It's good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go. Henri Nouwen More Quotes by Henri Nouwen More Quotes From Henri Nouwen Friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability. Henri Nouwen love-and-friendship and-love real The difference between rich and poor is not that the rich sin is more than the poor, that the rich find it easier to call sin a virtue. Henri Nouwen rich differences sin I'm learning that the blessing is located in our poor people, in people who are weak; they are the ones we should stay close to, not because they need us but because we need to receive from them the blessing. Henri Nouwen blessing people needs I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved". Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence. Henri Nouwen self spiritual running Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends' eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate person nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying. Henri Nouwen eye compassion heart Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on. Henri Nouwen space spiritual mean As we read spiritually about spiritual things, we open our hearts to God's voice. Sometimes we must be willing to put down the book we are reading and just listen to what God is saying to us through our words. Henri Nouwen reading spiritual book When we break bread and give it to each other, fear vanishes and God becomes very close. Henri Nouwen break bread giving People have filled an enormously important role in my life - more than books! For me, it's not the formal advising or the therapy that meant so much. It was more the fact that someone committed himself or herself to me. They were really interested in my life; they wanted to know what I was doing; they followed me; they dared to confront and challenge me. Henri Nouwen challenges book people Once you are in communion with God, you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear other people in whom God has also found a dwelling place. Henri Nouwen dwelling-place eye people One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset; it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs. Henri Nouwen spiritual beautiful people In a strange way the spiritual life isn't "useful" or "successful." But it is meant to be fruitful. And fruitfulness comes out of brokenness. Henri Nouwen successful spiritual way The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised. Henri Nouwen teaching journey love The life-converting experience is not the discovery that I have choices to make that determine the way I live out my existence, but the awareness that my that my existence itself is not in the center. Once I 'know' God, that is, once I experience God's love as the love in which all my human experiences are anchored, I can desire only one thing: to be in that love. Henri Nouwen choices desire discovery Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. Henri Nouwen deep-love God's Kingdom is a place of abundance where every generous act overflows its original bounds and becomes part of the unbounded grace of God at work in the world. Henri Nouwen grace kingdoms world To be baptized means to make the passage with the people of Israel and with Jesus from slavery to freedom and from death to new life. It is a commitment to a life in and through Jesus. Henri Nouwen mean commitment jesus His (Christ's) appearance in our midst has made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross. Henri Nouwen tasks heart two 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. Henri Nouwen theological painful discovery 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. Henri Nouwen saint goal thinking
