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Henri Nouwen Quotes - Page 16

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

People forget ideas; they don't forget the real presence.

People forget ideas; they don't forget the real presence.

Real, Ideas, People

Source: www.liguorian.org

In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.

Solitude, Aliens, Realizing

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.20, HarperCollins

Solitude is an essential element for the spiritual health of a child. If we only stimulate our children - keep them busy with endless stories with no space to be alone - that's not good.

Spiritual, Children, Space

Source: archives.wineskins.org

The most important thing I've come to believe in is that people with mental handicaps have a unique mission to bring God's blessing to the World.

Believe, Unique, Blessing

Source: www.liguorian.org

I was forced to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, and to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life.

Soul, Looks, Faces

Henri Nouwen (2010). “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”, p.17, Image

A sense of solitude is one of the most beautiful things that parents can give a child. It doesn't mean leaving the child alone, but it does mean creating safe spaces where the child can be with other people. It does mean directing their attention to God.

Beautiful, Children, Mean

Source: archives.wineskins.org

Think of each wound as you would of a child who has been hurt by a friend. As long as that child is ranting and raving, trying to get back at the friend, one wound leads to another. But when the child can experience the consoling embrace of a parent, she or he can live through the pain, return to the friend, forgive, and build up a new relationship. Be gentle with yourself, and let your heart be your loving parent as you live your wounds through.

Hurt, Children, Pain

Feelings of guilt dominate our work as peacemakers we cannot last long. But when we have opened each other's eyes to the great human gifts among all people we can indeed make peacemaking a way of being.

Gratitude, Eye, Mutual Support

"Peacework: Prayer, Resistance, Community".

If you start with community and want to be faithful to community, you have to realize that what binds you together is not mutual compatibility or common tasks, but God. In order to stay in touch with that call to community, we always have to return to solitude.

Order, Community, Solitude

Source: archives.wineskins.org

Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.

Spiritual, Journey, Spiritual Journey

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Peter K. Weiskel (2006). “Love in a Fearful Land: A Guatemalan Story”

Silence is a very concrete, practical, and useful discipline in all our ministerial tasks. It can be seen as a portable cell taken with us from the solitary place into the midst of our ministry. Silence is solitude practiced in action.

Taken, Cells, Discipline

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.23, HarperCollins

In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.

Poverty, Handicapped, Mentally Handicapped

Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.

Opportunity, People, Giving

The people who most affected me were the ones who got right in there with me, who cried with me, but who also had a certain authority, who dared to say what needed saying.

People, Authority, Certain

Source: archives.wineskins.org

Those who think that they have arrived, have lost their way. Those who think they have reached their goal, have missed it. Those who think they are saints, are demons.

Thinking, Goal, Saint

"The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery".

Life is not entertainment. Life is not distraction.

Entertainment, Life Is, Distraction

Source: archives.wineskins.org

[The Return of the Prodigal book] came out of my emotional and spiritual journey during the four months I was gone from Daybreak because of depression.

Spiritual, Book, Journey

Source: www.liguorian.org

Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.

Discovery, Painful, Theological

The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.

Writing, Journey, Space

In 1970 I felt so lonely that I could not give; now I feel so joyful that giving seems easy. I hope that the day will come when the memory of my present joy will give me the strength to keep giving even when loneliness gnaws at my heart.

Happiness, Lonely, Memories

The best of community does give one a deep sense of belonging and well-being; and in that sense community takes away loneliness.

Loneliness, Giving, Community

Source: archives.wineskins.org

A happy life is a life for others.

Happy Life, Life Is

If you are not able to be silent, you will not be able to speak well.

Able, Speak, Silent

Source: archives.wineskins.org

Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. My resentment tells me that I don't receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy.

Gratitude, Block, Envy

Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, p.85, Image

That's the temptation of the devil: "Turn stones into bread! Be relevant!"

Temptation, Devil, Stones

Source: archives.wineskins.org

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