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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 78f7746 | Whatever happens to me in life, I must believe that somewhere, In the mess or madness of it all, There is a sacred potential-- | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 813b7a4 | I know now that I have to speak from eternity into time, from the lasting joy into the passing realities of our short existence in this world, from the house of love into the houses of fear, from God's abode into the dwellings of human beings. I | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 0198682 | The owner of the vineyard, after having sent in vain several stewards to collect his share of the harvest, decides to send "his beloved son." The tenants recognize that he is the heir and kill him to obtain the inheritance for themselves. This is the picture of the true son who obeys his father, not as a slave, but as the Beloved, and fulfills the will of the Father in full unity with him." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| d988bc4 | Often we are preoccupied with the question "How can we be witnesses in the Name of Jesus? What are we supposed to say or do to make people accept the love that God offers them?" These questions are expressions more of our fear than of our love. Jesus shows us the way of being witnesses. He was so full of God's love, so connected with God's will, so burning with zeal for God's Kingdom, that he couldn't do other than witness. Wherever he went.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 5f6d890 | A complainer is hard to live with, and very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person. The tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: further rejection. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 28598dc | People we meet, some great in the eyes of the world and some almost invisible to the larger society, are often conduits of God's wisdom. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 1cc910a | O Lord, I will not bind you with my own limited and limiting ideas and feelings. You can do so many things with me, things that might seem totally impossible to me. I want at least to remain open to the free movement of your Spirit in my life. Why do I keep saying to myself: "I will never be a saint. I will never be able to overcome my impulses and desires." If I keep saying that, I might prevent you from healing and touching me deeply. O L.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3bfc2ed | For a Christian is only a Christian when he unceasingly asks critical questions of the society in which he lives and continuously stresses the necessity for conversion, not only of the individual but also of the world. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 25355ca | On the one hand the younger son realizes that he has lost the dignity of his sonship, but at the same time that sense of lost dignity makes him also aware that he is indeed the son who had dignity to lose," (pp. 49)." | son | Henri J.M. Nouwen | |
| c0dd1ec | In Christ we live as God's beloved before we were born and after we have died; all the circumstances in between will not negate that. Jean | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 18d9282 | Jesus says to Nicodemus, "though the light has come into the world, people have preferred darkness to the light" (John 3:19). In me I can feel this strange preference for the darkness. It seems as if I resist coming into the light and enjoy staying in my self-made darkness. Jesus offers the light, the truth, the life coming from above. He makes it clear that God wants to pull me away from the darkness; he wants to offer me a solid love to d.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| bded5ba | truly accepting love, forgiveness, and healing is often much harder than giving it. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| a807202 | When we see ourselves in a relationship of love with God, there is always something of a lover's dilemma, a struggle to give and receive, to trust and obey the call. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 94059a8 | Henri J.M. Nouwen wrote about 'wounded healers.' I've come to see that there's no other kind. We are all wounded, and we are all called to take part in what God is doing to bring healing to those around us. | Mary Lou Redding | ||
| c3c9d47 | They ask only one question: "what is pleasing to the Spirit of God?" And as soon as they have heard the sound of the Spirit in the silence and solitude of their hearts, they follow its promptings even if it upsets their friends, disrupts their environment, and confuses their admirers." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 82c1f6d | I encourage you to make a similar commitment to spending time alone with God each day for prayer and meditation. Biblical meditation is a traditional method of solitary prayer. By selecting a particular scripture verse from the gospel reading for the day, or a favourite psalm, or a sentence from a letter from Paul, you can create a safe wall around your heart that will allow you to pay attention. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 62b5de1 | I wonder if the greatest temptation is self-rejection. Could it be that beneath all the lures to greed, lust, and success rests a great fear of never being enough or not being lovable? | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 014936d | Just as a whole world of beauty can be discovered in one flower, so the great grace of God can be tasted in one small moment Just as no great travels are necessary to see the beauty of creation, so no great ecstasies are needed to discover the love of God. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 66a2fbf | The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, nonhearing life to a life of listening. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| f1647ef | Dorotheus writes: "Don't look for the affection of your neighbor. He who looks for it is troubled when he does not get it. You yourself, however, have to give witness to the love for your neighbor and to offer him rest, and thus you will bring your neighbor to love." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| a05b038 | Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3557295 | The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8 NRSV). To be born of the Spirit is to step into a freedom that we never imagined before. It is to trust that the Spirit" | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 971eb54 | Much of our ministry is pervaded with judgments. Often quite unconsciously we classify our people as very good, good, neutral, bad, and very bad. These judgments influence deeply the thoughts, words, and actions of our ministry. Before we know it, we fall into the trap of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Those whom we consider lazy, indifferent, hostile, or obnoxious we treat as such, forcing them in this way to live up to our own views. And s.