Quotes by Henri Nouwen
Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) — Priester und Autor · Katholisch · USA
Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) war ein niederländischer katholischer Priester, Theologe und geistlicher Schriftsteller, der nach akademischer Lehrtätigkeit in den USA seine letzten Lebensjahre in einer L’Arche-Gemeinschaft in Kanada verbrachte. Er steht für eine Spiritualität der Verwundbarkeit, die unbedingte Annahme des Menschen durch Gott und den bewussten Dienst an Schwachen jenseits von Erfolgsstreben. Bibellesern eröffnet er einen einfühlsamen Zugang zu biblischen Gleichnissen und Themen, indem er theologische Tiefe mit psychologischem Feingefühl und dem ehrlichen Umgang mit eigenen Zweifeln verbindet.
Era: The 20th Century
Recurring topics: Meaning & Identity, Love, Grace & Redemption, God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit, Guilt & Forgiveness, Suffering & the Question of God, Temptation & Struggle, Humility & Pride
Quotes by Henri Nouwen
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
Henri Nouwen
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
Henri Nouwen
Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal.
Henri Nouwen
Forgiveness means allowing the other person not to have to be God.
Henri Nouwen
The Father’s love does not force itself on the beloved.
Henri Nouwen
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
Henri Nouwen
Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity and power is a false identity- an illusion! Loudly and clearly he says: 'You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God.
Henri Nouwen
One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there.
Henri Nouwen
Remember, you are held safe. You are loved. You are protected. You are in communion with God and with those whom God has sent you. What is of God will last. It belongs to the eternal life. Choose it, and it will be yours.
Henri Nouwen
We are not what we do, we are not what we have, we are not what others think of us. Coming home is claiming the truth. I am the beloved child of a loving creator.
Henri Nouwen
Praying creates space for the voice of God telling you that you are the Beloved. If you do not pray, you run around begging for affirmation. And then you are not free.
Henri Nouwen
Whoever understands that he is God’s beloved no longer needs to run around begging for recognition.
Henri Nouwen
I must kneel before the Father, must place my ear against His chest and listen, listen without interruption to the heartbeat of God. Then, and only then, can I say gently, carefully, and very quietly what I hear.
Henri Nouwen
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved’. Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.
Henri Nouwen
I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted; then I realized that the interruptions were my work.
Henri Nouwen
The story of the prodigal son is the story of a God who goes searching for me and who doesn’t rest until he has found me.
Henri Nouwen
What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.
Henri Nouwen
It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.
Henri Nouwen
You are the Beloved’, and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being – ‘You are the Beloved.
Henri Nouwen
I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.
Henri Nouwen
Jesus’ first temptation was to be relevant: to turn stones into bread.
Henri Nouwen
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.
Henri Nouwen
I wonder if the greatest temptation is self-rejection. Could it be that beneath all the lures to greed, lust, and success rests a great fear of never being enough or not being lovable?
Henri Nouwen
The great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing.
Henri Nouwen
When our love grows from God’s love we no longer divide people into those who deserve it and those who don’t.
Henri Nouwen
God asks you not to have a successful life but to have a fruitful life.
Henri Nouwen
The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?
Henri Nouwen
Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: "These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes.
Henri Nouwen
From God’s perspective, one hidden act of repentance, one little gesture of selfless love, one moment of true forgiveness is all that is needed to bring God from his throne to run to his returning son and to fill the heavens with sounds of divine joy.
Henri Nouwen
Though I am both the younger son and the elder son, I am not to remain them, but to become the Father.
Henri Nouwen
If you are wounded, and I know that you and I are, put your brokenness under the blessing.
Henri Nouwen
If you believe that you are the beloved, you can offer forgiveness, even when it cannot be received.
Henri Nouwen
Often, we want to be somewhere other than where we are, to even be someone other than who we are. We tend to compare ourselves constantly with others and wonder why we are not as rich, as intelligent, as simple, as generous, or as saintly as they are.
Henri Nouwen
The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality.
Henri Nouwen
The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them.
Henri Nouwen
The parable of the prodigal son is a story that speaks about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all rejections have taken place.
Henri Nouwen
Our children are our most important guests, who enter into our home, ask for careful attention, stay for a while and then leave to follow their own way. Children are strangers whom we have to get to know.
Henri Nouwen
Maybe the reason it seems hard for me to forgive others is that I do not fully believe that I am a forgiven person. If I could fully accept the truth that I am forgiven and do not have to live in guilt or shame, I would really be free.
Henri Nouwen
The greatest danger in the spiritual life is not success or popularity or power, it is self-rejection.
Henri Nouwen
Jesus was a revolutionary, who did not become an extremist, since he did not offer an ideology, but Himself.
Henri Nouwen
575 quotes in total — browse the collection.
Sources: thegospelcoalition.org, womenofgrace.com, wayoflife.org, christianstandard.com
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