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I loved to teach, I loved my students, but I wanted to find a community. I prayed: Lord, show me where you want me to go. I will go wanted wherever you call me - but please be clear.

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
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Please
Find
Loved
Wanted
Teach
Call
Clear
Lord
Prayed
Community
Wherever
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More quotes by 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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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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Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God — for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs. … The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God.
Henri Nouwen
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The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation.
Henri Nouwen
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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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God doesn't give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing...that is a friend who cares.
Henri Nouwen
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Friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability.
Henri Nouwen
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Although I am a committed Catholic priest, and nowhere hide that fact, my focus is very much a spiritual journey.
Henri Nouwen
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I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
Henri Nouwen
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Often we come home from a sharing session with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from us or that holy ground has been trodden upon.
Henri Nouwen
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I am deeply convince that the necessity of prayer, and to pray unceasingly, is not as much based on our desire for God as on God's desire for us. It is God's passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.
Henri Nouwen
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The evangelical movement has become just a bit victimized by a success-oriented culture, wanting the church - like the corporation - to be successful.
Henri Nouwen
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when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.
Henri Nouwen
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Our Western society is showing its technological muscles in ever more threatening ways, but the experience of fear, anxiety and even despair has increased in equal proportion. Indeed, the paradox is that the powerful giants feel as powerless as a new-born babe.
Henri Nouwen
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Forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. Forgiveness indeed heals memories . . .
Henri Nouwen
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Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.
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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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