Henri Nouwen: Forgiveness changes the way we remember.

Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others

Henri Nouwen

rejects

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

Henri Nouwen

devil temptation stones

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.

Henri Nouwen

light knowing clouds

A happy life is a life for others.

Henri Nouwen

life-is happy-life

Live, work, and travel with handicapped people, so I can stay close to them. But since I am often busy with many things, it's a constant struggle to keep the handicapped members of our community in the center of my life.

Henri Nouwen

community struggle people

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

god-love wonder trying

Jesus didn't live alone. He had Peter, John, and James around him. There were the Twelve and the other disciples. They formed circles of intimacy around Jesus. We too need these circles of intimacy, but it's a discipline.

Henri Nouwen

discipline circles jesus

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.

Henri Nouwen

true-identity insecurity want

I speak of God's love and grace and redemption and freedom, but when I say "in the context of this community," it is heard differently. To be with people so obviously broken, so obviously handicapped, and here to discover real joy and peace - that makes the Word of God come alive.

Henri Nouwen

broken real people

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

members economic people

For me the university has always been an ideal context for spiritual formation. I always felt that if you want to offer spiritual formation at the university, you can.

Henri Nouwen

university spiritual want

Based or our baptism, all are called to a mystical life, to communion with God. We need to claim that, to taste it and feel it, to trust that the deeper we live this communion, the more our behavior will witness to the truth.

Henri Nouwen

baptism taste needs

In community, where you have all the affection you could ever dream of, you feel that there is a place where even community cannot reach. That's a very important experience. In that loneliness, which is like a dark night of the soul, you learn that God is greater than community.

Henri Nouwen

loneliness dark dream

Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?-are not questions with an answer but questions that open us up to new questions which lead us deeper into the unshakeable mystery of existence.

Henri Nouwen

existence mystery answers

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

solitude together reality

I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.

Henri Nouwen

problem real

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 giving people

In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered.

Henri Nouwen

occupation identity way

Our first responsibility in the midst of violence is to prevent it from destroying us.

Henri Nouwen

violence responsibility firsts

It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.

Henri Nouwen

contemplative silence prayer