Henri Nouwen Quotes About Desire

Quotes about: Desire

• The more I think about the human suffering in our world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of helplessness and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me. I must resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into despair and make me one more of their many victims.

  Henri Nouwen

  Healing, Thinking, Our World

• Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it. What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice.

  Henri Nouwen

  Running, Depressing, Two

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.30, Harper Collins

• The dance of life finds its beginnings in grief......Here a completely new way of living is revealed. It is the way in which pain can be embraced, not out of a desire to suffer, but in the knowledge that something new will be born in the pain.

  Henri Nouwen

  Pain, Grief, Grieving

• 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

• While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will soon go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart... Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.

  Henri Nouwen

  Heart, Optimism, Perspective

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2005). “The Dance of Life: Weaving Sorrows and Blessings Into One Joyful Step”

• Jesus has to be and become ever more the center of my life. It is not enough that Jesus is my teacher, my guide, my source of inspiration. It is not even enough that he is my companion on they journey, my friend and my brother. Jesus must become the heart of my heart, the fire of my life, the love of my soul, the bridegroom of my spirit. He must become my only thought, my only concern, my only desire.

  Henri Nouwen

  Teacher, Brother, Jesus

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (1992). “Jesus and Mary: Finding Our Sacred Center”

• The life-converting experience is not the discovery that I have choices to make that determine the way I live out my existence, but the awareness that my that my existence itself is not in the center. Once I 'know' God, that is, once I experience God's love as the love in which all my human experiences are anchored, I can desire only one thing: to be in that love.

  Henri Nouwen

  Discovery, Choices, Desire

• Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity.

  Henri Nouwen

  Love, Moving, Home

  Henri Nouwen (2010). “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”, p.19, Image

• Of one thing I am sure. Complaining is self-perpetuating and counterproductive. Whenever I express my complaints in the hope of evoking pity and receiving the satisfaction I so much desire, the result is always the opposite of what I tried to get. A complainer is hard to live with, and very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person. The tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: further rejection.

  Henri Nouwen

  Self, Opposites, People

  Henri J.M. Nouwen (2016). “The Return of the Prodigal Son Anniversary Edition: A Special Two-in-One Volume, including Home Tonight”, p.80, Convergent Books

• The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.

  Henri Nouwen

  Desire, Fists, Resistance

• I am deeply convince that the necessity of prayer, and to pray unceasingly, is not as much based on our desire for God as on God's desire for us. It is God's passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Desire, Passionate

• The central question is, Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God's presence, to listen to God's voice, to look at God's beauty, to touch God's incarnate Word and to taste fully God's infinite goodness.

  Henri Nouwen

  Men, Voice, People

• ...the word that seems best to summarize the desire of the human heart is 'communion.' ...wherever we look it is communion that we seek.

  Henri Nouwen

  Heart, Desire, Looks

• The mystery of the spiritual life is that Jesus desires to meet us in the seclusion of our own heart, to make his love known to us there, to free us from our fears, and to make our own deepest self known to us Each time you let the love of God penetrate deeper into your heart it leads to a love of ourselves that enables us to give whole-hearted love to our fellow human beings. In the seclusion of our hearts we learn to know the hidden presence of God; and with that spiritual knowledge we can lead a loving life.

  Henri Nouwen

  Spiritual, Jesus, Heart

• Beneath our frantic activities, there's a deep desire to show the world we are worthwhile.

  Henri Nouwen

  Desire, World, Worthwhile

  Source: www.liguorian.org

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