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The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it

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
Spiritual
Doe
Life
World
Remove
Leads
Spirituality
Deeper

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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A life without a lonely place, that is, without a quiet center, becomes destructive.
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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Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God's suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.
Henri Nouwen
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Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
Henri Nouwen
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Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour.
Henri Nouwen
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...we all want to hear stories, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Stories connect our little lives with the world around us and help us discover who we are.
Henri Nouwen
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Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, This is a Christmas meal this is a birthday meal.
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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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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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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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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As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words. They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.
Henri Nouwen
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My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
Henri Nouwen
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Aging does not need to be hidden or denied, but can be understood, affirmed and experienced as a process of growth by which the mystery of life is slowly revealed to us.
Henri Nouwen
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If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives.
Henri Nouwen
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Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.
Henri Nouwen
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It is hard to bear with people who stand still along the way, lose heart, and seek their happiness in little pleasures which they cling to...You feel sad about all that self-indulgence and self-satisfaction, for you know with an indestructible certainty that something greater is coming.
Henri Nouwen
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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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Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.
Henri Nouwen
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I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.
Henri Nouwen