Henri Nouwen Quotes

In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.

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.

Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be.

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.

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.

When we break bread and give it to each other, fear vanishes and God becomes very close.

In God's eyes the most significant is often the most hidden.

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.

If you are not able to be silent, you will not be able to speak well.

Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.

The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.

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

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.

Yes, it's a competitive world, but where is your heart?

Everything changes radically from the moment you know yourself as being sent into this world.

Solitude, community, and ministry are certainly not just for celibates! Celibates also have a hard time keeping up.

If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.

Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.

Be sure that you make a difference in the world.

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.

Christmas is believing that the salvation of the world is God's work, and not mine.

The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.

Friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability.

There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life.

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.

Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, "This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal."

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.

Reading with children is an enormous gift to them. It's a great honor to invite children to read with adults.

Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply.

I trust in you, Lord, but keep helping me in my moments of distrust and doubt.

Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.

We must ask ourselves how many times others would benefit more from our silence than from our words.

Precisely where I feel my poverty is where I discover God's blessing.

God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful.

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved.

Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.

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.

I have found it very important ... to let go of my wishes and start hoping.

Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say to God: 'I love you, too.'

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.

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.

This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.

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.

I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries.

To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.

A happy life is a life for others.

Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.

To live in the present, we must deeply believe that what is most important is in the here and now.

We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.

The real question is: how can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?

O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones.
Let me find you again. Amen.

We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.

I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.

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.

Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.

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.

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

The Church is the body of Christ fashioned by baptism & the Eucharist.

I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.

The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.

Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.

Life is a gift, not to possess, but to share.

Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.

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.

Life is not entertainment. Life is not distraction.

Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories ...

From the moment we claim the truth of being the beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are.

Your heart is greater than your wounds.

Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.

There is nothing so important in the family as the sacred quality of the meal.

Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to.

Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.

In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.

When we give generously, with an abundance mentality, what we give away will multiply.

Too many of us are lonely ministers practicing a lonely ministry.

Our glory is hidden in our pain, if we allow God to bring the gift of himself in our experience of it.

This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without condition or limits.

It is by chance that we met, by choice that we became friends.

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.

I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.

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.

In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.

By giving words to these intimate experiences I can make my life available to others.

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.

God wants you to live for others and to live that presence well.

To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.

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

The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human and to our God.

Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.

Gratitude flows from the recognition that who we are and what we have are gifts
to be received and shared.