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

More quotes by 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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Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.
Henri Nouwen
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Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
Henri Nouwen
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Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?' These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will be many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.
Henri Nouwen
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So I am praying while not knowing how to pray. I am resting while feeling restless, at peace while tempted, safe while still anxious, surrounded by a cloud of light while still in darkness, in love while still doubting.
Henri Nouwen
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In God's eyes the most significant is often the most hidden.
Henri Nouwen
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One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs.
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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The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.
Henri Nouwen
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Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance.
Henri Nouwen
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It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.
Henri Nouwen
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Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
Henri Nouwen
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As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their right place.
Henri Nouwen
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Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about.
Henri Nouwen
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In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united.
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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What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
Henri Nouwen
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The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity. It is a secret known only to a very few people, a secret that has to be rediscovered over and over again.
Henri Nouwen
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The world is evil only when you become its slave.
Henri Nouwen
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When we give generously, with an abundance mentality, what we give away will multiply.
Henri Nouwen