Top 25 Quotes by Henri Nouwen of 497 - Page 14

It is good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go. There are so many moments in life when you are free to pray. When you are waiting for the cashier in the supermarket, getting mad because he or she doesn't

It is good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go. There are so many moments in life when you are free to pray. When you are waiting for the cashier in the supermarket, getting mad because he or she doesn't hurry, say a little prayer: 'Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.' Take that prayer with you wherever you go.

Henri Nouwen

Jesus, Prayer, Mad

O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen.

Henri Nouwen

Different, Lord, Amen

Henri Nouwen (2013). “A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee”, p.25, Image

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.

Henri Nouwen

Life, Spiritual, Loneliness

Henri Nouwen (2013). “Reaching Out”, p.34, Image

Precisely where I feel my poverty is where I discover God's blessing.

Henri Nouwen

Blessing, Poverty, Feels

The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained - through prayer, study, and careful analysis - to manifest the divine event of God's saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time.

Henri Nouwen

Christian, Prayer, Heart

To the degree that we embrace the truth that our identity is not rooted in our success, power, or popularity, but in God's infinite love, to that degree can we let go of our need to judge.

Henri Nouwen

Letting Go, Judging, Identity

The members - mentally handicapped people who are marginal in society and not useful in an economic sense - welcomed me into their lives. And I was loved, not because of what s doing but because of who I was.

Henri Nouwen

People, Economic, Members

Source: www.liguorian.org

When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.

Henri Nouwen

Real, Lying, Our World

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not 'How am I to find God?' but 'How am I to let myself be found by him?' The question is not 'How am I to love God?' but 'How am I to let myself be loved by God?'

Henri Nouwen

Trying, God Love, Wonder

Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, p.106, Image

Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.

Henri Nouwen

Real, Solitude, Doe

Henri Nouwen (2013). “Reaching Out”, p.41, Image

The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. In fact, it matters more than pain, illness, or even death.

Henri Nouwen

Pain, Real, Who Cares

In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united.

Henri Nouwen

Reality, Solitude, Together

Henri Nouwen (2013). “Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation”, p.14, Image

It is precisely when you are loved a lot that you might realize a second loneliness which is not to be solved but lived. This second loneliness is an existential loneliness that belongs to the basis of our being. It's where we are unfulfilled because only God can fill us.

Henri Nouwen

Loneliness, Might, Realizing

Source: archives.wineskins.org

Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity.

Henri Nouwen

Love, Moving, Home

Henri Nouwen (2010). “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”, p.19, Image

It is this nothingness (in solitude) that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone. The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Henri Nouwen

Running, Jesus, Believe

The central question is, Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God's presence, to listen to God's voice, to look at God's beauty, to touch God's incarnate Word and to taste fully God's infinite goodness.

Henri Nouwen

Men, Voice, People

I have an increasing sense that the most important crisis of our time is spiritual and that we need places where people can grow stronger in the spirit and be able to integrate the emotional struggles in their spiritual journeys.

Henri Nouwen

Spiritual, Struggle, Journey

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life”, p.266, Hachette UK

The great teachers are always those who can live the tension. They are not criticizing everybody, they're not complaining. They give young people a vision.

Henri Nouwen

Teacher, People, Giving

Source: archives.wineskins.org

The third discipline is community. Whom do you choose as your companions? Whom do you choose to be friends with, to live with? Are they people who love you, and care for you, and nurture you?

Henri Nouwen

Love You, Discipline, People

Source: www.liguorian.org

It is not easy to enter into the silence and reach beyond the many boisterous and demanding voices of our world and to discover there the small intimate voice saying: 'You are my Belived Child, on you my favor rests.'

Henri Nouwen

Children, Our World, Voice

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “Life of the Beloved”, p.35, Hachette UK

The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.

Henri Nouwen

Jesus, Different, Mobility

Solitude begins with a time and place for God, and him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists but also that he is actively present in our lives—healing, teaching, and guiding — we need to set aside a time and space to give him our undivided attention.

Henri Nouwen

Believe, Teaching, Healing

"The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen".

There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life.

Henri Nouwen

Way, Praying, Moments

"With Open Hands". Book by Henri Nouwen, 1972.

The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.

Henri Nouwen

Unconditional Love, Ministry, Mystery