Quote

If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives.

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
Realizing
Retreating
Sides
Contemplative
Community
Survives
Anything
Essential
Without
Essentials
Never
Quiet
Time
Realize
Side

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
Henri Nouwen
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Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance.
Henri Nouwen
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Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.
Henri Nouwen
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When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.
Henri Nouwen
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We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.
Henri Nouwen
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We just have to recognize life for what it is: a gift to be grateful for, not a property to cling to, hoard, or defend.
Henri Nouwen
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Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.
Henri Nouwen
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Community life is not easy for somebody like me, who is used to living by himself and doing what he wants. It's a demanding life, and you quickly get in touch with your own handicaps and weaknesses.
Henri Nouwen
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Mysticism is for all, not just for a few special people.
Henri Nouwen
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Solitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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A few years ago I met an old professor at the University of Notre Dame. Looking back on his long life of teaching, he said with a funny wrinkle in his eyes: I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.
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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the real work of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing-- that demands real effort.
Henri Nouwen
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As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their right place.
Henri Nouwen
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Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
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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To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.
Henri Nouwen
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Active waiting means present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.
Henri Nouwen
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The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised.
Henri Nouwen