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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| cc444df | Whatever he had lost, be it his money, his friends, his reputation, his self-respect, his inner joy and peace--one or all--he still remained his father's child. And so he says to himself: "How many of my father's hired men have all the food they want and more, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; tr.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3276b52 | Spiritual fatherhood has nothing to do with power or control. It is a fatherhood of compassion. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 8599794 | Both were lost children. Judas, no longer able to hold on to the truth that he remained God's child, hung himself. In terms of the prodigal son, he sold the sword of his sonship. Peter, in the midst of his despair, claimed it and returned with many tears. Judas chose death. Peter chose life. I realize that this choice is always before me. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| f05f3a7 | God loves us before any human person can show love to us. He loves us with a "first" love, an unlimited, unconditional love, wants us to be his beloved children, and tells us to become as loving as himself." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| c3f06d5 | when God created man and woman in his own image, he saw that "it was very good," and, despite the dark voices, no man or woman can ever change that." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4118f50 | One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God's forgiveness. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 02724cf | Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4f4d0b8 | As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 6d02bee | Becoming a child is living the Beatitudes and so finding the narrow gate into the Kingdom. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| d4bff3a | Isn't the little child poor, gentle, and pure of heart? Isn't the little child weeping in response to every little pain? Isn't the little child the peacemaker hungry and thirsty for uprightness and the final victim of persecution? And what of Jesus himself, the Word of God who became flesh, dwelt for nine months in Mary's womb, and came into this world as a little child worshipped by shepherds from close by and by wise men from far away? Th.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| aa30926 | Once I look at the story of the prodigal son with the eyes of faith, the "return" of the prodigal becomes the return of the Son of God who has drawn all people into himself and brings them home to his heavenly Father. As Paul says: "God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 41cf669 | The journey of the younger son cannot be separated from that of his elder brother. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4d22a45 | Only when we recognize the rich network of connections between the Eucharist and our life in the world can the Eucharist be "worldly" and our life "Eucharistic." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 773caf8 | This invitation to a meal is an invitation to intimacy with God. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 456ec26 | The reward of choosing joy is joy itself. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 9e14438 | From God's perspective, one hidden act of repentance, one little gesture of selfless love, one moment of true forgiveness is all that is needed to bring God from his throne to run to his returning son and to fill the heavens with sounds of divine joy. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 666d79a | That joy can be seen on the faces of the many simple, poor, and often suffering people who live today among great economic and social upheaval, but who can already hear the music and the dance in the Father's house. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4752494 | Jesus lived this joy of the Father's house to the full. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| d27e698 | Often you will catch yourself wanting to receive your loving God by putting on a semblance of beauty, by holding back everything dirty and spoiled, by clearing just a little path that looks proper. But that is a fearful response--forced and artificial. Such a response exhausts you and turns your prayer into torment. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 0a55936 | But what a painful difference between the two! The father bends over his returning son. The elder son stands stiffly erect, a posture accentuated by the long staff reaching from his hand to the floor. The father's mantle is wide and welcoming; the son's hangs flat over his body. The father's hands are spread out and touch the homecomer in a gesture of blessing; the son's are clasped together and held close to his chest. There is light on bo.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| d8da080 | This man welcomes sinners and eats with them," Jesus confronted the Pharisees and scribes not only with the return of the prodigal son, but also with the resentful elder son. It must have come as a shock to these dutiful religious people." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| ec4a8b6 | Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know that I am moving from fear to love. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 4c3193b | Just as in the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus expresses here the great desire of his Father to offer his children a banquet and his eagerness to get it going even when those who are invited refuse to come. This invitation to a meal is an invitation to intimacy with God. This is especially clear at the Last Supper, shortly before Jesus' death. There he says to his disciples: "From now on, I tell you, I shall never again drink wine until .. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 18c2445 | There is so much rejection, pain, and woundedness among us, but once you choose to claim the joy hidden in the midst of all suffering, life becomes celebration. Joy never denies the sadness, but transforms it to a fertile soil for more joy. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 1d84b53 | Are we really servants when we can become masters again once we think we have done our part or made our contribution? Are we really servants when we can say when, where, and how long we will give of our time and energy? Is service in a far country really an expression of servanthood when we keep enough money in the bank to fly home at any moment? | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 54d92d7 | 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.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| e6a8a96 | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| f4b4341 | We need you to be a father who can claim for himself the authority of true compassion. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 77b6df7 | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 596e292 | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3dfe50d | 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.. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| ff10b29 | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 34d6c55 | 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 .. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| adb587f | every relationship carries within its center a holy vacancy, a space that is for the first Love, God alone. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 21e0ec6 | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 6c93fe8 | 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?" | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| dd4f7b5 | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 8768a0f | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 3b95c38 | Here is a home for you; maybe you need us." All my desires to be useful, successful, and productive revolted." | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 2f02632 | 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 .. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| a2096a8 | Truth does not mean an idea, concept, or doctrine, but the true relationship. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 42b706f | 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. | struggle | Henri J.M. Nouwen | |
| d7a3892 | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen | ||
| 7dbebfa | 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. | Henri J.M. Nouwen |