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Saints, People Like Us Through baptism we become part of a family much larger than our biological family. It is a family of people "set apart" by God to be light in the darkness. These set-apart people are called saints. Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are much more accessible. They are men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and s..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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We have very little control over what happens in our lives, but we have a lot of control over how we integrate and remember what happens.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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We need you to be a father who can claim for himself the authority of true compassion.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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And for you who will make this spiritual journey with me, I hope and pray that you too will discover within yourselves not only the lost children of God, but also the compassionate mother and father that is God.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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It is quite understandable that you are afraid of this place. You have so little knowledge of it. You have caught glimpses of it, you have even been there at times, but for most of your life you have dwelt among your emotions, passions, and feelings and searched in them for inner peace and joy.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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younger son said to his father, "Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me." So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery. When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch so he hired himself out to one of the loc..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Celebrating the Eucharist requires that we stand in this world accepting our co-responsibility for the evil that surrounds and pervades us. As long as we remain stuck in our complaints about the terrible times in which we live and the terrible situations we have to bear and the terrible fate we have to suffer, we can never come to contrition. And contrition can grow only out of a contrite heart. When our losses are pure fate, our gains are ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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every relationship carries within its center a holy vacancy, a space that is for the first Love, God alone.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Holding the cup of life means looking critically at what we are living. This requires great courage, because when we start looking, we might be terrified by what we see. Questions may arise that we don't know how to answer. Doubts may come up about things we thought we were sure about. Fear may emerge from unexpected places.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Jesus, the man of sorrows, and we, the people of sorrow, hang there between heaven and earth, crying out, "God, our God, why have you forsaken us?"
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The great task is to claim yourself for yourself, so that you can contain your needs within the boundaries of your self and hold them in the presence of those you love. True mutuality in love requires people who possess themselves and who can give to each other while holding on to their own identities.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Drinking the cup is an act of selfless love, an act of immense trust, an act of surrender to a God who will give what we need when we need it.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Here is a home for you; maybe you need us." All my desires to be useful, successful, and productive revolted."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Drinking the cup that Jesus drank is living a life in and with the spirit of Jesus, which is the spirit of unconditional love. The intimacy between Jesus and Abba, his Father, is an intimacy of complete trust, in which there are no power games, no mutually agreed upon promises, no advance guarantees. It is only love--pure, unrestrained, and unlimited love. Completely open, completely free. That intimacy gave Jesus the strength to drink his ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Truth does not mean an idea, concept, or doctrine, but the true relationship.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell. The only way to that place is prayer, unceasing prayer, Many struggles and much pain can clear the way but I am certain that only unceasing prayer can let me enter it.
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struggle
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Somehow I have become deaf to the voice that calls me the Beloved, have left the only place where I can hear that voice, and have gone off desperately hoping that I would find somewhere else what I could no longer find at home.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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I am a good person, known and cherished by the One who brought me to my existence. Before I was hurt, I was a beloved.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The loud, boisterous noises of the world make us deaf to the soft, gentle, and loving voice of God. A Christian leader is called to help people hear that voice and so be comforted and consoled.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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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.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The immense difference that exists between hope and wishfulness is revealed in the remarks of a student who wrote: "I see hope as an attitude where everything stays open before me. Not that I don't think of my future in those moments, but I think of it in an entirely different way. Daring to stay open to whatever will come to me today, tomorrow, two months from now, or a year from now--that is hope. To go fearlessly into things without know..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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When we live with hope we do not get tangled up with concerns for how our wishes will be fulfilled. So, too, our prayers are not directed toward the gift, but toward the one who gives it. Our prayers might still contain just as many desires, but ultimately it is not a question of having a wish come true but of expressing an unlimited faith in the giver of all good things. You wish that...but you hope in....
