Author Guide · Christian Mysticism
Books Written by
Richard Rohr entered the Franciscan order in 1961, at eighteen, and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1970. A year later he started the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, a Christian community, and in 1987 he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to found the Center for Action and Contemplation. His subject has stayed the same for more than fifty years: contemplation, the Christian mystics, and how faith changes as a person grows older. His books have been read far outside the Catholic Church, and in 2011 PBS called him one of the most popular spirituality authors in the world. This guide covers his 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1999–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Richard Rohr’s best-known books are Falling Upward (2011), about the two halves of life, The Universal Christ (2019), a New York Times bestseller, The Naked Now (2009), on non-dual thinking, and Everything Belongs (1999). Start with Falling Upward; read on for the order of his eleven key books and where his ideas lead.
Where to Start with Richard Rohr
If you want his most widely read book
→ Falling Upward (2011) — the spirituality of the second half of life.
If you want his ideas on non-dual thinking
→ The Naked Now (2009) — seeing as the mystics see.
If you want his big theological argument
→ The Universal Christ (2019) — Christ as the presence of God in all things.
If you want an introduction to contemplative prayer
→ Everything Belongs (1999).
11 Richard Rohr Books, in Order
Everything Belongs
Rohr’s introduction to contemplative prayer, which he presents less as a technique than as a way of seeing. Contemplation, he argues, means meeting reality as it is without first sorting it into good and bad, so that nothing, including failure and suffering, has to be thrown out. A revised edition followed in 2003.
Adam’s Return
Drawing on male initiation rites across cultures, Rohr argues that modern men grow up without ever being initiated into adult manhood. He sums up what the old rites taught in five hard messages: life is hard, you are not that important, your life is not about you, you are not in control, and you are going to die.
Things Hidden
A book on how to read the Bible. Rohr treats Scripture as a record of people slowly growing in their understanding of God, with steps forward and steps back, rather than a single flat rulebook, and reads it through the lens of Jesus and of his own Franciscan tradition.
The Naked Now
His book on non-dual thinking. Rohr argues that the ordinary dualistic mind works by comparing, judging and dividing, which is useful for practical life but cannot grasp God, love or death. He draws on Christian mystics and contemplatives to describe a way of seeing that takes in the present moment whole, and makes the case that this was always part of the Christian tradition.
Breathing Under Water
Rohr reads the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous alongside the Gospels, one chapter per step. His starting point is that everyone is addicted to something, if only to their own habitual way of thinking, and that the steps describe the same surrender and healing the Gospels do.
Falling Upward
Published by Jossey-Bass, it is his most widely read book. Rohr argues that the first half of life is spent building an identity, a reputation and a set of rules, and that the second half begins when that structure fails or no longer fits. Failure and loss, in his account, are how people “fall upward” into a freer, truer self. He uses the story of Odysseus as a frame.
Immortal Diamond
A follow-up to Falling Upward about the difference between the false self, built from roles and image, and the true self, which Rohr sees as the part of a person that is already one with God.
Eager to Love
Rohr’s book about his own order’s founder and tradition. He presents Francis and Clare of Assisi, and later Franciscan thinkers such as Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus, as an “alternative orthodoxy” within Catholicism that puts practice, poverty, creation and love ahead of doctrinal argument.
The Divine Dance
Written with Mike Morrell, it takes the doctrine of the Trinity as a description of God as relationship and flow rather than a puzzle about three and one. Rohr argues that this picture of God should also change how people relate to each other and to the world, including, he writes, the top-down hierarchy he sees in the churches.
The Universal Christ
His most ambitious and most debated book, and a New York Times bestseller in 2019. Rohr argues that “Christ” is not Jesus’s surname but the name for God’s presence in all of creation from the beginning, with Jesus as its incarnation in one human life. Catholic critics have argued that the distinction between Jesus and Christ departs from orthodox teaching.
The Tears of Things
Published by Convergent in March 2025, it reads the Hebrew prophets as a pattern for living through anger at injustice. Rohr traces how the prophets move from outrage and accusation through grief to compassion, calls this “sacred criticism”, and argues that Jesus followed the same path.
In What Order to Read Richard Rohr
None of Rohr’s books depends on another, and many return to the same handful of ideas: contemplation, the false and true self, non-dual seeing and the Franciscan tradition. Publication order mainly shows a widening scope, from prayer and men’s spirituality in the 1990s and 2000s to the Bible, the self and finally the nature of Christ and the prophets.
Falling Upward and Immortal Diamond read well as a pair, as do Everything Belongs and The Naked Now. Leave The Universal Christ until you know his vocabulary, since it builds on ideas from the earlier books.
A reading path
1. Falling Upward (2011)
2. Everything Belongs (1999)
3. The Naked Now (2009)
4. Immortal Diamond (2013)
5. The Universal Christ (2019)
Everything Else Richard Rohr Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 16 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early books, men’s spirituality and the Bible
7
7 books · 1986–2005
- 1986Wild Man’s Journeyreflections on male spirituality, revised 1996
- 1989Why Be Catholic?on Catholic experience and tradition
- 1991Simplicityon the freedom of letting go
- 1994Quest for the Grailsoul work and the sacred journey
- 1996Job and the Mystery of Sufferinga reading of the Book of Job
- 2004Soul Brothersmen in the Bible, with art by Louis Glanzman
- 2005From Wild Man to Wise Manreflections on male spirituality
Meditations and shorter books
9
9 books · 1993–2020
- 1993Radical Gracedaily meditations, edited by John Bookser Feister
- 2008Preparing for Christmasdaily meditations for Advent
- 2010Wondrous EncountersScripture for Lent
- 2013Yes, And…daily meditations built on the themes of the Living School
- 2014Silent Compassionfinding God in contemplation
- 2015What the Mystics Knowseven pathways to the deeper self
- 2016A Spring Within Usa year of daily meditations
- 2017Just Thisprompts and practices for contemplation
- 2020The Wisdom Patternorder, disorder, reorder
The years · 1943–2025
Quick facts about Richard Rohr
- Known for
- Teaching contemplative, non-dual Christianity in the Franciscan tradition to a readership far beyond the Catholic Church.
