Who Was Brennan Manning?

1. On April 27, 1934, Richard Francis Xavier Manning was born in Brooklyn to Amy and Emmett Manning.

2. In 1953, Manning enlisted in the Marines and befriended fellow Marine Brennan. He would later describe Ray’s mother, Frances Brennan, as his second mother.

3. In 1956, Manning entered a Franciscan seminary in Loretto, Pennsylvania. In The Signature of Jesus, he described how he planned to leave the seminary after his first week, but while praying in the seminary chapel, he “met Jesus and moved from Haran to Canaan, from belief to faith.”

4. In 1963, Manning received his ordination as a Franciscan priest. Following the order’s mandate to take a saint’s name, he took the name Brennan. In his memoir All is Grace, Manning admitted his choice was partly based on Saint Brennan but more to honor Frances Brennan.

5. In 1967, Manning joined the Little Brothers of Jesus, started by Charles de Foucauld in 1933 for Catholic men who devote themselves to prayer and service. Manning spent almost two years in Europe with the Little Brothers of Jesus, serving through manual labor jobs like shoveling manure, building chicken coops, and harvesting wheat.

6. In 1975, Manning’s alcoholism led to him becoming a patient at the Hazelden Foundation, a rehab center in Center City, Minnesota. He would admit in All is Grace that he didn’t fully face his alcoholism or lying tendencies while in rehab. However, it led to a new period of honesty where Manning talked about his issues, leading to his reputation as a surprisingly honest teacher.

7. In 1982, Manning resigned from the priesthood to marry Roslyn, a single mother he had met in the mid-1970s. Their marriage would end in divorce nearly 20 years later.

8. In 1990, Manning’s best-known book, A Ragamuffin Gospel, was published. Later editions would include a foreword by Rich Mullins, who renamed his backup group a Ragamuffin Band.

9. Around 1993, Manning invited several male Christian friends to meet as equals for fellowship time. The meeting became an annual retreat, and the group dubbed themselves The Notorious Sinners. The Notorious Sinners would continue to meet even after Manning’s health kept him from being able to attend.

10. In 2008, although Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome had already sent his health into decline, Manning tried to resume public speaking. Problems during a 2009 speaking engagement in North Carolina, followed by a fall in New Orleans that broke several ribs, led Manning to retire officially. He would spend his last years living with a caregiver in Belmar, New Jersey.

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1. He did not come from an easy upbringing. Childhood trauma is complex and leaves many people with scars that continue to affect them decades later. Manning described in All is Grace how his childhood—an emotionally distant mother and an alcoholic father—left him insecure but with a desire to please people that continued throughout his life.

2. His abilities showed themselves early on. While Manning stated in All is Grace that his parents didn’t support his dreams, but he realized he had a gift for writing when he got good marks from his English teacher, Sister Mary Frances, in Catholic grade school.

3. He didn’t always pick the right ways to handle his pain. Manning admitted in both his books and other statements that he struggled with alcoholism, and with lying in little ways to make himself look good. Manning’s recognition that he was still fighting those tendencies until the end of his life informed his message that God’s grace is still there even when battles never stop.

4. He opened up about his struggles. While Manning admitted in All is Grace that he never told the full story of his alcoholism, by the 1980s, he had become very candid about his struggles. He could tell stories from the pulpit about being found drunk on a beach, lessons learned in rehab, and finding the surprising message of God’s grace amid his mistakes.

5. His message went beyond politics. Although Manning’s teachings about grace and caring for the unwanted had political implications, he criticized both ends of the culture war. In a 1987 Chicago Tribune profile, Manning argued that both liberals and conservatives had missed the point, dismissing living as Jesus lived as “impractical” in a modern world.

6. He wasn’t fond of self-help. Although Manning attended Alcoholics Anonymous and emphasized finding fellowship with other honest Christians, he downplayed programs where people use steps to change their behavior. In a 1986 interview with The Wittenburg Door, Manning argued, “every attempt to change myself is either motivated by self-hatred or guilt in some form.” However, when people gain an awareness of how much God loves them, something different happens: “it’s not that I have to or I got to or I must or I should or I ought; suddenly, I want to change because I know how deeply I’m loved.”

7. He helped many broken people find healing. Manning’s ability to talk about his brokenness gave authenticity to his teachings about grace, which helped many people find healing and freedom. One well-known person that Manning counseled was songwriter Rich Mullins—Manning later described their meeting as “one of the most fruitful times of my life.”

8. He helped people of all backgrounds. Manning’s work gained a particular following in the 1990s, but he was never only a Christian celebrity. Reminisces published in the back of All is Grace show people from any walks of life, from dentists to Young Life directors, who experienced healing from his writings or from personal conversations with him. Numerous other responses have been recorded on a Facebook page operated by Manning’s estate.

9. He learned that forgiveness might come long after the fact. Trauma's complexities mean it may not be until years after offenders are gone that victims reconcile with the memories. In the last chapter of All is Grace, Manning describes how he ultimately reconciled with the pain his mother caused in 2003, about a decade after her death.

10. He only had one message. While Manning published over 20 books in his lifetime, he stated that his work only had one message: God’s incredible love for people.

