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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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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
Giving
Church
Shifts
Needs
Jesus
Renewed
Work
Comes
Remarkable
Always
Experience
Receive
Ends
Blessing
Give
Food
Care
Attention
Need
Poor

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.
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.
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Solitude is the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter.
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For many, religion has to do with what we are allowed to do and not allowed to do. In the end, that doesn't bear fruit.
Henri Nouwen
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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.
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Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how.
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Gratitude flows from the recognition that who we are and what we have are gifts to be received and shared.
Henri Nouwen
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I was forced to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, and to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life.
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
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While my friend always spoke about the sun, I kept speaking about the clouds, until one day I realized that it was the sun that allowed me to see the clouds.
Henri Nouwen
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Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg.
Henri Nouwen
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It's good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go.
Henri Nouwen
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As a general remark, I would say we must move from the moral to the mystical life.
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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In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
Henri Nouwen
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If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.
Henri Nouwen
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Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories . . .
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L'Arche is not a service institution or a group home. It is a community that exists to reveal God's love. Our people are given to the world to tell others about peace and forgiveness and celebration, to make them aware that in the midst of their brokenness, there is joy in the midst of their wounded nature, there is healing.
Henri Nouwen
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Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.
Henri Nouwen
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Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.
Henri Nouwen