Quote

While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will soon go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart... Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.

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
Makes
Trust
Optimism
Better
Leave
Someday
Live
Joy
Allows
Need
Present
Desires
Needs
Alone
Fruit
Frees
Heart
Future
Perspective
Predict
Things
Hope
Soon
Fulfill
Never
Desire
Deep
Deepest

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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To be baptized means to make the passage with the people of Israel and with Jesus from slavery to freedom and from death to new life. It is a commitment to a life in and through Jesus.
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
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Feelings of guilt dominate our work as peacemakers we cannot last long. But when we have opened each other's eyes to the great human gifts among all people we can indeed make peacemaking a way of being.
Henri Nouwen
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Once you are in communion with God, you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear other people in whom God has also found a dwelling place.
Henri Nouwen
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Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.
Henri Nouwen
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When we give generously, with an abundance mentality, what we give away will multiply.
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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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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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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Simply being with someone is difficult because it asks of us that we share in the other's vulnerability, enter with him or her into the experience of weakness and powerlessness, become part of the uncertainty, and give up control and self-determination.
Henri Nouwen
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Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.
Henri Nouwen
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People with handicaps teach me that being is more important than doing, the heart is more important than the mind, and caring together is better than caring alone.
Henri Nouwen
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The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human and to our God.
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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Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.
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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It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.
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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When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair. You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself All is lost. I have to start all over again. This is not true. What you have gained you have gained....When you return to the the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you starte
Henri Nouwen
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There is nothing so important in the family as the sacred quality of the meal.
Henri Nouwen