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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.

Henri Nouwen

Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.
HENRI NOUWEN

Compassionate Distinct Judgement Prevent Togetherness
One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.
HENRI NOUWEN

Forget Life Ourselves Tragedy Worth
The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don’t see the results.
HENRI NOUWEN

Generation Result See Trust
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

Care Friendship Grief Moments Silence Time Tolerance
In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
HENRI NOUWEN

Division Healing Live Love Privilege Rival World Wound
Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.
HENRI NOUWEN

Prayer Religious Spirit
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.
HENRI NOUWEN

Compassionate Human Power Weakness
I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
HENRI NOUWEN

God Knowledge Myself Wonder
You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.
HENRI NOUWEN

Kind Live Thinking Way Yourself
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Life Popularity Power Rejection Success Trap
Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.
HENRI NOUWEN

Easy Hard Life Radical Yourself
Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.
HENRI NOUWEN

Life Maturity Spiritual Yourself
We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.
HENRI NOUWEN

Fall Preparation Rain See
Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
HENRI NOUWEN

Human Learning Morning Patience Wait
Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.
HENRI NOUWEN

Close Distance Lose Silence Word
Your heart is greater than your wounds.
HENRI NOUWEN

Greatness Heart Wound Yourself

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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