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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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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
Always
Spoke
Speaking
Allowed
Clouds
Realized
Kept
Sun
Friend
Spokes

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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A prayerful life is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.
Henri Nouwen
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In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.
Henri Nouwen
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Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.
Henri Nouwen
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As peacemakers, we must resist all the powers of war and destruction and proclaim that peace is the divine gift offered to all who affirm life. Resistance means saying 'No' to all the forces of death, wherever they may be.
Henri Nouwen
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What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.
Henri Nouwen
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You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you the beloved.
Henri Nouwen
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In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
Henri Nouwen
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Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
Henri Nouwen
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Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.
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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Ministry in no way is a privilege...it is the core of the Christian life. No Christian is a Christian without being a minister.
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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The members - mentally handicapped people who are marginal in society and not useful in an economic sense - welcomed me into their lives. And I was loved, not because of what s doing but because of who I was.
Henri Nouwen
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The world is evil only when you become its slave.
Henri Nouwen
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The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation.
Henri Nouwen
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Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.
Henri Nouwen
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Intimacy is not a happy medium. It is a way of being in which the tension between distance and closeness is dissolved and a new horizon appears. Intimacy is beyond fear.
Henri Nouwen
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Real greatness is often hidden, humble, simple, and unobtrusive. It is not easy to trust ourselves and our actions without public affirmation. We must have strong self-confidence combined with deep humility.
Henri Nouwen
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As long as we relate to the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fields and the oceans as properties which we can manipulate according to our real or fabricated needs, nature remains opaque, and does not reveal to us its true being.
Henri Nouwen
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Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.
Henri Nouwen