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You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you the beloved.

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
Affirmed
Calls
Beloved
Listening
Listen
Prayer
Voice

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

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When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding every one of my steps I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look, or what will happen next month or next year. I can be fully where I am and pay attention to the many signs of God's love within me and around me.
Henri Nouwen
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Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity and power is a false identity- an illusion! Loudly and clearly he says: 'You are not what the world makes you but you are children of God.
Henri Nouwen
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People with handicaps teach me that being is more important than doing, the heart is more important than the mind, and caring together is better than caring alone.
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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In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered.
Henri Nouwen
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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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Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.
Henri Nouwen
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Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are much more accessible. They are men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and struggle with ordinary problems. What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God's people.
Henri Nouwen
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As we read spiritually about spiritual things, we open our hearts to God's voice. Sometimes we must be willing to put down the book we are reading and just listen to what God is saying to us through our words.
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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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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The members - mentally handicapped people who are marginal in society and not useful in an economic sense - welcomed me into their lives. And I was loved, not because of what s doing but because of who I was.
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
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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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It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.
Henri Nouwen
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Someday I would love to write about Vincent van Gogh - his paintings and letters continue to inspire me very much. But it remains hard to find the time and inner rest to write.
Henri Nouwen
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It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.
Henri Nouwen
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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
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To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.
Henri Nouwen
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One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.
Henri Nouwen