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

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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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
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It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.
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It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.
Henri Nouwen
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The members - mentally handicapped people who are marginal in society and not useful in an economic sense - welcomed me into their lives. And I was loved, not because of what s doing but because of who I was.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen
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The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it
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Although many, we might even say most, strangers in this world become easily the victim of a fearful hostility, it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.
Henri Nouwen
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All the great spiritual leaders in history were people of hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day all lived with a promise in their hearts that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like. Let's live with hope.
Henri Nouwen
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That's the temptation of the devil: Turn stones into bread! Be relevant!
Henri Nouwen
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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
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The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
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 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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Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
Henri Nouwen
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The world is evil only when you become its slave.
Henri Nouwen
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Our inclination is to show our Lord only what we feel comfortable with. But the more we dare to reveal our whole trembling self to him, the more we will be able to sense that his love, which is perfect love, casts out all our fears.
Henri Nouwen
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Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness.
Henri Nouwen
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Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us.
Henri Nouwen
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The pain that comes from deep love makes your love more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root.
Henri Nouwen