Quote

Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.

Henri Nouwen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Steps
Moving
Fear
Take
Every
Time
Generosity
Love
Direction
Step

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

Image
Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God's suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.
Henri Nouwen
Image
From the moment we claim the truth of being the beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are.
Henri Nouwen
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Live, work, and travel with handicapped people, so I can stay close to them. But since I am often busy with many things, it's a constant struggle to keep the handicapped members of our community in the center of my life.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
Henri Nouwen
Image
In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.
Henri Nouwen
Image
While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will soon go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart... Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.
Henri Nouwen
Image
The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human and to our God.
Henri Nouwen
Image
The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Often we come home from a sharing session with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from us or that holy ground has been trodden upon.
Henri Nouwen
Image
When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.
Henri Nouwen
Image
When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.
Henri Nouwen
Image
The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity. It is a secret known only to a very few people, a secret that has to be rediscovered over and over again.
Henri Nouwen
Image
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.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Today's reading was if they ask you to walk a mile, walk two. Don't take an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. You have chances every second to live this Word, but it has to be in you. It can't just be an idea it has to sink from the mind into the heart.
Henri Nouwen
Image
People who pray stand receptive before the world. They no longer grab but caress, they no longer bite but kiss, they no longer examine but admire.
Henri Nouwen
Image
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
Image
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