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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.

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
Silence
Weaken
Greatest
Guard
Faith
Ministers
Words
Temptation
Spirit
Sacred
Many
Discipline
Make
Toward
Holy
Lukewarm

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In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.
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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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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.
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When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.
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'How much longer will I live?'... Only one thing seems clear to me. Every day should be well-lived. What a simple truth! Still, it is worthy of my attention.
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The university has become a place that prepares you for the fights in the world.
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a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.
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Everything changes radically from the moment you know yourself as being sent into this world.
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...real care means the willingness to help each other in making our brokenness into the gateway to joy.
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To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.
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The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
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How do you pray? Take the gospel of each day and spend ten minutes with it. Read it, and read it again. Walk into the world with the gospel in your heart.
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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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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.
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It is precisely when you are loved a lot that you might realize a second loneliness which is not to be solved but lived. This second loneliness is an existential loneliness that belongs to the basis of our being. It's where we are unfulfilled because only God can fill us.
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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.
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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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