|
ab499b8
|
Advent . . . leads to a growing inner stillness and joy allowing me to realize that the One for whom I am waiting has already arrived and speaks to me in the silence of my heart.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
9cf00f7
|
Love is not based on the willingness to listen, to understand problems of others, or to tolerate their otherness. Love is based on the mutuality of the confession of our total self to each other.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
1566a1f
|
When our friend says, "If my friends found out how I really feel, if I would show my real self, then they would no longer love me but hate me" -- he speaks about a real possibility. It is very risky to be honest, because someone just might not respond with love, but take us by our weak spot and turn it against ourselves. Our confession might destroy us."
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
a38168f
|
Around the table, we know whether there is friendship and community or hatred and division. Precisely because the table is the place of intimacy for all the members of the household, it is also the place where the absence of that intimacy is most painfully revealed.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
38d0c59
|
When we wonder why the language of tradition Christianity has lost its liberation power for nuclear man, we have to realize that most Christian preaching is still based on the presupposition that man sees himself as meaningfully integrated with a history in which God came to us in the past, is living under us in the present, and will come to liberate us in the future. But when man's historical consciousness is broken, the whole Christian me..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
6172ac5
|
Mysticism and revolution are two aspects of the same attempt to bring about radical change. Mystics cannot prevent themselves from becoming social critics, since in self-reflection they will discover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, revolutionaries cannot avoid facing their own human condition, since in the midst of their struggle for a new world they will find that they are also fighting their own reactionary fears and false ambitio..
|
|
revolution
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
4d0c34b
|
I want to beg you as much as I can . . . to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves. . . . Do not now seek answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. . . . Take whatever comes with great trust..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
45acd0a
|
crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him. Real prayer comes from the heart.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
29eaee0
|
Jesus is the obedient one. The center of his life is this obedient relationship with the Father. This may be hard for us to understand because the word obedience has so many negative connotations in our society. It makes us think of authority figures who impose their wills against our desires. It makes us remember unhappy childhood events or hard tasks performed under threats of punishment. But none of this applies to Jesus' obedience. His ..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
7dd9684
|
Often I have the impression that priests and ministers are the least confessing people in the Christian community
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
250d25b
|
From beginning to end, fundraising as ministry is grounded in prayer and undertaken in gratitude. Prayer is the radical starting point of fundraising because in prayer we slowly experience a reorientation of all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves and others. To pray is to desire to know more fully the truth that sets us free (see John 8:32). Prayer uncovers the hidden motives and unacknowledged wounds that shape our relationships. Pr..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
f9abb11
|
As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words. They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
456dcb9
|
Worrying causes us to be "all over the place," but seldom at home."
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
9be450f
|
Dying is always suffering, because dying always puts us in the place where others do to us whatever they decide to do, good or bad.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
5e28d19
|
in and through solitude we do not move away from people. On the contrary, we move closer to them through compassionate ministry.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
f9ece4d
|
when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
2578f64
|
Why do we children of the light so easily become conspirators with the darkness? The answer is quite simple. Our identity, our sense of self, is at stake.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
f5a806d
|
If prayer, understood as an intimate relationship with God, is indeed the basis of all relationships--to ourselves as well as to others.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
39a516a
|
Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience. They may even be God's way of purifying us. But life is no longer boring, resentful, depressing, or lonely because we have come to know that everything that happens is part of our way to the Father.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
13dbd0c
|
Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue attention to the many faces which assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine savior.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
9e27d1b
|
Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
0c83c67
|
ministry can be fruitful only if it grows out of a direct and intimate encounter with our Lord.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
67c31a8
|
Solitude is not simply a means to an end. Solitude is its own end. It is the place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world. Solitude is the place of our salvation. Hence, it is the place where we want to lead all who are seeking the light in this dark world.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
f6bb308
|
We walk through life as if we had swallowed an Easter candle, rigid and tense, always afraid that things will get out of hand. This reaction is just as harmful as open rebellion, or even more so, because it blocks our way to religious maturation.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
a6c58f7
|
When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
4cd9e21
|
The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. Our lives are filled with examples which tell us that leadership asks for understanding and that understanding requires sharing.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
25098a1
|
Compassion is the fruit of solitude and the basis of all ministry.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
039e446
|
a much deeper human darkness: the darkness of not feeling truly welcome in human existence.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
e7cc6e8
|
Henri found a new capacity for joy. By claiming his belovedness, he had more compassion for people who hurt him, more courage to live his struggles as gateways to inner freedom. He became more loving, and felt more at peace with himself and the world.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
f606c72
|
It seems indeed that the Church today is one of the few institutions in the world willing to defend human rights regardless of who the oppressor is.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
cb8b86e
|
Temptations and struggles will remain to the end of our lives, but with a pure heart we will be restful even in the midst of a restless existence.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
610c535
|
Setting our hearts on something involves not only serious aspiration but also strong determination. A spiritual life requires human effort. The forces that keep pulling us back into a worry-filled life are far from easy to overcome.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
b04ab65
|
silence remains indispensable today as it was in the past. The Word of God is born out of the eternal silence of God, and it is to this Word out of silence that we want to be witnesses.
|
|
word-of-god
the-bible
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
981d462
|
To love and work for the glory of God cannot remain an idea about which we think once in a while. It must become an interior, unceasing doxology.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
b703d20
|
It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God's heart has become one with ours. Here we catch si..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
537e4f8
|
Then occupation is called a blessing and emptiness a curse. Many telephone conversations start with the words: "I know you are busy, but ..." and we would confuse the speaker and even harm our reputation were we to say, "Oh no, I am completely free, today, tomorrow and the whole week." Our client might well lose interest in a man who has so little to do." --
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
cc33e3e
|
When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not the advice givers, warners or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encouraged us to face the realities of life.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
2bb2519
|
Maybe my own deep-rooted fear to be on my own and alone kept me going from person to person, book to book and school to school, anxiously avoiding the pain of accepting the responsibility for my own life.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
aaad171
|
Don't we often look at the many events of our lives as big or small interruptions, interrupting many of our plans, projects and life schemes? Don't we feel an inner protest when a student interrupts our reading, bad weather our summer, illness our well-scheduled plans, the death of a dear friend our peaceful state of mind, a cruel war our ideas about the goodness of man, and the many harsh realities of life our good dreams about it? And doe..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
10d31c6
|
While visiting the University of Notre Dame, where I had been a teacher for a few years, I met an older experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. And while we strolled over the beautiful campus, he said with a certain melancholy in his voice, "You know,... my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work."
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
7939945
|
We often are very, very busy, and usually very tired as a result, but we should ask ourselves how much of our reading and talking, visiting and lobbying, lecturing and writing, is more part of an impulsive reaction to the changing demands of our surroundings than an action that was born out of our own center.
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
8fca97e
|
There are days, weeks and maybe months and years during which we are so overwhelmed by our sense of loneliness that we can hardly believe that the solitude of heart is within our horizon. But when we have once sensed what this solitude can mean, we will never stop searching for it. Once we have tasted this solitude a new life becomes possible, in which we can become detached from false ties and attached to God and each other in a surprising..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
e46cb5e
|
Letters of friends are good to receive, but we should be able to live happily without them. Visits are gifts to be valued, but without them we should not fall into the temptation of a brooding mood. Phone calls, "just to say hello," can fill us with gratitude, but when we expect them as a necessary way to sedate our fear of being left alone, we are becoming the easy victims of our self-complaints. We are always in search of a community that..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
1044313
|
I have found it very important in my own life to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me. To wait with openess and trust is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is choosing to hope that ..
|
|
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |