Fr. Richard Rohr speaks of contemplation, 'eternal now'

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

Our desire to pray is never self-initiated, says Franciscan Father Richard Rohr. It is always initiated first by God. Fr. Rohr spoke Feb. 12 at the annual St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center Aquinas Lecture. Fr. Rohr, writer and retreat master is founding director of the Center for Contemplation and Action in New Mexico. IC photo by Barbara Stinson Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — Writer and retreat master Franciscan Father Richard Rohr was in Salt Lake City this weekend to present the St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center annual Aquinas Lecture, bringing with him good news: "What really matters is everything, and our everything is God."

Fr. Rohr spoke Feb. 11 at St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center on the University of Utah Campus. Early word of the Aquinas Lecture, slated for Feb. 12, produced so much interest, organizers made the wise decision of changing the lecture’s venue to the Judge Memorial Catholic High School Auditorium. Fr. Rohr, whom it took three years to book, nearly filled the auditorium that seats more than 900.

At the heart of the "Journey to Discover What Really Matters," the title of Fr. Rohr’s Aquinas Lecture, is that "God is the one who has connected all things, and everything belongs," he said.

"The name ‘Catholic,’ was chosen by the people," Fr. Rohr said. "The early members of the church began calling themselves Catholic because they wanted their faith to encompass and concern everything."

Using an enjoyable combination of lecture, prayer, poetry, and humor, Fr. Rohr won over his large audience easily.

"If I leave you with anything," he said, "I want it to be how to live in the present moment and how to pay attention."

After 36 years of priesthood, Fr. Rohr said Catholicism tells people what to see – everything – but it doesn’t tell the faithful how to see it.

"Listen to Jesus," he said. "He doesn’t give the answers before the questions are asked."

Throughout the Scriptures, Jesus asked exactly 183 questions, Fr. Rohr said, but only answered three of them. "Jesus was not an answer-giver. He invited people on the journey, which became the Way of the Cross. It is the journey that is important. Answers without the journey are trivial."

Too often, the popular writer said, people don’t see things as they are, but as they (the people themselves) are; through lenses clouded by their agendas, their opinions and egos, and mind sets that will never change.

"The work of religion is seeing things as they really are," he said. "People who have suffered often know what matters and what doesn’t. They see things as they really are."

Fr. Rohr called for an end to analysis, critique, judgment, and labeling of others and of ourselves.

"That is how people gain power," said Fr. Rohr. "I often say that is what people who are really well educated are – they are well trained in being judgmental. All that gets in is what they already agree with; it answers their own need to be right, to not move beyond their own opinion. God offers us more than that."

The founder in 1986 of the Center for Contemplation and Action in Albuquerque, N.M., Fr. Rohr said contemplative prayer is possible for everyone. The work of saints and great Catholic thinkers like John Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Merton, was to hand on the fruits of contemplation, which is to look at life through lenses cleaned of the clouds of ego and judgment.

Quoting Albert Einstein, "a secular mystic," Fr. Rohr said, "no problem can be solved by the same mind that caused the problem in the first place," adding that problems exist in politics and the Church that cannot be solved by the people who caused them.

"Jesus gave us the term ‘metanoia’ encouraging us to go beyond the mind."

He said he is convinced 90 percent of human thought is repetitious and useless. Jesus calls his followers to go beyond the "neural grooves" in which we are stuck, invest in "the beauty of the Gospel," and "see through the eyes of God."

While Dominicans embraced the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr. Rohr said, Franciscans followed the thought of John Duns Scotus, who wrote that God didn’t create universals, only individuals chosen by God to exist to give glory to God.

Fr. Rohr urged those present to, "Give back to God who you really are – there’s no need to think of yourself as more or less than you are."

He said contemplative seeing is careful and guided by a relationship with Jesus. "Talk to Jesus as if he is present in the room. See with a new pair of eyes – not our eyes, which are too small and have blinders on them – but see with the eyes of prophets and mystics… Don’t be afraid to change because God wants so much more."

Giving some basic instructions in contemplative prayer, he said to make some quiet time to be aware of God and observe your own stream of consciousness. "You will become aware that every 30 seconds or so the same thoughts will return to your mind. Open your mind up to new thoughts God is putting there… Our desire for prayer is never self-initiated. It is only initiated by God."

On the eve of his every-three-years Lenten hermitage experience, Fr. Rohr urged listeners not to fear collapsing into the true self "in the beloved arms of God… don’t keep replaying past hurts, failing to forgive, don’t stay in that ‘victim state’ groove that creates so many angry people… Don’t be satisfied with obsessive-compulsive worry and anxiety. Dwell in what we call the Sacrament of the Presence of God – the eternal now."