Henri Nouwen
Henri Nouwen
Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen,was a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer and theologian. His interests were rooted primarily in psychology, pastoral ministry, spirituality, social justice and community. Over the course of his life, Nouwen was heavily influenced by the work of Anton Boisen, Thomas Merton, Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh and Jean Vanier...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth24 January 1932
community solitude feels
I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.
want live-for-others wells
God wants you to live for others and to live that presence well.
christian intimate-relationships people
Most Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.
answers mystery existence
Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?-are not questions with an answer but questions that open us up to new questions which lead us deeper into the unshakeable mystery of existence.
people solitude embrace
If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.
christian inspiration forgiving
When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.
blessed convince-us broken
As those who are chosen, blessed, broken, and given, we are called to live our lives with a deep inner joy and peace. It is the life of the Beloved, lived in a world constantly trying to convince us that the burden is on us to prove that we are worthy of being loved.
hypocrisy community inability
I am learning that the best cure for hypocrisy is community. Hypocrisy is not so much the result of not living what I preach but much more of not confessing my inability to fully live up to my own words.
patience mean patient-person
A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.
fall rain soil
We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.
spiritual self voice
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.
spiritual mean filled-up
Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on.
opposites voice people
Ministers are tempted to join the ranks of those who consider it their primary task to keep other people busy … But our task is the opposite of distraction … how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.
pain blood hands
In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile.