Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Henri Nouwen Quotes about Prayer

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 Home Hospitality Humanity Hurt Identity Inspirational Intimacy Jesus Journey Joy Kissing Letting Go Life Listening Loneliness Love Lying Memories Opportunity Pain Past Poverty Prayer quotes Property Quality Reading Reality Rejection Running Safety Silence Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Struggle Suffering Teaching Temptation Tragedy Transformation Unity Vocation Waiting War Weakness Writing

A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer.

A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.

Beautiful, Beach, Prayer

Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.

Prayer, Done, Spirit

A prayerful life is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.

Prayer, Purpose, Done

Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, p.23, Convergent Books

Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you 'my beloved daughter,' 'my beloved son,' 'my beloved child.' To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being.

Daughter, Prayer, Children

You have to dare to live through the pain and struggle. Acknowledge your anguish but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.

Prayer, Pain, Struggle

You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you "the beloved."

Prayer, Voice, Listening

Source: www.liguorian.org

Prayer requires that we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern.

Prayer, Hands, Naked

the real "work" of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing-- that demands real effort.

Prayer, Real, Blessing

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking; he's always doing something.

Prayer, Listening, Firsts

It's good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go.

Prayer, Lips

Source: www.liguorian.org

Prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence.

Prayer, Existence, Decoration

Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society”, p.17, Image

Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God's heart has become one with ours.

Prayer, Pain, War

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.36, HarperCollins

a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.

Spiritual, Prayer, Christ

Henri Nouwen (2013). “Reaching Out”, p.123, Image

Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.

Prayer, Manipulation, Degenerates

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

Prayer is the way to both the heart of God and the heart of the world - precisely because they have been joined through the suffering of Jesus Christ Praying is letting one's own heart become the place where the tears of God's children merge and become tears of hope.

Jesus, Prayer, Children

Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking.

Prayer, Goal, Fruit

Henri J. M. Nouwen (2005). “Peacework: Prayer, Resistance, Community”, Edicoes Loyola

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

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

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

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

I am deeply convince that the necessity of prayer, and to pray unceasingly, is not as much based on our desire for God as on God's desire for us. It is God's passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.

Prayer, Desire, Passionate

Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God, here and now.

Christian, Prayer, Here And Now

"Peacework: Prayer, Resistance, Community".

When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live.

Prayer, Praying, Realizing

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

Take prayer with you wherever you go. Say it anytime, and then focus your mind and heart on God.

Prayer, Heart, Focus

Source: www.liguorian.org

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.

Jesus, Prayer, Mad

You May Also Like: