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To receive spiritual direction is to recognize that God does not solve our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease.

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
Answer
Closer
Mystery
Receive
Problems
Leads
Answers
Cease
Existence
Direction
Spiritual
Recognize
Doe
Solve
Problem
Questions

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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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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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.
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I still believe that the university is a place where people can develop their minds and learn skills, but also they can develop their personalities and their spiritual life.
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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Solitude is the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter.
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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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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Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people's response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule.
Henri Nouwen
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You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you the beloved.
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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To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.
Henri Nouwen
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My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
Henri Nouwen
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God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.
Henri Nouwen
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a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.
Henri Nouwen
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The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.
Henri Nouwen
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I am very grateful that I am in touch with so many different church groups. I am always very moved by the fact that so many people - practically over the spectrum of the Christian world - are responding to my writing.
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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It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.
Henri Nouwen
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It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.
Henri Nouwen
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We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.
Henri Nouwen