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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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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
Live
Loneliness
Firsts
Solitude
First
Garden
Must
Courage
Persistent
Life
Effort
Efforts
Spiritual
Enter
Change
Desert
Find
Gentle

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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I am working on three things: on being a prayerful person on staying close to the handicapped and on my writing. These are my constant concerns.
Henri Nouwen
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Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are much more accessible. They are men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and struggle with ordinary problems. What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God's people.
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Peacemaking is a full-time vocation that includes each member of God's people.
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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.
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Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.
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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Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. ...We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.
Henri Nouwen
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I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries.
Henri Nouwen
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the real work of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing-- that demands real effort.
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I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.
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Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. This, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.
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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Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
Henri Nouwen
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You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
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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There is nothing so important in the family as the sacred quality of the meal.
Henri Nouwen
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Those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. LOVE is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.
Henri Nouwen
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This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without condition or limits.
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We seldom realize fully that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. We act as if we were simply dropped down in creation and have to decide to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do.
Henri Nouwen
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To receive spiritual direction is to recognize that God does not solve our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease.
Henri Nouwen