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Henri Nouwen Quotes about Heart

All Henri Nouwen 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 quotes 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

What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.

What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.

Heart, Thinking, Mind

Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God's eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God's heart.

Heart, Eye, Unique

Do not despair, thinking that you cannot change yourself after so many years. Simply enter into the presence of Jesus as you are and ask him to give you a fearless heart where he can be with you. You cannot make yourself different. Jesus came to give you a new heart, a new spirit, a new mind, and a new body. Let him transform you by his love and so enable you to receive his affection in your whole being.

Jesus, Heart, Thinking

The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you. The pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear.

Pain, Heart, Love Is

For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.

Letting Go, Heart, Remember You

Henri Nouwen (2010). “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”, p.5, Image

Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.

Heart, Joy, Humanity

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.1, Harper Collins

However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own. The question, therefore, is not 'How can we make community?' but, 'How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?'

Spiritual, Heart, Giving

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.23, Harper Collins

Your heart is greater than your wounds.

Heart, Greater, Wounds

To forgive another from the heart is an act of liberation. We set that person free from the negative bonds that exist between us. As long as we do not forgive we pull them with us, or worse, as a heavy load. The great temptation is to cling in anger to our enemies & then define ourselves as being offended & wounded by them. Forgiveness, therefore, liberates not only the other but also ourselves. It is the way to the freedom of the children of God.

Children, Heart, Long

While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will soon go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart... Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.

Heart, Optimism, Perspective

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

Somehow, somewhere, I know that God loves me, even though I do not feel that love as I can feel a human embrace, even though I do not hear a voice as I hear human words...God is greater than my senses, greater than my thoughts, greater than my heart. I do believe that He touches me in places that are unknown even to myself.

Believe, Heart, Voice

Jesus does not respond to our worry-filled way of living by saying that we should not be so busy with worldly affairs. He does not try to pull us away from the many events, activities, and people that make up our lives. . . . He asks us to shift the point of gravity, to relocate the center of our attention, to change our priorities. Jesus does not speak about a change of activities, a change in contacts, or even a change of pace. He speaks about a change of heart.

Jesus, Heart, Worry

Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.

Spiritual, Heart, Community

How do you pray? Take the gospel of each day and spend ten minutes with it. Read it, and read it again. Walk into the world with the gospel in your heart.

Heart, Each Day, World

Source: www.liguorian.org

The mystery of the spiritual life is that Jesus desires to meet us in the seclusion of our own heart, to make his love known to us there, to free us from our fears, and to make our own deepest self known to us Each time you let the love of God penetrate deeper into your heart it leads to a love of ourselves that enables us to give whole-hearted love to our fellow human beings. In the seclusion of our hearts we learn to know the hidden presence of God; and with that spiritual knowledge we can lead a loving life.

Spiritual, Jesus, Heart

True Hospitality is welcoming the stranger on her own terms. This kind of hospitality can only be offered by those who've found the center of their lives in their own hearts.

Home, Heart, Welcome

Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness.

Spiritual, Heart, Oneness

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

I can choose to grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.

Grateful, Eye, Heart

Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, p.80, Image

The more you are called to speak for God's love, the more you will need to deepen the knowledge of that love in your own heart. The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be. Only when your roots are deep can your fruits be abundant.

Heart, Journey, Roots

Henri Nouwen (2010). “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”, p.94, Image

Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people's response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule.

Heart, Long, People

Henri Nouwen (2010). “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”, p.4, Image

Ministers are powerless people who have nothing to boast of except their weaknesses. But when the Lord whom they serve fills them with His blessing they will move mountains and change the hearts of people wherever they go.

Moving, Heart, Blessing

When you're on the bus or subway or in your car, why busy your mind with all the garbage of advertisements? Why fill your mind with television and radio? Somehow you have to decide what your mind will receive. I don't mean you shouldn't ever go to movies or watch television, but control what enters your mind and heart. It's not just a question of pushing bad things out but also a question of holding on to something really good.

Heart, Mean, Car

Source: www.liguorian.org

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

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

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