On the Threshold of Transformation: Daily Meditations for Men

Loyola Press

2010

$14.95

380 pages

Something has gone terribly wrong when a Catholic parish with wise leadership, vibrant liturgies, consistently challenging homilies, and over sixty active lay ministries reports a weekly attendance of 20-25 percent of registered parishioners. 

In On the Threshold of Transformation, Franciscan Father Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, offers the clearest connect-the-dots reasons yet for our current Roman Catholic ennui: absence of a focused male spirituality and disinterest among church leaders for encouraging men to develop their unique inner lives. His solution? Churches must "validate, encourage, structure, and teach men an inner life." 

What is at stake if churches continue to stand on the sidelines and simply watch as disenfranchised men drift away? Rohr's high-alert warning is, "I'm not sure what the church's reason for continued existence might be."

For generations, traditional parish ministry has promoted a unisex spirituality, one designed even to meet women's needs better than men's. Connect the dots. Rohr has made it a central work of his ministry to identify men's particular spiritual needs. In his latest book, he draws a year-long roadmap of one-page meditations, challenges, and journaling prompts that free men to honor their distinctly male way of being with God. 

On Day 363, he offers a summary statement: "At the heart of male spirituality is the knowledge that we are imperfect, that we come to God not by doing it right, but ironically and wonderfully by doing it wrong!" In a grave assessment of parishes' failure to promote male spirituality, he says, "More transformation is taking place . . . with things like twelve-step meetings, than in Sunday morning sanctuaries."  

On the Threshold of Transformation is a book that needs to be in the hands of every Catholic priest and every adult male parishioner--now. We can only hope it is not too late.

Epiphany: Visit of a Wise Woman

I can't let this first week of 2011 (Epiphany Week in the Catholic calendar) evolve into the second week without saying a grateful farewell to a wise woman whose daily inspirations guided me through 2010. I'm referring to Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, whose daily scriptural commentaries enhanced my use and appreciation of last year's edition of The Bible Diary. I've been using this series for the past six years--jotting reflections and insights, marking personal and family highs and lows, reminding myself to pray for people and causes.

The 2010 diary was by far the best, and for that I credit the earthy wisdom and spiritual insight of one of the sanest minds in American Catholicism today. Joan could say in three sentences what other writers--including myself--require paragraphs to capture. Thank you, Joan. I already miss you. The men who provided the daily commentaries for this year's edition can't match you, either in wisdom or in brevity.