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Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.

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
Community
Cannot
Live
Important
Communion
Thing
Ministry
Minister
Ministers
Least

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
Henri Nouwen
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While my friend always spoke about the sun, I kept speaking about the clouds, until one day I realized that it was the sun that allowed me to see the clouds.
Henri Nouwen
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To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.
Henri Nouwen
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Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.
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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Someday I would love to write about Vincent van Gogh - his paintings and letters continue to inspire me very much. But it remains hard to find the time and inner rest to write.
Henri Nouwen
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...real care means the willingness to help each other in making our brokenness into the gateway to joy.
Henri Nouwen
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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 Nouwen
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Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
Henri Nouwen
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It is very hard to stay in touch with our true identity because those who want our money, our time, and our energy profit more from our insecurity and fears than from our inner freedom.
Henri Nouwen
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I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but instead as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.
Henri Nouwen
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Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
Henri Nouwen
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When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.
Henri Nouwen
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Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.
Henri Nouwen
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Life is not entertainment. Life is not distraction.
Henri Nouwen
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It is precisely when you are loved a lot that you might realize a second loneliness which is not to be solved but lived. This second loneliness is an existential loneliness that belongs to the basis of our being. It's where we are unfulfilled because only God can fill us.
Henri Nouwen
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God's Kingdom is a place of abundance where every generous act overflows its original bounds and becomes part of the unbounded grace of God at work in the world.
Henri Nouwen
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L'Arche is not a service institution or a group home. It is a community that exists to reveal God's love. Our people are given to the world to tell others about peace and forgiveness and celebration, to make them aware that in the midst of their brokenness, there is joy in the midst of their wounded nature, there is healing.
Henri Nouwen
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It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.
Henri Nouwen
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In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.
Henri Nouwen