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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
Become
Respond
Time
Master
Life
Masters
Discipline
Create
Effort
Concentrated

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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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.
Henri Nouwen
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To be a minister means above all to become powerless, or in more precise terms, to speak with our powerlessness to the condition of powerlessness which is so keenly felt but so seldom expressed by the people of our age.
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Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.
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Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.
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Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. My resentment tells me that I don't receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy.
Henri Nouwen
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The real question is: how can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?
Henri Nouwen
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Aging does not need to be hidden or denied, but can be understood, affirmed and experienced as a process of growth by which the mystery of life is slowly revealed to us.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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[...]when two people have become present to each other, the waiting of one must be able to cross the narrow line between the living or dying of the other.
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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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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In God's eyes the most significant is often the most hidden.
Henri Nouwen
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The university has become a place that prepares you for the fights in the world.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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Solitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.
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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Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
Henri Nouwen
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A happy life is a life for others.
Henri Nouwen
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We seldom realize fully that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. We act as if we were simply dropped down in creation and have to decide to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do.
Henri Nouwen
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We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with him and him alone. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds only with a singleminded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature.
Henri Nouwen