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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I also learned afresh that friendship requires a constant willingness to forgive each other for not being Christ, and a willingness to ask Christ himself to be the true center of the relationship.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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To live a disciplined life is to live in such a way that you want only to be where God is with you. The more deeply you live your spiritual life, the easier it will be to discern the difference between living with God and living without God, and the easier it will be to move away from the places where God is no longer with you. The great challenge here is faithfulness, which must be lived in the choices of every moment.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Your main question should always be whether something is lived with or without God. You have your own inner knowledge to answer that question. Every time you do something that comes from your needs for acceptance, affirmation, or affection, and every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God. These needs will never be satisfied; they will only increase when you yield to them. But every time you do..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Boredom is a sentiment of disconnectedness. While we are busy with many things, we wonder if what we do makes any real difference. Life presents itself as a random and unconnected series of activities and events over which we have little or no control. To be bored, therefore, does not mean that we have nothing to do, but that we question the value of the things we are so busy doing. The great paradox of our time is that many of us are busy ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Community as discipline is the effort to create a free and empty space among people where together we can practice true obedience.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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This is the real Pentecost experience. When the Spirit descended on the disciples huddling together in fear, they were set free to move out of their closed room into the world. As long as they were assembled in fear they did not yet form community. But when they had received the Spirit, they became a body of free people who could stay in communion with each other even when they were as far from each other as Rome is from Jerusalem. Thus, wh..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Whether in solitude or community, whether alone or with others, we are called to live obedient lives, that is, lives of unceasing prayer -- "unceasing" not because of the many prayers we say but because of our alertness to the unceasing prayer of God's Spirit within and among us."
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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detach ourselves from making our individual experience the criterion for our approach to others,
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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We seem to have a fear of empty spaces. The philosopher Spinoza called this a horror vacui. We want to fill up what is empty. Our lives stay very full. And when we are not blinded by busyness, we fill our inner space with guilt about things of the past or worries about things to come.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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One student prays: When I speak to you I strongly suspect that You aren't "out there" now and never were. I have lost You and I feel better for it because You diminished me and wouldn't let me be myself. I always felt I had to consider what You wanted me to do, what image or state of perfection You demanded. Since the time of our separation I've grown more selfish. I'm concerned a lot with myself, with my own development as a human being. I..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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To serve means to minister, to love and care for others, and to recognize in them the heart of God. A true disciple of Jesus will always go to where people are feeling weak, broken, sick, in pain, poor, lonely, forgotten, anxious, and lost. It is often hard to go to places of weakness and rejection to offer consolation and comfort. It is possible only when we discover the presence of Jesus among the poor and weak and realize the many gifts ..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Here is the God I want to believe in: a Father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Prayer opens our eyes for ourselves and through clarification enables us to step forward in the direction of hope.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Boredom, resentment, and depression are all sentiments of disconnectedness. They present life to us as a broken connection. They give us a sense of not-belonging. In interpersonal relations, this disconnectedness is experienced as loneliness. When we are lonely we perceive ourselves as isolated individuals surrounded, perhaps, by many people, but not really part of any supporting or nurturing community.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Worrying causes us to be "all over the place," but seldom at home. One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless. "All these other things" keep demanding our attention. They lead us so far from home that we eventually forget our true address, that is, the place whe..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Being in the world without being of the world." These words summarize well the way Jesus speaks of the spiritual life. It is a life in which we are totally transformed by the Spirit of love. Yet it is a life in which everything seems to remain the same. To live a spiritual life does not mean that we must leave our families, give up our jobs, or change our ways of working; it does not mean that we have to withdraw from social or political ac..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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All these other things," which so occupied and preoccupied us, now come as gifts or challenges that strengthen and deepen the new life which we have discovered. This does not mean that the spiritual life makes things easier or takes our struggles and pains away. The lives of Jesus' disciples clearly show that suffering does not diminish because of conversion. Sometimes it even becomes more intense. But our attention is no longer directed to..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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Healthy development means a gradual movement out of the magical world. Even when the development takes place in other areas, our religion easily remains on this immature level. In that case, God remains the magical pacifier whose existence depends on ours. Prayers remain tools to manipulate him in our direction and religion is nothing more than a big, soft bed on which we doze away and deny the hardships of life. Our religious sentiment wil..
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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As Father, the authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion. That authority comes from letting the sins of his children pierce his heart. There is no lust, greed, anger, resentment, jealousy, or vengeance in his lost children that has not cause immense grief to his heart. The grief is so deep because the heart is so pure. From the deep inner place where love embraces all human grief, the Father reaches out to his children...
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |