Henri Nouwen Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Henri Nouwen
Henri Nouwen Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Henri Nouwen on Wise Famous Quotes.
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.
The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.
The word that seems best to summarize the desire of the human heart is 'communion.' ... wherever we look it is communion that we seek.
The great # conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God.
When we have sold our identity to the judges of this world, we are bound to become restless, because of a growing need for affirmation and praise.
What is important is how well we love. God will make our
love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not.
love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not.
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.
When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.
Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.
My hope is that the description of God's love in my life will give you the freedom and the courage to discover ... God's love in yours.
Solitude, community, and ministry are certainly not just for celibates! Celibates also have a hard time keeping up.
Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.
Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.
Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don't see the results.
What is forgotten cannot be healed, and that which cannot be healed easily becomes the cause of greater evil.
The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.
Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.
Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.
Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about.
I want my work to create space where people can meet God, rather than give them something they can "apply" to their daily life.
Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.
From the moment we claim the truth of being the beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are.
Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories ...
Gratitude flows from the recognition that who we are and what we have are gifts
to be received and shared.
to be received and shared.
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.
One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal.
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.
This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without condition or limits.
Our glory is hidden in our pain, if we allow God to bring the gift of himself in our experience of it.
I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries.
It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.
Active waiting means present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.
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.
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.
Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.
God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful.
We must ask ourselves how many times others would benefit more from our silence than from our words.
Reading with children is an enormous gift to them. It's a great honor to invite children to read with adults.
Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us.
Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, "This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal."
Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy.
Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live.
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.
If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.