Transforming Our Pain, Not Transmitting It

What if the suffering we most wish to avoid could become the doorway to our deepest transformation? In December’s We Conspire series, we explore how Fr. Richard Rohr’s work invites us into a spirituality grounded through great love and great suffering — showing how the pain we do not transform, we will transmit. Through the wisdom of saints and mystics, developmental patterns of faith, and the practice of contemplation, Fr. Rohr charts a transformational path of moving from ego to soul, from illusion to the Real.

Fr. Richard Rohr writes that transformation so often unfolds when a person experiences great love or great suffering. [1] This becomes, for us, an entrance into transformation so that we can become better agents of love, living more full and beautiful lives. 

When we find ourselves having suffered greatly, Fr. Rohr warns that any pain we do not transform, we will transmit. [2] This transmission will ultimately leave us miserable, as we leave a trail of destruction in our path — hurting those we love — and continue to carry with us the burden of bitterness from the pain we experienced.

How do we transform our pain and not transmit it? Fr. Rohr, a Franciscan friar, returns often in his writings to how St. Francis of Assisi followed Christ and lived out the gospel. Pre-conversion, Francis longed to climb the social rungs of his day and become a knight. In today’s language, we might say that he was ruled and fueled by his ego. But when he experienced the humiliation of failure and became a prisoner of war — likely leading to a lifetime struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder — Francis opened his heart to be found by God. He dared to transform his pain. He committed himself to gospel living, as well as to poverty and joy. He slowly released himself from his attachments and preconceptions.

As Francis transformed his pain, he learned that life was not about upward mobility; the gospel invited him to go downward: toward the poor and the “other” and into the margins of both his society and his heart that cried out for transformation. Fr. Rohr often returns to other mystics and saints who similarly model a path of transformation amid suffering: St. John of the Cross in his “dark night of the soul,” St. Teresa of Avila’s “interior castle” of awakening to union with Christ, or St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s “little way.” 

In transforming what we would otherwise transmit, Fr. Rohr’s many works are filled with developmental models and universal patterns for guidance. There is the wisdom pattern — order, disorder, and reorder — where reorder guides us to a renewed way of life. [3] One of his most popular models is the two halves of life — the egocentric mode of doing that often animates the first half and the invitation to adopt a soulful presence in the second — along with “the fall” (or necessary suffering) that leads to our potential growth. [4] Another ancient model Fr. Rohr helped popularize is the Enneagram, nine interconnected personality types that help people to become aware of their core fears and core desires, an awareness that can propel a person to move toward health and integration. [5] Fr. Rohr further explored Thomas Merton’s notion of the “true self” (a person’s identity in God) and “false self” (the masks a person constructs out of fear or pride) through shadow work or the unmasking of the false self. [6]  

Fr. Rohr reminds readers throughout his work that when it comes to the movement of transformation, “everything belongs”: Order and disorder are both necessary for reorder; the first half of life for the second half; the false self for deepening into the true self. Fr. Rohr writes, “[St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s little way] is the spirituality of imperfection; that we come to God not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong.” [7] 

The thread running through all these models is contemplation: seeing the Real. We could remain in disorder, in our primary fears, in the first half of life, in the false self, or we could let great love and great suffering break us open to become who we are and accept what Reality is. Whereas great suffering so often invades our lives without invitation, contemplation becomes especially important in our continual experience of great love and, thus, our constant conversion and transformation.  

Fr. Rohr invites us to see the Real as a positive, hope-filled universe always there for us to experience. In other words, love is the foundation of everything. Great love is always there to transform us. Contemplation helps us to see what is already true of ourselves, others, and reality.  

“Transformation, or salvation,” Fr. Rohr writes, “is so much more than a favor that Jesus effects for certain individuals in a heavenly ledger somewhere. It is a full map for a very real human journey… Authentic Christianity is not so much a belief system as a life-and-death system that shows you how to give away your life, how to give away your love, and eventually how to give away your death.” [8] 

Reflect with Us  
Fr. Richard Rohr’s teaching shows how great love and great suffering can usher us into a larger, truer life. When we dare to face our pain with honesty and tenderness, we interrupt the cycle of passing our wounds along to others. In that slow work of transformation, even what once felt like failure or heartbreak can become a doorway into deeper freedom.

What pain in your life might be inviting you — not to push it away or pass it on — but to bring it into prayer, companionship, and contemplative healing? Share your reflection with us. 

References:  
[1] Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (Crossroad Publishing, 2009), 122–128. 

[2] Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer (Paulist Press, 2014), 78–80. 

[3] Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder (Franciscan Media, 2020).  

[4] Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011). 

[5] Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001). 

[6] Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond (Jossey-Bass, 2013). 

[7] Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Orbis Books, 2018), 234. 

[8] Rohr, The Universal Christ (Convergent Books, 2019), 20212–213.