The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.
HENRI NOUWENFor 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.
More Henri Nouwen Quotes
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Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
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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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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.
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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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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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Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved.
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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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Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
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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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I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
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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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I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.
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Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
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Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.
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Forgiveness changes the way we remember.
HENRI NOUWEN