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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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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
Space
Freely
Spiritual
Guidance
Respond
Become
Master
Time
Masters
Life
Discipline
Create
Effort
Concentrated

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.
Henri Nouwen
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Is my growing old making me any closer to Christ? Am I only getting older or am I getting more godly?
Henri Nouwen
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Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be.
Henri Nouwen
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It is by chance that we met, by choice that we became friends.
Henri Nouwen
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When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live.
Henri Nouwen
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Silence is a very concrete, practical, and useful discipline in all our ministerial tasks. It can be seen as a portable cell taken with us from the solitary place into the midst of our ministry. Silence is solitude practiced in action.
Henri Nouwen
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...real care means the willingness to help each other in making our brokenness into the gateway to joy.
Henri Nouwen
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Those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. LOVE is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.
Henri Nouwen
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Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories . . .
Henri Nouwen
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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
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...the word that seems best to summarize the desire of the human heart is 'communion.' ...wherever we look it is communion that we seek.
Henri Nouwen
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Friends share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.
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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It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.
Henri Nouwen
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Perhaps nothing helps us make the movement from our little selves to a larger world than remembering God in gratitude. Such a perspective puts God in view in all of life, not just in the moments we set aside for worship or spiritual disciplines. Not just in the moments when life seems easy.
Henri Nouwen
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What is forgotten cannot be healed, and that which cannot be healed easily becomes the cause of greater evil.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will soon go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart... Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.
Henri Nouwen
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It is very hard to stay in touch with our true identity because those who want our money, our time, and our energy profit more from our insecurity and fears than from our inner freedom.
Henri Nouwen
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Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.
Henri Nouwen