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Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.

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
People
Community
Means
Around
Feed
Together
Table
Body
Bodies
Come
Tables
Mean
Relationships
Mind
Minds

More quotes by 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.
Henri Nouwen
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It is hard to bear with people who stand still along the way, lose heart, and seek their happiness in little pleasures which they cling to...You feel sad about all that self-indulgence and self-satisfaction, for you know with an indestructible certainty that something greater is coming.
Henri Nouwen
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The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.
Henri Nouwen
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Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
Henri Nouwen
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Prayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very beingBut when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation.
Henri Nouwen
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...real care means the willingness to help each other in making our brokenness into the gateway to joy.
Henri Nouwen
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Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.
Henri Nouwen
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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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It is very hard to stay in touch with our true identity because those who want our money, our time, and our energy profit more from our insecurity and fears than from our inner freedom.
Henri Nouwen
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A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.
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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If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
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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In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united.
Henri Nouwen
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Ministry in no way is a privilege...it is the core of the Christian life. No Christian is a Christian without being a minister.
Henri Nouwen
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What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
Henri Nouwen
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...the word that seems best to summarize the desire of the human heart is 'communion.' ...wherever we look it is communion that we seek.
Henri Nouwen
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The world is evil only when you become its slave.
Henri Nouwen
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We seldom realize fully that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. We act as if we were simply dropped down in creation and have to decide to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do.
Henri Nouwen
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In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.
Henri Nouwen