Quote

I am learning that the best cure for hypocrisy is community. Hypocrisy is not so much the result of not living what I preach but much more of not confessing my inability to fully live up to my own words.

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
Results
Preach
Community
Inability
Words
Hypocrisy
Living
Cure
Best
Cures
Live
Fully
Much
Result
Learning
Confessing

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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That's the temptation of the devil: Turn stones into bread! Be relevant!
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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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When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair. You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself All is lost. I have to start all over again. This is not true. What you have gained you have gained....When you return to the the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you starte
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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.
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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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I have an increasing sense that the most important crisis of our time is spiritual and that we need places where people can grow stronger in the spirit and be able to integrate the emotional struggles in their spiritual journeys.
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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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when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.
Henri Nouwen
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The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.
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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The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.
Henri Nouwen
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If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives.
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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Without Pentecost the Christ-event - the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus - remains imprisoned in history as something to remember, think about and reflect on. The Spirit of Jesus comes to dwell within us, so that we can become living Christs here and now.
Henri Nouwen
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God doesn't give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for.
Henri Nouwen
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Our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Henri Nouwen
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To be baptized means to make the passage with the people of Israel and with Jesus from slavery to freedom and from death to new life. It is a commitment to a life in and through Jesus.
Henri Nouwen
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Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, This is a Christmas meal this is a birthday meal.
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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The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing...that is a friend who cares.
Henri Nouwen