Quotes about Spirituality
we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us.
— Henri Nouwen
Community has little to do with mutual compatibility. Similarities in educational background, psychological make-up, or social status can bring us together, but they can never be the basis for community. Community is grounded in God, who calls us together, and not in the attractiveness of people to each other. There
— Henri Nouwen
Compassion is the fruit of solitude and the basis of all ministry.
— Henri Nouwen
We can allow ourselves to be found by God and healed by his love through the concrete and daily practice of trust and gratitude. Trust and gratitude are the disciplines for the conversion of the elder son. By telling myself that I am not important enough to be found, I amplify my self-complaint. I must totally disown my self-rejecting voice and claim the truth that God does indeed want to embrace me as much as he does my wayward brothers and sisters.
— Henri Nouwen
I am a good person, known and cherished by the One who brought me to my existence. Before I was hurt, I was a beloved.
— Henri Nouwen
The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.
— Henri Nouwen
God is the hub of the wheel of life. The closer we come to God the closer we come to each other. The basis of community is not primarily our ideas, feelings, and emotions about each other but our common search for God. When we keep our minds and hearts directed toward God, we will come more fully "together.
— Henri Nouwen
It is not easy for us, busy people, to truly receive a blessing. Perhaps the fact that few people offer a real blessing is the sad result of the absence of people who are willing and able to receive such a blessing. It has become extremely difficult for us to stop, listen, pay attention, and receive gracefully what is offered to us.
— Henri Nouwen
Meditation means to let the word descend from our minds into our hearts and thus to become enfleshed.
— Henri Nouwen
When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives. We keep running away from the present moment, and we try to create experiences that make our lives worthwhile. So we fill up our time to avoid the emptiness we otherwise would feel.
— Henri Nouwen
It is by being awake to God in us that we can increasingly see God in the world around us.
— 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