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.
HENRI NOUWENI often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
More Henri Nouwen Quotes
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In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
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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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Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
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Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
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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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Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
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Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.
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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.
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Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.
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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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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.
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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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The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
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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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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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Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.
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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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Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
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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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I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
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Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.
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When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
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What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
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The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
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I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.
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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