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a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.

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
Gospel
Prayer
Spiritual
Christ
Without
Life
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I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.
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when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.
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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.
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I have an increasing sense that the most important crisis of our time is spiritual and that we need places where people can grow stronger in the spirit and be able to integrate the emotional struggles in their spiritual journeys.
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The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human and to our God.
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To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God.
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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.
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It's good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go.
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A sense of solitude is one of the most beautiful things that parents can give a child. It doesn't mean leaving the child alone, but it does mean creating safe spaces where the child can be with other people. It does mean directing their attention to God.
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We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.
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Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
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For many, religion has to do with what we are allowed to do and not allowed to do. In the end, that doesn't bear fruit.
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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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All the great spiritual leaders in history were people of hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day all lived with a promise in their hearts that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like. Let's live with hope.
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Life is not entertainment. Life is not distraction.
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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.
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The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.
Henri Nouwen
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That's prayer to let God's Word speak deep within you and tell you, You are my beloved. You don't have to take an eye for an eye. No, no you're too rich for that.
Henri Nouwen
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Community always calls us back to solitude, and solitude always calls us to community. Community and solitude, both, are essential elements of ministry and witnessing.
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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