Henri Nouwen Quotes About Compassion

Quotes about: Compassion

• Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

  Henri Nouwen

  Lonely, Hurt, Pain

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

• Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

  Henri Nouwen

  Mean, Compassion, Being Human

  Henri J. M. Nouwen, John S. Mogabgab (2012). “A Spirituality of Living: The Henri Nouwen Spirituality Series”, p.32, Upper Room Books

• Jesus' whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God's love. Here we see what compassion means. It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there.

  Henri Nouwen

  Jesus, Mean, Home

• Compassion- which means, literally, "to suffer with"- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, "What difference do you make?" but "What do you have in common?" It is not "excelling" but "serving" that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation.

  Henri Nouwen

  Spiritual, Healing, Mean

• Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.

  Henri Nouwen

  Distance, Compassion, Judgement

• Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

  Henri Nouwen

  Lonely, Compassion, Broken

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.20, HarperCollins

• Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends' eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate person nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying.

  Henri Nouwen

  Heart, Eye, Compassion

• The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity. It is a secret known only to a very few people, a secret that has to be rediscovered over and over again.

  Henri Nouwen

  Compassion, Best Kept Secrets, People

• Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others.

  Henri Nouwen

  Lying, Compassion, Giving

• God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.

  Henri Nouwen

  Compassion, Giving, Water

• Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

  Henri Nouwen

  Mean, Compassion, Vulnerable

  Donald P. McNeill, Douglas A. Morrison, Henri J. M. Nouwen (1982). “Compassion, a reflection on the Christian life”, Doubleday Books

• The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.

  Henri Nouwen

  Beautiful, Son, Compassion

• Our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.

  Henri Nouwen

  Compassion, Surround, Brokenness

  Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, p.35, Image

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