Sacred Fire

Sacred Fire – Ron Rolheiser

My favorite author of devotions. In fact, if I’m brutally honest, Catholic Priest Father Ron Rolheiser is about it the only devotional author that I enjoy when it comes to Christianity and spirituality.  No one speaks to my soul with quite the same punch and feeling.  Rolheiser is an author whose work, thankfully, is scattered amongst the interwebs and he (at least at one time) would pen daily or weekly devotions. Since he’s Catholic, Father Ron isn’t limited to ‘only’ what the Bible says. Sure, he reveres the Bible as God’s word, but like so many of the early church fathers and mystics, he knows that God has so much more to offer that what is in scripture.

Sacred Fire is a book about maturing as a believer. It’s a ‘part two’ of a series I believe, but Rolheiser’s musings don’t need to follow a sort of linear framework. This is a book that I can’t recommend to someone for any particular reason. It’s just a joy to read.  This is a book that you can pick up and read one chapter, but the book down for a month, and then pick back up without remembering anything that you previously read.  Each chapter (or even section) is adequate to read by itself.  Sometimes a book doesn’t have to have a ‘point’ or a ‘purpose’ and even though this book has both, it’s a bit refreshing knowing that you can read it in such an undisciplined way.  I seem to recall I ‘finished’ it about six months after I started, yet I still loved it.

Try this if you’re a Christian (you don’t need to be a Catholic):  Pick up one of Rolheiser’s books and read any chapter (kind of like what many say you can do with the Bible).  Don’t read it alone. Read it out loud with other believers.  My guess is that many in the room will exclaim “wow!” after a few paragraphs.  No one seems to understand the character of God and the fallenness of man better than this author.  His tone is incredibly gentle and loving.  This is not a book where you feel as though you’re being beaten over the head because you’re a “miserable sinner” who isn’t good enough and better be thankful that God is merciful.  No, this is an author who speaks to you in a tone that feels as though you’re being hugged by God while reading.

There’s an awful lot of good stuff here.  As a Christian, it honestly doesn’t surprise me how many people discount the faith because of those who are supposed to mirror Christ yet never seem to grasp how important that is.  If more lived their lives like Father Ron instructs us, people would like Christians a lot more.  We would probably like ourselves much better as well.