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To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.

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
Known
Accept
Declaration
Free
Speech
Stability
True
Prove
Statements
Declarations
Need
Listening
Receive
Speeches
Hard
Listen
Welcome
Interior
Needs
Accepting
Presence
Interiors
Much
Longer
Inner
Listeners
Make
Asks
Argument
Arguments

More quotes by 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.
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What once seemed such a curse has become a blessing. All the agony that threatened to destroy my life now seems like the fertile ground for greater trust, stronger hope, and deeper love.
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Which questions guide our lives? Which questions do we make our own? Which questions deserve our undivided and full personal commitment? Finding the right questions is crucial to finding the answers.
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If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.
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The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.
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The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.
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The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.
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It's an incredible mystery of God's love that the more you know how deeply you are loved, the more you will see how deeply your sisters and your brothers in the human family are loved.
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For me the university has always been an ideal context for spiritual formation. I always felt that if you want to offer spiritual formation at the university, you can.
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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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Where are you getting your affection? Who's touching you? Who's holding you? Who makes you feel alive? Who says, You are a beautiful person, you are the beloved of God, don't forget it? That's an important discipline.
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As peacemakers, we must resist all the powers of war and destruction and proclaim that peace is the divine gift offered to all who affirm life. Resistance means saying 'No' to all the forces of death, wherever they may be.
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There is nothing so important in the family as the sacred quality of the meal.
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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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a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.
Henri Nouwen
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God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.
Henri Nouwen
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When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.
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The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering.
Henri Nouwen
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Although I am a committed Catholic priest, and nowhere hide that fact, my focus is very much a spiritual journey.
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As long as we relate to the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fields and the oceans as properties which we can manipulate according to our real or fabricated needs, nature remains opaque, and does not reveal to us its true being.
Henri Nouwen