- 1943
- Born in Topeka, Kansas
- 1970
- Ordained a Franciscan priest
- 1987
- Founds the Center for Action and Contemplation
- 2011
- Falling Upward
- Born
- 20 March 1943, Topeka, Kansas
- Order
- Franciscan friar from 1961; ordained a Catholic priest in 1970
- Education
- Master of Theology, University of Dayton, 1970
- Founded
- New Jerusalem Community, Cincinnati (1971); Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque (1987)
- Teaching
- Founding director of the Living School for Action and Contemplation
- Later years
- Stepped back from public ministry in 2022 after a lymphoma diagnosis
The red mark is 2011: Falling Upward, his book on the two halves of life and his most widely read.
How Richard Rohr Writes: The Preacher on the Page
Several of Rohr’s books began as talks, retreats and recorded teaching, and they still read like a preacher speaking to a room: short chapters, direct address, phrases repeated until they stick. He returns to the same few ideas again and again, the false and true self, the two halves of life, order and disorder, and a small vocabulary of his own coinages, such as “falling upward” and “the naked now”.
His sources are broad. He quotes the Bible alongside the Christian mystics, Franciscan theologians such as Bonaventure and Duns Scotus, Jungian psychology and the twelve steps, and he co-wrote books on the Enneagram with Andreas Ebert. Much of his theology is put as a contrast between two ways of seeing, the dualistic mind that divides and the contemplative mind that holds things together, which is the subject of The Naked Now.
That approach places him close to teachers of non-duality outside Christianity, though he insists on a Christian frame. For readers who want to follow the same thread, see the guides to Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle, or to the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, an earlier Catholic writer on contemplation.
Watch
Richard Rohr on Embracing the Fire of Transformation
In a 2024 Daily Meditations video from the Center for Action and Contemplation, Rohr talks about biblical fire as something that refines rather than punishes.
Frequently asked questions about Richard Rohr’s books
How many books has Richard Rohr written?
More than thirty, counting books of daily meditations and short collections. This page covers his 11 key books, from Everything Belongs (1999) to The Tears of Things (2025), and lists 16 more under “Everything Else”.
What are Richard Rohr’s books in order?
The key books are Everything Belongs (1999), Adam’s Return (2004), Things Hidden (2008), The Naked Now (2009), Breathing Under Water (2011), Falling Upward (2011), Immortal Diamond (2013), Eager to Love (2014), The Divine Dance (2016), The Universal Christ (2019) and The Tears of Things (2025).
Where should I start with Richard Rohr?
Falling Upward (2011): it is his most widely read book and introduces the ideas the others build on. If you are more interested in prayer and practice, start with Everything Belongs.
What is Richard Rohr’s most famous book?
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (2011). The Universal Christ (2019), a New York Times bestseller, is the most discussed of his later books.
What is The Naked Now about?
Non-dual thinking. Rohr argues that the everyday mind divides experience into opposites, which works for practical matters but not for God, love or suffering, and that the Christian mystics practised a different, contemplative way of seeing. The book is his fullest treatment of the subject.
What does Falling Upward mean?
Rohr’s phrase for the way failure, loss and the collapse of a first-half-of-life identity can lead to growth rather than decline. In his account, people do not climb into maturity; they fall into it, and the fall is upward.
Is Richard Rohr controversial?
His views are debated. Some Catholic and evangelical critics say his teaching departs from orthodoxy; in 2023 the Catholic apologist Trent Horn argued that the way The Universal Christ divides the person of Jesus Christ is a new version of gnosticism. Rohr rejects the idea that Jesus’s death was a payment demanded by God’s offended justice, and in The Universal Christ he calls himself a panentheist. In Cincinnati, a group of local Catholics secretly recorded his homilies, hoping to have him excommunicated; Cardinal Joseph Bernardin judged them within Church teaching. Pope Francis received him in July 2022.
What is the Center for Action and Contemplation?
The organisation Rohr founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1987 to combine contemplative practice with social action. It publishes his Daily Meditations and runs the Living School for Action and Contemplation, where he is founding director.
Is Richard Rohr still alive?
Yes. He was born on 20 March 1943 in Topeka, Kansas. After a lymphoma diagnosis in 2022 he announced he would step back from public ministry, but he published The Tears of Things in 2025.
Footnotes
- Richard Rohr — Wikipedia
- Richard Rohr on Embracing the Fire of Transformation — Center for Action and Contemplation, 2024
- Falling Upward, review — National Catholic Reporter
- Does Fr. Richard Rohr Teach Heresy? — SpiritualDirection.com, 2023
- The Tears of Things — Porchlight Books
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“If heaven is later it is because it is first of all now.”
— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward (2011)
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