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Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

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
Time
Life
Patiently
Wasting
Expectation
Expectations
Foundation
Waiting
Spiritual

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.
Henri Nouwen
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I loved to teach, I loved my students, but I wanted to find a community. I prayed: Lord, show me where you want me to go. I will go wanted wherever you call me - but please be clear.
Henri Nouwen
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Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.
Henri Nouwen
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When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding every one of my steps I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look, or what will happen next month or next year. I can be fully where I am and pay attention to the many signs of God's love within me and around me.
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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Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God — for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs. … The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God.
Henri Nouwen
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When we give generously, with an abundance mentality, what we give away will multiply.
Henri Nouwen
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God's Kingdom is a place of abundance where every generous act overflows its original bounds and becomes part of the unbounded grace of God at work in the world.
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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Although I am a committed Catholic priest, and nowhere hide that fact, my focus is very much a spiritual journey.
Henri Nouwen
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If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
Henri Nouwen
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Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life...all of our life.
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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Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence -- priceless and irreplaceable.
Henri Nouwen
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How do you pray? Take the gospel of each day and spend ten minutes with it. Read it, and read it again. Walk into the world with the gospel in your heart.
Henri Nouwen
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In this crazy world, there's an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they're never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.
Henri Nouwen
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We need to remind each other that the cup of sorrow is also the cup of joy, that precisely what causes us sadness can become the fertile ground for gladness.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
Henri Nouwen