Henri Nouwen Quotes About Prayer

Quotes about: Prayer

• When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Praying, Realizing

  Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Convergent Books

• The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Heart, Ideas

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.33, HarperCollins

• Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you 'my beloved daughter,' 'my beloved son,' 'my beloved child.' To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being.

  Henri Nouwen

  Daughter, Prayer, Children

• Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Manipulation, Degenerates

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

• A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.

  Henri Nouwen

  Beautiful, Beach, Prayer

• Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God's heart has become one with ours.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Pain, War

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.36, HarperCollins

• You have to dare to live through the pain and struggle. Acknowledge your anguish but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Pain, Struggle

• The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? but: Are you in love with Jesus?

  Henri Nouwen

  Christian, Jesus, Prayer

• the real "work" of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing-- that demands real effort.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Real, Blessing

• A prayerful life is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Purpose, Done

  Henri J.M. Nouwen (2017). “You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, p.23, Convergent Books

• a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.

  Henri Nouwen

  Spiritual, Prayer, Christ

  Henri Nouwen (2013). “Reaching Out”, p.123, Image

• The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained - through prayer, study, and careful analysis - to manifest the divine event of God's saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time.

  Henri Nouwen

  Christian, Prayer, Heart

• Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Done, Spirit

• Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.

  Henri Nouwen

  Life, Prayer, Land

• One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you start with it and look back over a long period of prayer, you suddenly realize that something has happened. What is most close, most intimate, most present, often cannot be experienced directly but only with a certain distance. When I think that I am only distracted, just wasting my time, something is happening too Immediate for knowing, understanding, and experiencing. Only in retrospect do I realize that something very important has taken place.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Distance, Taken

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

• Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God, here and now.

  Henri Nouwen

  Christian, Prayer, Here And Now

  "Peacework: Prayer, Resistance, Community".

• By prayer, community is created as well as expressed.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Community, Wells

• Prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Existence, Decoration

  Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society”, p.17, Image

• Prayer is the way to both the heart of God and the heart of the world - precisely because they have been joined through the suffering of Jesus Christ Praying is letting one's own heart become the place where the tears of God's children merge and become tears of hope.

  Henri Nouwen

  Jesus, Prayer, Children

• It's good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Lips

  Source: www.liguorian.org

• It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Silence, Contemplative

• It is good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go. There are so many moments in life when you are free to pray. When you are waiting for the cashier in the supermarket, getting mad because he or she doesn't hurry, say a little prayer: 'Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.' Take that prayer with you wherever you go.

  Henri Nouwen

  Jesus, Prayer, Mad

• Take prayer with you wherever you go. Say it anytime, and then focus your mind and heart on God.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Heart, Focus

  Source: www.liguorian.org

• Prayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very beingBut when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Community, Doe

• When you are still young and not yet adult, you want to hold everything in your own hands, but if you have your hands open toward prayer, you are able to stretch out your arms and let yourself be led without knowing where. You know only the freedom which God's breath has brought you will lead to new life, even if the cross is the only sign of it you can see.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Hands, Knowing

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