Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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.
Henri Nouwen
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Hunger
Institutions
Forcing
Rules
Inviting
Follow
Institution
Community
Thirst
Church
Table
Stills
Still
Tables
More quotes by Henri Nouwen
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
You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
Henri Nouwen
Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
Henri Nouwen
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
The Church will always be renewed when our attention shifts from ourselves to those who need our care. The blessing of Jesus always comes to us through the poor. The most remarkable experience of those who work with the poor is that, in the end, the poor give more than they receive. They give food to us.
Henri Nouwen
The great teachers are always those who can live the tension. They are not criticizing everybody, they're not complaining. They give young people a vision.
Henri Nouwen
Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
Henri Nouwen
The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.
Henri Nouwen
As a general remark, I would say we must move from the moral to the mystical life.
Henri Nouwen
Our tendency is to run from the painful realities or try to change them as soon as possible. But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators.
Henri Nouwen
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
Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.
Henri Nouwen
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.
Henri Nouwen
What is Hope?Hope is that inner dynamic that compels us to explore and pursue the expectations built into the human condition. Hope was born the day the first human beings discovered the first bridge and decided not to jump off the bridge in despair, but to cross it
Henri Nouwen
It is not that the university as such is against spiritual formation. It is just that often the university does not know how to integrate spiritual formation within its academic disciplines.
Henri Nouwen
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
Our Western society is showing its technological muscles in ever more threatening ways, but the experience of fear, anxiety and even despair has increased in equal proportion. Indeed, the paradox is that the powerful giants feel as powerless as a new-born babe.
Henri Nouwen
Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.
Henri Nouwen
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
Henri Nouwen
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
