Quotes from Henri Nouwen

One of the most beautiful things is that when we let the enemy go out of our heart by love and forgiveness, we are suddenly free to let that unlimited, all-embracing love of God pour into us. We become a new person every time we forgive an enemy, because we let go of the angry person inside who was holding on to fear.

The more preoccupied we are with security the more visible the force of death becomes, whether in the form of a pistol beside our bed, a rifle in our house, or a Trident submarine in our port.

In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly.

The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity and held safe in an everlasting embrace...We must dare to opt consciously for our chosenness and not allow our emotions, feelings, or passions to seduce us into self-rejection

In solitude we can come to the realization that we are not driven together but brought together. In solitude we come to know our fellow human beings not as partners who can satisfy our deepest needs, but as brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God's all-embracing love. In solitude we discover that community is not a common ideology, but a response to a common call. In solitude we indeed realize that community is not made but given.

Have courage," we often say to one another. Courage is a spiritual virtue. The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means "heart. A courageous act is an act coming from the heart. A courageous word is a word arising from the heart. The heart, however, is not just the place where our emotions are located. The heart is the centre of our being, the centre of all thoughts, feelings, passions, and decisions.

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection....Self rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved. Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.

Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.

Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy.

It is very hard to stay in touch with our true identity because those who want our money, our time, and our energy profit more from our insecurity and fears than from our inner freedom.

We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.

Through discipline, discipline is the other side of discipleship. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to have discipline.

For me the university has always been an ideal context for spiritual formation. I always felt that if you want to offer spiritual formation at the university, you can.

I loved to teach, I loved my students, but I wanted to find a community. I prayed: "Lord, show me where you want me to go. I will go wanted wherever you call me - but please be clear."

The tragedy of our lives is that, while we suffer from the wounds afflicted on us by those who love us, we cannot avoid wounding those we want to love.

Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)

Active waiting means present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.

Community life is not easy for somebody like me, who is used to living by himself and doing what he wants. It's a demanding life, and you quickly get in touch with your own handicaps and weaknesses.

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.

Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking.

The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don't see the results.

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.

The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.