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Henri Nouwen Quotes - Page 11

All Quotes Abundance Age Art Being Human Boundaries Brokenness Challenges Children Choices Christ Church Community Compassion Darkness Desire Discipline Effort Evil Expectations Feelings Focus Friendship Giving Glory Grace Gratitude Grief Grieving Growth Hatred Healing Heart Home Hospitality Humanity Hurt Identity Inspirational Intimacy Jesus Journey Joy Kissing Letting Go Life Listening Loneliness Love Lying Memories Opportunity Pain Past Poverty Prayer Property Quality Reading Reality Rejection Running Safety Silence Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Struggle Suffering Teaching Temptation Tragedy Transformation Unity Vocation Waiting War Weakness Writing

Reading with children is an enormous gift to them. It's a great honor to invite children to read with adults.

Reading with children is an enormous gift to them. It's a great honor to invite children to read with adults.

Children, Reading, Honor

Source: archives.wineskins.org

Christmas is believing that the salvation of the world is God's work, and not mine.

Believe, World, Salvation

Ministers are tempted to join the ranks of those who consider it their primary task to keep other people busy … But our task is the opposite of distraction … how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.

Opposites, Voice, People

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.29, HarperCollins

Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God's suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.

Hurt, Loss, Effort

Henri Nouwen (2004). “Turn My Mourning into Dancing”, p.7, Thomas Nelson Inc

Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.

Self, Purification, True Self

This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without condition or limits.

Simple, People, Sound

Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Convergent Books

Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how.

Pain, Mean, Joy

God's Kingdom is a place of abundance where every generous act overflows its original bounds and becomes part of the unbounded grace of God at work in the world.

Grace, World, Kingdoms

The world is evil only when you become its slave.

Evil, World, Slave

The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.

Prayer, Heart, Ideas

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.33, HarperCollins

Lord Jesus, master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas. We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence. We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light. To you we say, 'Come Lord Jesus!'

Jesus, Heart, Light

We can be unhappy about many things, but jy can still be there... It is important to become aware that at every moment of our life we have an opportunity to choose joy... It is in the choice that our true freedom lies, and that freedom is, in the final analysis, the freedom to love.

Uplifting, Lying, Opportunity

When you are still young and not yet adult, you want to hold everything in your own hands, but if you have your hands open toward prayer, you are able to stretch out your arms and let yourself be led without knowing where. You know only the freedom which God's breath has brought you will lead to new life, even if the cross is the only sign of it you can see.

Prayer, Hands, Knowing

L'Arche is not a service institution or a group home. It is a community that exists to reveal God's love. Our people are given to the world to tell others about peace and forgiveness and celebration, to make them aware that in the midst of their brokenness, there is joy; in the midst of their wounded nature, there is healing.

Healing, Home, People

Source: www.liguorian.org

All the great spiritual leaders in history were people of hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day all lived with a promise in their hearts that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like. Let's live with hope.

Spiritual, Jesus, Heart

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.16, Harper Collins

So I am praying while not knowing how to pray. I am resting while feeling restless, at peace while tempted, safe while still anxious, surrounded by a cloud of light while still in darkness, in love while still doubting.

Clouds, Light, Knowing

Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Mean, Compassion, Being Human

Henri J. M. Nouwen, John S. Mogabgab (2012). “A Spirituality of Living: The Henri Nouwen Spirituality Series”, p.32, Upper Room Books

Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.

Prayer, Home, Way

Henri Nouwen (2013). “Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective”, p.27, Image

We have to keep asking ourselves: 'What does it all mean? What is God trying to tell us? How are we called to live in the midst of all this?' Without such questions our lives become numb and flat.

Mean, Trying, Doe

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2005). “The Dance of Life: Weaving Sorrows and Blessings Into One Joyful Step”

If fear is the great enemy of intimacy, love is its true friend.

True Friend, Love Is, Enemy

Henri Nouwen (2013). “Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective”, p.23, Image

Jesus says, "Keep your heart on the kingdom first. Keep your heart on God's love. Keep focused on the fact that you are God's beloved daughter or son. That's the truth of who you are.

Daughter, Jesus, Heart

Source: www.liguorian.org

It is very hard to stay in touch with our true identity because those who want our money, our time, and our energy profit more from our insecurity and fears than from our inner freedom.

True Identity, Insecurity, Want

One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you start with it and look back over a long period of prayer, you suddenly realize that something has happened. What is most close, most intimate, most present, often cannot be experienced directly but only with a certain distance. When I think that I am only distracted, just wasting my time, something is happening too Immediate for knowing, understanding, and experiencing. Only in retrospect do I realize that something very important has taken place.

Prayer, Distance, Taken

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.

Christian, Mean, Men

Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society”, p.99, Image

Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends' eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate person nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying.

Heart, Eye, Compassion

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