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Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking he's always doing something.

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
Speaking
Listening
Prayer
Firsts
First
Something
Always
Openness

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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I am learning that the best cure for hypocrisy is community. Hypocrisy is not so much the result of not living what I preach but much more of not confessing my inability to fully live up to my own words.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be.
Henri Nouwen
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As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words. They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.
Henri Nouwen
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In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.
Henri Nouwen
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Real greatness is often hidden, humble, simple, and unobtrusive. It is not easy to trust ourselves and our actions without public affirmation. We must have strong self-confidence combined with deep humility.
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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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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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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The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.
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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The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human and to our God.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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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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Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.
Henri Nouwen
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Life is not entertainment. Life is not distraction.
Henri Nouwen
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The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.
Henri Nouwen
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God's Kingdom is a place of abundance where every generous act overflows its original bounds and becomes part of the unbounded grace of God at work in the world.
Henri Nouwen
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When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live.
Henri Nouwen
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Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.
Henri Nouwen