Quotes about Forgiveness
I am beginning to see that much of praying is grieving. This grief is so deep not just because the human sin is so great, but also—and more so—because the divine love is so boundless. To become like the Father whose only authority is compassion, I have to shed countless tears and so prepare my heart to receive anyone, whatever their journey has been, and forgive them from that heart.
- Henri Nouwen
In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding... Solitude molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced of their own great sinfulness and so fully aware of God's even greater mercy that their life itself becomes ministry.
- Henri Nouwen
If I am able to look at the world with the eyes of God's love and discover that God's vision is not that of a stereotypical landowner or patriarch but rather that of an all-giving and forgiving father who does not measure out his love to his children according to how well they behave, then I quickly see that my only true response can be deep gratitude.
- Henri Nouwen
I reached a healthy place in which I was able to stop projecting my needs on another human being. We both came to understand that each of us is limited in our capacity to be for another what is needed, and learned to forgive each other for not being God.
- Henri Nouwen
Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.
- Henri Nouwen
God looks at his people as children of a family who are happy that those who have done only a little bit are as much loved as those who accomplish much.
- Henri Nouwen
God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home.
- Henri Nouwen
What I do know with unwavering certainty is the heart of the father. It is a heart of limitless mercy.
- Henri Nouwen
it is precisely in this continuous process of confession and forgiveness that we are liberated from our isolation and encounter the possibility of a new disarmed way of living. Christians are peacemakers not when they apply some special skill to reconcile people with one another but when, by the confession of their brokenness, they form a community through which God's unlimited forgiveness is revealed to the world.
- Henri Nouwen
it is precisely in this continuous process of confession and forgiveness that we are liberated from our isolation and encounter the possibility of a new disarmed way of living. Christians are peacemakers not when they apply some special skill to reconcile people with one another but when, by the confession of their brokenness, they form a community through which God's unlimited forgiveness is revealed to the world.
- Henri Nouwen
When God looks at our world, God must weep. God must weep because the lust for power has entrapped and corrupted the human spirit. In the news and even in our families and ourselves we see that instead of gratitude there is resentment, instead of forgiveness there is revenge, instead of healing there is wounding, instead of compassion there is competition, instead of cooperation there is violence, and instead of love there is immense fear.
- Henri Nouwen
Jesus wants to make it clear that the God of whom he speaks is a God of compassion who joyously welcomes repentant sinners into his house.
- Henri Nouwen