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1. “The moment I conclude that I can now cope with the awesome love of God, I am dead. I could more easily contain the Gulf of Mexico in a shot-glass than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God.” — Souvenirs from Solitude

2. “Who will acquit us from guilt? Who will free us from the bondage of projectionism, perfectionism and moralism? Who will re-write the script? Thanks be to God for Christ Jesus, our Lord!” — Stranger to Self-Hatred

3. “Unless we have the same relentless passion for the truth that Jesus exhibited in the temple, we are undermining our faith, betraying the Lord, and betraying ourselves.” — The Importance of Being Foolish

4. “In his numerous letters Paul confirms that to follow Jesus is to take the high road to Calvary. Littered along the Calvary road will lie the skeletons of our egos, the corpses of our fantasies of control, and the shards of self-righteousness, self-indulgent spirituality, and unfreedom.”—The Signature of Jesus

5. “After stumbling and falling, the ragamuffin does not sink into despondency and endless self-recrimination; she quickly repents, offers the broken moment to the Lord, and renews her trust in the Messiah of sinners. She knows that Jesus is comfortable with broken people who remember how to love.”—Ruthless Trust

6. “It takes a profound conversion to accept that God is relentlessly tender and compassionate toward us just as we are—not in spite of our sins and faults (that would not be total acceptance), but with them. Though God does not condone or sanction evil, He does not withhold His love because there is evil in us.” — Abba’s Child

7. “[All my books] are facets of the same gem: that the shattering truth of the transcendent God seeking intimacy with us is not well served by gauzy sentimentality, schmaltz, or a naked appeal to emotion, but rather in the boiling bouillabaisse of shock bordering on disbelief, wonder akin to credulity, and affectionate awe tinged with doubt.” — The Furious Longing of God

8. “When the healing tenderness lays hold of our hearts, the false self, ever vigilant in protecting itself against pain and seeking only approval and admiration, dissolves in the tender presence of mystery.” — The Wisdom of Tenderness

9. “When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.” — The Ragamuffin Gospel

10. “Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover. Grace is enough. He is enough. Jesus is enough.” — All is Grace

Photo Credit: Graphic by G. Connor Salter. Background by Unsplash/Dan Cristian Pădureț.

Manning published approximately 23 books during his lifetime, starting with The Gentle Revolutionaries in 1970. While his books may have each conveyed the same basic idea, they did so in different ways, making them each worth reading. Here are 10 of Manning’s books to start with:

1. Souvenirs of Solitude. Manning’s second published book unpacks the need for solitary times with God, times to pray and meditate and see what God has in store for people right now. Along with stories from Manning’s own prayer time, it includes prayers by Sue Garmon, a New Orleans resident who _.

2. Stranger to Self-Hatred. Manning published two versions of this book. The original, published in 1981 when he was still an ordained priest, frames the psychology of self-hatred in a discussion about concerns plaguing the Roman Catholic church at the time. A revised and expanded edition, published in 2003 as A Glimpse of Jesus, omits some of the 1980s references and generally phrases its ideas in more ecumenical language. Both provide a compelling look at the necessity of embracing the gospel to overcome feeling insufficient and unworthy.

3. The Signature of Jesus. Meditations on the radical transformation Jesus calls his disciples to live and how ultimately, only that radical life will bring what people crave.

4. The Ragamuffin Gospel. Manning’s no-holds-barred exploration of how not only are Christians saved by faith, but that the gospel message of grace is for “the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out.”

5. Ruthless Trust. Building on his reflections about ragamuffins, Manning explores how part of being a follower of Jesus is not only resting secure in the gospel’s message of God’s grace, but also trusting God’s direction even if it seems bizarre and the road ahead unclear.

6. Abba’s Child. Manning describes how the center of the Christian’s identity is the knowledge that God, their Abba father, unconditionally loves them, and how that knowledge informs everything else.

7. The Boy Who Cried Abba. Expanded from a 1982 children’s book titled The Parable of Willie Juan, this novella tells the story of Willie Juan, an outcast in a Hopi village, who has a surprising encounter with a man offering healing medicine. Willie Juan’s journey to find healing not only leads him on an adventure to new places but to a new understanding of God’s love.

8. The Prodigal. Written with Greg Garrett, this novel retells the story of the Prodigal Son in a surprising way. It describes the post-downfall life of a megachurch pastor, Jack Chisholm, who finds that in his worst times, the last person he expected wants to see him: his father.

9. Smack-Dab in the Middle of God’s Love. A picture book following a middle-aged couple with no children who share their love with the children in their community, teaching how all of us are “smack-dab in the middle of God’s love.”

10. All is Grace. Manning’s memoir, co-written with John Blase, takes an unflinching look at his triumphs and failures, including his marriage that ended his career as a priest, then ended in divorce in 2000. As Manning reflects on his last phase, unable to teach, struggling to write, he shows how God’s grace continues and has become even sweeter.

You also enjoy Brennan, a 2016 drama that imagines Manning on a road trip with another ragamuffin, discussing his past and his marriage.

Further Reading:

What You Need to Know about Rich Mullins

All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir by Brennan Manning

10 Inspiring Facts about Francis of Assisi

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