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The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing...that is a friend who cares.

Henri Nouwen

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Henri Nouwen
Age: 64 †
Born: 1932
Born: January 24
Died: 1996
Died: September 21
Catholic Priest
Presbyter
Priest
Psychologist
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen
Friends
Grief
Bereavement
Moment
Hour
Confusing
Moments
Silent
Grieving
Care
Friendship
Tolerate
Friend
Cares
Stay
Confusion
Knowing
Healing
Hours
Despair
Curing

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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You have to dare to live through the pain and struggle. 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.
Henri Nouwen
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In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer.
Henri Nouwen
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We seldom realize fully that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. We act as if we were simply dropped down in creation and have to decide to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do.
Henri Nouwen
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Our Western society is showing its technological muscles in ever more threatening ways, but the experience of fear, anxiety and even despair has increased in equal proportion. Indeed, the paradox is that the powerful giants feel as powerless as a new-born babe.
Henri Nouwen
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One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.
Henri Nouwen
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The most important thing I've come to believe in is that people with mental handicaps have a unique mission to bring God's blessing to the World.
Henri Nouwen
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I really believe that what we finally want is to know God, as God has come to be known through Jesus. Knowledge is knowledge of the heart - the Spirit - I would say. It is the Spirit in us who reveals God.
Henri Nouwen
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I am very grateful that I am in touch with so many different church groups. I am always very moved by the fact that so many people - practically over the spectrum of the Christian world - are responding to my writing.
Henri Nouwen
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You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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I loved to teach, I loved my students, but I wanted to find a community. I prayed: Lord, show me where you want me to go. I will go wanted wherever you call me - but please be clear.
Henri Nouwen
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I am deeply convince that the necessity of prayer, and to pray unceasingly, is not as much based on our desire for God as on God's desire for us. It is God's passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.
Henri Nouwen
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When we break bread and give it to each other, fear vanishes and God becomes very close.
Henri Nouwen
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When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live.
Henri Nouwen
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As a general remark, I would say we must move from the moral to the mystical life.
Henri Nouwen
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Our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Henri Nouwen
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I am working on three things: on being a prayerful person on staying close to the handicapped and on my writing. These are my constant concerns.
Henri Nouwen
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When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.
Henri Nouwen