Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved.
HENRI NOUWENSolitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.
More Henri Nouwen Quotes
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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.”
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Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others.
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The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
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We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.
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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.
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We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.
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If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.
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Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
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Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.
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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.
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It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.
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The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
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The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.
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I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
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Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.
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In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
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Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.
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You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
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We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.
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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.
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We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.
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Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.
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Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
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God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.
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Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.
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Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
HENRI NOUWEN