Quote

Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.

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
Praying
Jobs
Helping
Writing
Way
Helps
Pray

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

Image
Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.
Henri Nouwen
Image
We must ask ourselves how many times others would benefit more from our silence than from our words.
Henri Nouwen
Image
I choose L'Arche L'Arche chooses me. I would be dead if I weren't here. I need people to love me and care for me.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us.
Henri Nouwen
Image
We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.
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
Our life is...a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.
Henri Nouwen
Image
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
Image
If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.
Henri Nouwen
Image
I had a deep experience of God's love for me.
Henri Nouwen
Image
It is by chance that we met, by choice that we became friends.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Silence is a very concrete, practical, and useful discipline in all our ministerial tasks. It can be seen as a portable cell taken with us from the solitary place into the midst of our ministry. Silence is solitude practiced in action.
Henri Nouwen
Image
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
Henri Nouwen
Image
When we have nothing to cling to as our own and cease thinking of ourselves as people who must defend privileges, we can open ourselves freely to others with the faithful expectation that our strength will manifest itself in our shared weakness.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Obviously a child can never conceive solitude if his parents aren't living it somewhere themselves. I don't mean that to be alone you have to get down on your knees for an hour in a yoga posture.
Henri Nouwen
Image
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
Image
Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories . . .
Henri Nouwen
Image
What once seemed such a curse has become a blessing. All the agony that threatened to destroy my life now seems like the fertile ground for greater trust, stronger hope, and deeper love.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.
Henri Nouwen
Image
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