Eager to love

by Richard Rohr

Richard Rohr focuses his attention on all frames and doorways to the divine--the alternative way of Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi, one of the most beloved of all saints, was at once very traditional and entirely revolutionary in the ways of holiness. As a standing paradox, he both stood barefoot on the earth and yet touched the heavens; he was grounded in the church and yet instinctively moved toward the cosmos; he lived happily inside the visible and tangible, and yet both suffered and rejoiced in the invisible. Rohr places the tradition as first practiced by Francis, and subsequently by others, within a context for the uninitiated audience. This is not a historical accounting, but rather a perspective about how the alternative orthodoxy can deepen spiritual life for anyone, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, secular, or spiritual seeker. Eager to Love is grounded in the Gospels, the prophets, a broad blend of psychology and theology, and in literature and art, to continue to communicate through all the sources that articulate specific alternative ways of understanding God with us.