Quotes from Henri J.M. Nouwen

Henri found a new capacity for joy. By claiming his belovedness, he had more compassion for people who hurt him, more courage to live his struggles as gateways to inner freedom. He became more loving, and felt more at peace with himself and the world.

Sensing the touch of God's blessing hands and hearing the voice calling me the Beloved are one and the same.

I leave home every time I lose faith in the voice that calls me the Beloved and follow the voices that offer a great variety of ways to win the love I so much desire.

Relate to people as a conqueror and they will hide their real nature from you. Violence is the brother and distrust the sister of this way of life.

The owner of the vineyard, after having sent in vain several stewards to collect his share of the harvest, decides to send "his beloved son." The tenants recognize that he is the heir and kill him to obtain the inheritance for themselves. This is the picture of the true son who obeys his father, not as a slave, but as the Beloved, and fulfills the will of the Father in full unity with him.

When we live with hope we do not get tangled up with concerns for how our wishes will be fulfilled. So, too, our prayers are not directed toward the gift, but toward the one who gives it. Our prayers might still contain just as many desires, but ultimately it is not a question of having a wish come true but of expressing an unlimited faith in the giver of all good things. You wish that…but you hope in….

It seems indeed that the Church today is one of the few institutions in the world willing to defend human rights regardless of who the oppressor is.

I also learned afresh that friendship requires a constant willingness to forgive each other for not being Christ, and a willingness to ask Christ himself to be the true center of the relationship.

Prayer has meaning only if it is necessary and indispensable. Prayer is prayer only when we can say that without it, we cannot live.

When we become persons who transcend the limitations of our individual characters, the God who is love can reveal himself in our midst and bind us into a community.

If you see in me more than my function or job, then I can slowly communicate to you on a deeper level. I can become a person to you.

For Paul, praying is like breathing. It cannot be interrupted without mortal danger.

Temptations and struggles will remain to the end of our lives, but with a pure heart we will be restful even in the midst of a restless existence.

A prayerful life, then, is one in which we convert the world from darkness, people from mere roles to persons.

Worrying causes us to be "all over the place," but seldom at home.

To pray means to stop expecting from God the same small-mindedness which you discover in yourself.

For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.

Through the generations there seems to run a chain of wounds and needs. And when we try to avoid inflicting wounds ourselves, we discover that even with our best intentions we cannot avoid encountering people who feel rejected, misunderstood, or hurt by us.

Faith asks us to jump, to surrender and believe that somewhere, somehow, Someone will catch us and bring us home.

When our love grows from God's love we no longer divide people into those who deserve it and those who don't.

There are two realities to which you must cling. First, God has promised that you will receive the love you have been searching for. And second, God is faithful to that promise. So stop wandering around. Instead, come home and trust that God will bring you what you need. Your whole life you have been running about, seeking the love you desire. Now it is time to end that search. Trust that God will give you that all-fulfilling love and will give it in a human way.

The paradox indeed is that those who want to be for "everyone" find themselves often unable to be close to anyone.

I can see three ways to a truly compassionate fatherhood: grief, forgiveness, and generosity. Grief is the discipline of the heart that sees the sin of the world, and knows itself to be the sorrowful price of freedom without which love cannot bloom. I am beginning to see that much of praying is grieving. Grief allows me to see beyond my wall and realize the immense suffering that results from human lostness.

Pain suffered alone feels very different from pain suffered alongside another. Even when the pain stays, we know how great the difference if another draws close, if another shares with us in it.