Book Review by Jon M. Sweeney, Spirituality and Practice

(Used with permission)

I can count on a few fingers the classics of spirituality in aging. One was Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s From Age-ing to Sage-ing, which we reviewed 30 years ago. Schachter-Shalomi wrote that book when he was already known as one of the wisest living teachers of his tradition. Now we have something similar from Fr. Ron Rolheiser, regarded by many as one of the wisest living teachers of his tradition.

You may know Rolheiser from previous books, which include The Holy Longing. His publisher is positioning this new one as a sequel to that earlier bestseller, which makes sense from a marketing point of view. But this book is something all its own.

The organization — and progression — is brilliant, from “The Seasons of Our Lives” (Part One) to “The Final Stages of Human Maturity” (Part Two), to “Looking for a Beggar’s Hut, Leaving the Forest, and Giving Our Deaths Away” (Part Three), and finally “A Paradigm for Human and Spiritual Transformation” (Part Four).

You may have guessed from the title of Part Three that this Catholic priest does not limit himself to Christian sources for his teaching on aging. In fact, we find him gleaning from Eastern tradition ideas — and then finding that Christian sources, such as Saint Benedict, Julian of Norwich, and the words of Jesus in the Gospels, resonate with them. This doesn’t come as a surprise, since Rolheiser explained in the preface: “Except for a few salient exceptions, Christian spirituality has failed to develop an explicit spirituality for our later years, for how we are meant to be generative in a new way in our senior years and how we are meant to die in a way that is life-giving to others.”

Many Catholic readers will turn eagerly to the chapter about heaven and hell, “Thoughts on the Afterlife,” looking for fresh insight. Are these real places we visit after death? Are they metaphorical, referring to this present life? Curious readers won’t be disappointed. There’s a mixture of the traditional with the original in this section, including a promise that “there can be conversion of heart, forgiveness, and reconciliation with others even after death.”

This is a rich book of teaching, written in the most honest, straightforward, and conversational of styles. And Rolheiser’s devoted readers know that he’s been battling cancer off and on for over a decade, and that there have recently been complications — making the timing of this volume all the more on-topic. Still, you needn’t be Christian to find much to ponder here.

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