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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
Listening
Prayer
Firsts
First
Something
Always
Openness
Speaking

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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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
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Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.
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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Our society is so fragmented, our family lives so sundered by physical and emotional distance, our friendships so sporadic, our intimacies so 'in-between' things and often so utilitarian, that there are few places where we can feel truly safe.
Henri Nouwen
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When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.
Henri Nouwen
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His (Christ's) appearance in our midst has made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.
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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The great teachers are always those who can live the tension. They are not criticizing everybody, they're not complaining. They give young people a vision.
Henri Nouwen
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Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.
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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When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.
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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The dance of life finds its beginnings in grief......Here a completely new way of living is revealed. It is the way in which pain can be embraced, not out of a desire to suffer, but in the knowledge that something new will be born in the pain.
Henri Nouwen
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For many, religion has to do with what we are allowed to do and not allowed to do. In the end, that doesn't bear fruit.
Henri Nouwen
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For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.
Henri Nouwen
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Everything changes radically from the moment you know yourself as being sent into this world.
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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To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God.
Henri Nouwen
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That's prayer to let God's Word speak deep within you and tell you, You are my beloved. You don't have to take an eye for an eye. No, no you're too rich for that.
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