Quotes from Henri Nouwen

To be baptized means to make the passage with the people of Israel and with Jesus from slavery to freedom and from death to new life. It is a commitment to a life in and through Jesus.

Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.

Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.

One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset; it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs.

I have an increasing sense that the most important crisis of our time is spiritual and that we need places where people can grow stronger in the spirit and be able to integrate the emotional struggles in their spiritual journeys.

The great teachers are always those who can live the tension. They are not criticizing everybody, they're not complaining. They give young people a vision.

As a general remark, I would say we must move from the moral to the mystical life.

The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.

A happy life is a life for others.

The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human and to our God.

Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God.

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal.

If you believe you are the beloved of God, you need to spend time listening to his voice - period! You can't say, "Yes God calls me the beloved, but I have to go out to do something now."

Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others

If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives.

Television is obviously an enormous intruder. Quite often people say they have no time, but in fact they waste a lot of time on things that are not healthy.

The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others.

The great call for the Church is to not just be concerned about right or wrong behavior, which is moral life, but about communion with God, which is mystical life.

I was forced to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, and to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life.

Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God, here and now.

Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance.

Life is not entertainment. Life is not distraction.