man who wrote to me and says I can't believe it. Only Christ can forgive sins. I wrote back and said well, you are the body of Christ. But some woman wrote and said well, you are the body of Christ. But some woman wrote me and said you know, I have seven children and none of them go to church. And if what you said is true, it's too good to be true. I said it's a wonderful definition of the incarnation. It's too good to be true. That's why we sing Christmas and Easter hymns. Remember, jesus says in John's Gospel I'm giving you all the power I have. I'm giving to you. You know I'm leaving it with you. So Jesus left us. Christ didn't.

Brian Stiller:

And that Christ reality is borne out by the actual presence of the Spirit who lives in our very personality and body. Is that the linkage you would make?

Ronald Rolheiser:

Yeah, the Spirit. But basically, when you were baptized, you become part of the body of Christ and so that when you love somebody, it's not just you, it's Christ that's loving this person. See that in that sense you are incarnating and incorporating God's presence and love. When you forgive somebody, God is forgiving that person. Like I said, it sounds incredible, it is because the Christian message is incredible, sounds incredible.

Brian Stiller:

It is because the Christian message is incredible. I was raised in the Pentecostal world. That really was a bit of a door opener to our understanding of the Spirit a hundred years ago, a new understanding, a fresh understanding, if you like, of the Spirit within the church, and so I have lived with that understanding of the Spirit in me, which is Christ, the kingdom, alive in me. But there is something about the ancient forms of spirituality that you talk about, especially when you talk about the four pillars of spiritual life. List those for me and give me a little bit of an exegesis of what you mean about the four pillars of spiritual life. List those for me and give me a little bit of an exegesis of what you mean by those four pillars. The second one surprised me as a pillar. But just list those and tell me a bit about them.

Ronald Rolheiser:

First of all, brian, today that's a great tension inside of our churches and among our churches about. You know what's important, what's the gospel? But what I say, that Jesus leaves us for non-negotiables, okay. So the first one is you have to be a person of private morality and private charity. If you're not a charitable person, you're not keeping the commandments. You can't pretend you're a disciple of Jesus. You're not keeping the commandments. You can't pretend you're a disciple of Jesus. Remember Jesus, if anybody loves me, they'll keep my word and that one we've always emphasized you're a church going Christian. But then the second one is the question of justice, and that's pretty clear.

Ronald Rolheiser:

I was in a class last night. To me one of the scariest texts in all of the Scripture is Matthew 25. Whatsoever you do text that's raw Jesus says you know you're going to be judged. Do you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and so on. See, that often gets left off. For instance, I can be a very nice man and personally charitable and not care about the poor. Vice versa, I can care about the poor and not be a very nice man. You've got to be both, you know, see.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Then the third thing is and that's the important thing is the question of community. You could say church, but you know, christianity is unique in this way. With Judaism too, we are a communitarian religion, which means Christianity is something you do with other people. You don't do Christianity alone. So you can be a Hindu alone, a Muslim alone, a Taoist alone. You don't have to go to temple, you can't. But when people say I'm spiritual but not religious, you know, see, christianity it's something you do with other people. We're called to come as a group. You know, the famous French philosopher, charles Piguet, said when you die, you're going to come in front of Jesus and he's going to ask you this question where are the others? Why are you here alone, see? That's the whole business of church, you know, or some kind of community. And then there's still a fourth one, which a lot of people have.

Ronald Rolheiser:

With all of this, you also have to have a mellow heart. See, I can be doing everything right and they can still all be wrong. And we have an example of that in Scripture. That's the older brother of the prodigal son. He's doing everything right and he's too angry to go into the house. You know the story, the older brother. See, you have to do all this. But you have to have a mellow heart and sometimes that's the aspect of Jesus we don't emphasize.

Ronald Rolheiser:

You know, jesus shocked and scandalized people with his capacity to enjoy life. Jesus shocked people. He never apologized for enjoying life, but there has to be a mellowness. So that's such a powerful example in Scripture of the older brother, the prodigal son. Remember. He tells his father I've stayed home, I've never done the sins, I've done all the work, but notice, he can't go to the house. The house is heaven, he is too bitter to go into his father's house, not because he's done anything wrong, but because there's anger, you know.

Ronald Rolheiser:

And then suddenly I got that from Gutierrez, the father of liberation theology. Remember as a young student reading this and being kind of shocked. So he says, you know, he said if you're living in North America and you feel bad about the poor, you feel guilty that you're. He said you want to come and help us. He said don't come. He said don't come. He said the third world has many problems, without importing your unhappiness, he says he. He said if you're a person's grateful, you're grateful. What god said come and live with us, said you have to have a mellow heart. Um, see, and that's a challenge, both for people who are, you know, proselytizing, you know, just, sometimes we're too angry, we're too bitter, or people in social justice in your face, and so on. Um, the cause is right, but the energy is all wrong, you know, see. So you have to have these three things, you know private morality, private relationship to jesus, concern for the poor, some kind of community, but also some mellowness, some some softness of heart that we're not a bitter, angry person.

Brian Stiller:

Ron, given the two traditions that we represent Catholic, Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical our theology was very much rooted in God manifesting himself through Jesus, and his salvation becomes mine by the acceptance. So, from an evangelical point of view, I'm born again by the Spirit of Christ, as I receive Christ into my life, and my life then is lived out in obedience to what the Scriptures say. In obedience to what the scriptures say. But there's an element of spirituality that you bring that's much more mysterious than the more self-evident doctrines and ways of living that I would have learned in my own youth and would be typically evangelical in its exposition youth and would be typically evangelical in its exposition. But you bring a certain mystery of God into my walk that's different to what I've experienced, to what I understand. Does that make any sense to you as you look at the difference between our two traditions?

Ronald Rolheiser:

Yes, let me take a risk. Those are good questions. See, you know Luther's thing about sola scriptura, only scripture. Okay, there's something very good about that, but the problem is it can also be too lean a diet. See, I'll use an image. I believe that Luther and Calvin and Swingley, they were so afraid of contaminants. You know, like the indulgences and all this stuff, that the danger is you put yourself on a diet with only antiseptics. You know You're never going to die of food poisoning, but sometimes, see, so you know what Some of the tradition we have.

Ronald Rolheiser:

You know, I'll teach it over the story. You know the young man who came here, evangelical, six, seven years ago, actually teaches at our faculty now. You know him and his wife had started 26 churches in Africa and he kind of burned out, very sincere, and he said but I needed trouble sustaining. So he came, but he wanted to study it. He wanted to study dark nights, mysticism, like what happens when you know God seems to disappear in your life. And how do you sustain the long haul? Well, first he found the mystics, but then he found it in Scripture. You know, it's not like the mystics. So then he wrote his thesis on wilderness in Scripture and so on.

Ronald Rolheiser:

See those themes, it's not like the mystics invented them. They are in Scripture but they're easy to miss. You know themes like wilderness and the silence of God and so on. They're there, but sometimes we need each other's traditions to help tease them out. You know and see Christianity we have 2,000 years of history, not all of it good, but a lot of it good. But you know, there's some deep wells we call them in our spiritual life. There's some deep wells to go in and study. You know of Christian mysticism, and also not just Roman Catholics, protestants and Evangelicals, you know. But it's interesting Usually when you find something in a and evangelicals.

Ronald Rolheiser:

You know, but it's interesting Usually when you find something in a great mystic, you'll also find it in Scripture. Like I teach courses on John of the Cross and the Dark Knight. Where is that in Scripture? Well, it's there in wilderness. It's there in desert themes. It's there in Jesus on the cross crying out why have you forsaken me? It's there in Good Friday, you know. See. So those themes, it's not like they're not in scripture, it's in scripture. But sometimes we need other help to tease that out. You know, brian, I'll tell you it's an interesting story. We started a PhD program here in spirituality 17 years ago.

Brian Stiller:

Well, Ron, let me just jump in there for our viewers. Just give me a thumbnail sketch of where you are and what you do and the nature of your school.

Ronald Rolheiser:

I'm at the Aubrey School of Theology in San Antonio, texas, which is a Roman Catholic seminary school. We teach seminarians. We probably have 125 seminarians that we teach here, but they're not half of our students. But we have different programs, masters. But we have two doctoral programs and one of them is you can do a doctorate in spirituality, and we're only one of two schools in North America the other one's in Toronto that is licensed by the ATS to do a doctorate in spirituality. But at any given time our students are one-third Roman, one-third Protestant, one-third evangelical. And this is the story I want to tell you In 17 years we've never had a single conversion.

Ronald Rolheiser:

We've never had anybody convert from one denomination to another, and we're happy about that. We've never had anybody convert from one denomination to another, and we're happy about that. But everybody has left more appreciative of their own denomination and more appreciative of every other denomination. See, that's. You know, every evangelical has left as an evangelical. Every Protestant has left as a Protestant, more appreciative of your own tradition but at the same time much more appreciative of all the other traditions. Because you know, spirituality is your common language. You know, like, see, ecclesiology and theology, we're going to meet our differences, spirituality and discipleship. You don't. What Jesus asks, it's the same for you, it's the same for me, it's the same for everybody. And that spirituality, it's the same for you, it's the same for me, it's the same for everybody.

Brian Stiller:

And that spirituality, it's the common language we have, and I believe it's where we're going to come together, ron. Let's move it now to what can a person do to deepen their walk with the Lord. Lord, out of your Catholic experience, what can you contribute to us in how I deepen my walk, my life with Christ, strengthen my walk, find a better understanding of the Christ who is in me and whose body is.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Christ here in this world. Let me suggest something there, and I'm going to begin with. Incidentally, tomorrow's the anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran priest and when he would marry a couple, perform a marriage, this was his homily. He'd always tell the couple today you're in love, you're very much in love, and you think your love will sustain your marriage, but it won't. But your marriage can sustain your love.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Now, what he's saying is this we won't sustain our faith through good feelings. Feelings come and go. For instance, if you're only going to pray when you feel like it, you're not going to pray very often, see. So we sustain and deepen our prayer through habit, through rituals. You know. So what I advise.

Ronald Rolheiser:

If I'm a spiritual director set yourself some spiritual disciplines. You know whether you know you're going to do some reading, you're going to do some scripture, you're going to do certain prayers and so on, or some prayer method, but you're going to do it. Or some prayer method, but you're going to do it whether you feel like it or not. You know, see all the great prayers they say the answer to the deep thing of all prayers is just to show up. It doesn't matter whether you feel like it or not, just to be there. See, and I think too often we try to sustain ourselves through our energy and our good feelings, but you won't.

Ronald Rolheiser:

You know, I use an expression which I got from Annie Lamott. She says that, like church, it's like visiting your grandmother. You don't do it because it means something to you, it means something to your grandmother. You go and you see Jesus. Like people say, I don't go to church. To church doesn't mean anything to me. You know well. It doesn't have to mean anything to you. You know some days it will, some days it won't. These things, they mean something themselves. So that the importance of setting certain spiritual disciplines, you know, and often times you can be helped by a good director. See some spiritual director and say here's a man, what?

Ronald Rolheiser:

do you?

Ronald Rolheiser:

advise. It's like seeing a health expert. Well, I want you to read 15 minutes of scripture, I want you to read some books by Henry Now, and I want you to do this. And I want you to sit for half an hour in private prayer every day, or at least five times a week. And then you form habits, and habits become our second nature. See, I think the mistake we make is the naivety of goodwill. God, I want to do something you know, and you sustain it. For it's like when I'm going to lose weight, you sustain it for two weeks and then it falls by the wayside. That's why I love that quote from Bonhoeffer. He said let your marriage sustain your love, Let your ritual sustain your discipleship. That's one of the things evangelicals are learning from us. We're learning a lot from them, and that is you know, how do you sustain yourself for 40 years? Through ritual practice, through showing up for things right.

Brian Stiller:

What's the difference, then, between the discipline and legalism? At what point does the discipline become legalistic?

Ronald Rolheiser:

That's a good question and it's a fine line. Okay, I'm going to throw it back to you if you can answer this. Okay, suppose your mother is in a senior's home okay, you're a dutiful son, okay, and you visit her five or six times a week because she's your mother. When is that discipline? When does it become legalistic? It's a fine line. No, you do it, she's your mother and that's what a son does and it's meaningful.

Ronald Rolheiser:

It can seem legalistic. I think it becomes legalistic and there we can learn from Jesus dealing with the Pharisees. Where you do something, you know you do it because it's the law, you know where. If you're visiting your mother, you're not doing it because somebody's obliging you to do it. It's a discipline, it's hard, and many days you'll notice she's your mother, notice there's no gun at your head, there's no threat of hellfire. Basically, then it's not legalistic. If some director says, unless you visit your mother five times a week, you're offending God, then it becomes legalistic, see, so the same action can be legalistic or it can simply be an act of fidelity.

Brian Stiller:

Ron, you've often talked about this long journey of transformation. It doesn't happen immediately. It happens over a period of a lifetime. You've been teaching this discipline for decades. What's the hardest thing that you've had to learn in being a teacher and a writer in spirituality?

Ronald Rolheiser:

That's a good question. I reflect on it a lot. I think sometimes it's going to sound simple, just the disappointment that people get turned on to your words but it doesn't change their lives. So people say, yeah, that's just wonderful. But now you know, I'm going to keep on living the way of you. Know that the words intrigue them, but you don't necessarily get the conversion that goes with it. You know, and you've probably experienced that too. People say, brian, that was just a wonderful, wonderful homily and I'm going to keep on living exactly as I lived before.

Brian Stiller:

There's a great gulf between the evangelical and the Catholic world for many. What would be a misconception that you'd like to set straight with evangelicals about catholics?

Ronald Rolheiser:

the first one is there's much less of a gulf than we imagine. See, the gulf is 500 years of misunderstanding okay, of misunderstanding, you know? Um well, I'll use my own story. I grew up in West Central Saskatchewan and we didn't have Evangelicals there. We had Roman Catholics and Lutherans and some Anglicans and so on. So I had no experience of Evangelicals really, and I didn't really until I came here and began teaching here and this is a lot of Evangelicals to me. It was an eye-opener. And after 15 or 20 years here I realized there isn't that much of a gulf.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Same with evangelicals. They're surprised that we're not that weird to each other. In the end we're all about Jesus, we're both about Christ, and so on, so on. For instance, in the last three years I've probably been asked four or five times by an evangelical community we want you to come to our church or to our congress and we want you to give the talk on the Paschal Mystery that's in the Holy Longing, and they want that specific talk and they're intrigued. They said, god, this is great, this is scriptural, and so on, and sometimes're intrigued. They said, god, this is great, this is scriptural, and so on, and sometimes, right, I'm more popular in evangelical circles now than in Roman Catholic circles and vice versa.

Ronald Rolheiser:

You know Roman Catholics are reading a lot of. Are you familiar with a young woman sadly she died a few years ago called Rachel Held Evans Was an American, she died at age 37 from a reaction to an antibiotic. But young Evan Charles, she's one of the most brilliant. You know I read every book of hers and I wrote an obituary and I said this woman is a spiritual master. You know it's an evangelical. This woman is a spiritual master. You know it's an evangelical.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Or we've often had, for instance, we've had David Gushy speak at our school. Although the evangelicals don't always like him, they consider him post-evangelical. We have evangelical professors here. But Brian the gulf is much less than we imagine, although 500 years of misunderstanding are not easily broken down, but the good news, it's breaking down. You know there are a lot of Catholics who are pretty comfortable in evangelical settings. I'm one of them. I know a lot of evangelicals are getting more and more comfortable in Catholic settings, without the need to convert, without the need to move between churches. You know I can go to an evangelical service and sometimes do, and I thoroughly appreciate it.

Brian Stiller:

I had an interesting lunch with the current Pope a couple of years ago in Rome in the little hotel that he stays in in the Vatican, and we had a long conversation about a number of things, but what he said to me was Brian, I have no interest in converting evangelicals, he said now. He smiled and he said now some of my people here in the Vatican would not be pleased to hear that, but he was basically saying in terms of our understanding of sin and salvation, the effect of Christ in our lives, that he would understand what I have come to be as a follower of Christ he accepted as being legitimate and equal. It was a remarkable moment.

Ronald Rolheiser:

I would agree with that 100%. Remember when I said we haven't had a single conversion and we don't want a single conversion. See, we want people to more deeply appreciate their own tradition but at the same time to more deeply appreciate all the other traditions. So since I've come here I have learned to deeply appreciate a lot of evangelical traditions. You know I didn't. As a kid growing up in Saskatchewan, you know, with a catechism you were kind of a weird bunch, you know. And vice versa. You know a lot of evangelicals here. They're really comfortable with being in a Roman Catholic institution. You know there's no pressure on them. I agree with Hope 100%. Like you know, I'm not worried about eternal salvation. We're all baptized. That's the deep identity, you know. You know I like a little humor about it.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Do you remember the comedian Garrison Keillor from Minnesota? One of his lines he said you know I'm Pius Lutheran. He said I think I'm going to go to heaven. He said but what section? He said imagine in with the Mormons and there's no coffee. All of eternity will be coffee. But I don't think there's going to be different sections in heaven.

Ronald Rolheiser:

We're going to be different sections in heaven, we're going to be together.

Brian Stiller:

Ron, thank you so much for being with us today. Your book, the Holy Longing the Search for a Christian Spirituality that's a book that has been such a marvelous resource for me and a blessing to many, many, and I would encourage my viewers today to access this book, the Holy Longing by Ron Rolheiser. Ronald, thank you for being with us today on Evangelical 360, and blessings on your continued ministry and service to the King Jesus.

Ronald Rolheiser:

Okay, thanks, Brian, and come visit us sometime.

Brian Stiller:

Thank you, ron, for joining us today and for your insights on the importance of growing in spiritual maturity, and thank you for being a part of the podcast. Be sure to share this episode. Use hashtag Evangelical360, and join the conversation on YouTube. If you'd like to learn more about today's guest, check the show notes for links and info, and if you haven't already received my free e-book and newsletter, go to brianstillercom. Thanks again, until next time. Don't miss the next interview, be sure to subscribe to. Evangelical 360 on YouTube.