Quotes from Henri Nouwen

Every relationship carries within its center a holy vacancy, a space that is for the first Love, God alone.

We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). We find freedom as we are touched by that first love. For it is that love that will break us away from our alienation and separation. It is a love that can soothe our compulsions to hoard and pretend we can organize the future. It is a love that allows us to love others.

If I could meet Rembrandt right where he had painted father and son, God and humanity, compassion and misery, in one circle of love, I would come to know as much as I ever would about death and life. I also sensed the hope that through Rembrandt's masterpiece I would one day be able to express what I most wanted to say about love.

Prayer then becomes an attitude that sees the world not as something to be possessed but as a gift that speaks constantly of the Giver. It leads us out of the suffering that comes from insisting on doing things our way. It opens our hearts to receive. And prayer refreshes our memory about how other people reveal to us the gift of life.

Around the table, we know whether there is friendship and community or hatred and division. Precisely because the table is the place of intimacy for all the members of the household, it is also the place where the absence of that intimacy is most painfully revealed.

Hope does not mean that we will avoid or be able to ignore suffering, of course. Indeed, hope born of faith becomes matured and purified through difficulty. The surprise we experience in hope, then, is not that, unexpectedly, things turn out better than expected. For even when they do not, we can still live with a keen hope. The basis of our hope has to do with the One who is stronger than life and suffering. Faith opens us up to God's sustaining, healing presence.

Jesus, of course, had this capacity to see truly. For example, Saint John tells us, Jesus did not want to entrust himself to them because he knew what was in every heart (John 2:24). Such intuitive and perceptive knowledge is the nature of discernment.

When you heed only your lion, you will find yourself overextended and exhausted. When you take notice only of your lamb, you will easily become a victim of your need for other people's attention.

Holding the cup of life means looking critically at what we are living. This requires great courage, because when we start looking, we might be terrified by what we see. Questions may arise that we don't know how to answer. Doubts may come up about things we thought we were sure about. Fear may emerge from unexpected places.

Trust is to allow for hope.

Compassion must become the core and even the nature of authority. When the Christian leader is a man of God for the future generation, he can be so only insofar as he is able to make the compassion of God with man—which is visible in Jesus Christ—credible in his own world.

God is a God who wants to lead us closer to the full realization of our lionhearted humanity, if you will.