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| ed2dc7a | Our Wordy World OVER THE LAST few decades we have been inundated by a torrent of words. Wherever we go we are surrounded by words: words softly whispered, loudly proclaimed, or angrily screamed; words spoken, recited, or sung; words on records, in books, on walls, or in the sky; words in many sounds, many colors, or many forms; words to be heard, read, seen, or glanced at; words which flicker off and on, move slowly, dance, jump, or wiggle... | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| b2186e8 | It is not enough for the priests and ministers of the future to be moral people, well trained, eager to help their fellow humans, and able to respond creatively to the burning issues of their time. All of that is very valuable and important, but its not the heart of Christian leadership. The central question is, Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God's presence, to listen to Go.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| ec07f04 | it became increasingly clear to me that I know quite well the difference between darkness and light but do not always have the courage to name them by their true names. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| c17bd9d | To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. --Henri J. M. Nouwen | Anonymous | ||
| f12bbec | What matters here is that the moment Cleopas and his friend recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread, his bodily presence was no longer required as a condition for their new hope. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| f2705e8 | God is there. God's light is there. God's forgiveness is there. God's boundless love is there. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| b3ac8bf | Whether I am the younger son or the elder son, God's only desire is to bring me home. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| ceb19b4 | We cannot see God in the other person. Only God in us can see God in the other person. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 121a263 | The word of the Eucharist makes us part of the great story of our salvation. Our little stories are lifted up into God's great story and there given their unique place. The word lifts us up and makes us see that our daily, ordinary lives are, in fact, sacred lives that play a necessary role in the fulfillment of God's promises. | word-of-god | Henri J.M. Nouwen | |
| f22fb41 | The great temptation of our lives is to deny our role as chosen people and to allow ourselves to be trapped in the worries of our daily lives. Without the word that keeps lifting us up as God's chosen people, we remain, or become, small people, stuck in the complaints that emerge from our daily struggle to survive. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| c704649 | The story of the prodigal son is the story of a God who goes searching for me and who doesn't rest until he has found me. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3ab87c3 | He who thinks that he is finished, is finished. How true. 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 J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 59da4fa | As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 0dd468a | I slowly became aware, but only in my head, of something about "the first love" and "the second love." Let me explain. I became more and more intellectually clear that the first love comes from the ultimate life force we call God, who has loved me unconditionally before others knew or loved me. "I have loved you with an everlasting love." And I saw that the second love, the love of parents, family, and friends, was only a modified expressio.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 7b29586 | a real friend is someone who doesn't walk off when there are no solutions or answers, but sticks by you and remains faithful to you. It often turns out that the one who gives us the most comfort is not the person who says, "Do this, say that, go there"; but the one who, even if there is no good advice to give, says, "Whatever happens, I'm your friend; you can count on me." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4351510 | Typically we see such hardship as an obstacle to what we think we should be--healthy, good-looking, free of discomfort. We consider suffering as annoying at best, meaningless at worst. We strive to get rid of our pains in whatever way we can. A part of us prefers the illusion that our losses are not real, that they come only as temporary interruptions. We thereby expend much energy in denial. "They should not prevent us from holding on to t.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 9e17612 | We often say, "I am not very happy. I am not content with the way my life is going. I am not really joyful or peaceful, but I just don't know how things can be different, and I guess I have to be realistic and accept my life as it is." It is this mood of resignation that prevents us from actively searching for the life of the Spirit." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 71598e1 | Our first task is to dispel this vague, murky feeling of discontent and to look critically at how we are living our lives. This requires honesty, courage, and trust. We must honestly unmask and courageously confront our many self-deceptive games. We must trust that our honesty and courage will lead us not to despair, but to a new heaven and a new earth. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 1a92b19 | When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives. We keep running away from the present moment, and we try to create experiences that make our lives worthwhile. So we fill up our time to avoid the emptiness we otherwise would feel. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 254e3bf | have seen how the fear of becoming subject to God's revenge and punishment has paralyzed the mental and emotional lives of many people, independently of their age, religion, or life-style. This paralyzing fear of God is one of the great human tragedies. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3c5cf75 | It is hard for me to imagine what it means to be a complete foreigner, a person to whom no one shows any sign of recognition. | Henri J.M. Nouwen |