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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

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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
Lives
Findings
Inspirational
Finding
Right
Commitment
Make
Questions
Deserve
Undivided
Personal
Guide
Answers
Crucial
Full
Guides

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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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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It's good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go.
Henri Nouwen
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To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.
Henri Nouwen
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Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God's eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God's heart.
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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Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
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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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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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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A life without a lonely place, that is, without a quiet center, becomes destructive.
Henri Nouwen
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The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others.
Henri Nouwen
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Where are you getting your affection? Who's touching you? Who's holding you? Who makes you feel alive? Who says, You are a beautiful person, you are the beloved of God, don't forget it? That's an important discipline.
Henri Nouwen
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You have to dare to live through the pain and struggle. Acknowledge your anguish but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.
Henri Nouwen
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One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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The world is evil only when you become its slave.
Henri Nouwen
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Most Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.
Henri Nouwen
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It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.
Henri Nouwen
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From the moment we claim the truth of being the beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are.
Henri Nouwen
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Our Western society is showing its technological muscles in ever more threatening ways, but the experience of fear, anxiety and even despair has increased in equal proportion. Indeed, the paradox is that the powerful giants feel as powerless as a new-born babe.
Henri Nouwen