Quotes from Henri Nouwen

This kind of attention to the eternal in our every day does not strain our hearts. It does not major on brawny striving. It has more to do with attention to God than perfection, with a desire to see God even amid our great weakness.

I will see great things when I am willing to be seen. I will receive new eyes that see the mysteries of GOD's own life, but only when I allow God to see me, all of me, even those parts that I myself do not want to see.

Time becomes a means to an end, not moments in which to enjoy God or pay attention to others.

The situation which brought about your pain was simply the form in which you came in touch with the human condition of suffering.

One good way to listen is to listen with a sacred text: a psalm or a prayer, for instance. The Hindu spiritual writer Eknath Easwaran showed me the great value of learning a sacred text by heart and repeating it slowly in the mind, word by word, sentence by sentence. In this way, listening to the voice of love becomes not just a passive waiting, but an active attentiveness to the voice that speaks to us through the words of the Scriptures.

When I fail, I feel jealous or resentful of these others. When I succeed, I worry that others will be jealous or resentful of me. I become suspicious or defensive and increasingly afraid that I won't get what I so much desire or will lose what I already have. Caught

This is the mystery that Jesus himself became the prodigal son for our sake. There is no journey to God outside of the journey that Jesus made. Since his Son had become all in all, He has brought them all back. Rembrandt's painting is the whole of humanity returning to God, the summary of the history of our salvation.

Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.

When we accept our complete belovedness, we stop judging ourselves and other people; as a result, other people begin to feel safe with us. When we open the hospitality of our hearts to the Spirit, the Spirit frees us to extend hospitality to our fellow humans and all God's creation. The Spirit's hospitality becomes ours, and we experience the alignment of our will with God's will—a traditional definition of successful discernment.

As the Beloved ones, our greatest fulfilment lies in becoming bread for the world. That is the most intimate expression of our deepest desire to give ourselves to each other.

In Christ we live as God's beloved before we were born and after we have died; all the circumstances in between will not negate that.

Hope is not dependent on peace in the land, justice in the world, and success in the business. Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness.