Background Image

...

Be Surprised By Joy, Be Surprised By The Little Flower That Shows Its Beauty In The Midst Of A Barren Desert, And Be Surprised By The Immense Healing Power That Keeps Bursting Forth Like Springs Of Fresh Water From The Depth Of Our Pain.

-Henri Nouwen

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Be Surprised By Joy,

Henri Nouwen

...

Be Surprised By Joy, Be Surprised By The Little Flower That Shows Its Beauty In The Midst Of A Barren Desert, And Be Surprised By The Immense Healing Power That Keeps Bursting Forth Like Springs Of Fresh Water From The Depth Of Our Pain.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Henri Nouwen

Think Of Each Wound As You Would Of A Child Who Has Been Hurt By A Friend. As Long As That Child Is Ranting And Raving, Trying To Get Back At The Friend, One Wound Leads To Another. But When The Child Can Experience The Consoling Embrace Of A Parent, She Or He Can Live Through The Pain, Return To The Friend, Forgive, And Build Up A New Relationship. Be Gentle With Yourself, And Let Your Heart Be Your Loving Parent As You Live Your Wounds Through.

Let’s Not Be Afraid To Look At Everything That Has Brought Us To Where We Are Now And Trust That We Will Soon See In It The Guiding Hand Of A Loving God.

All The Great Spiritual Leaders In History Were People Of Hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, And Dorothy Day All Lived With A Promise In Their Hearts That Guided Them Toward The Future Without The Need To Know Exactly What It Would Look Like. Let's Live With Hope.

Real Grief Is Not Healed By Time... If Time Does Anything, It Deepens Our Grief. The Longer We Live, The More Fully We Become Aware Of Who She Was For Us, And The More Intimately We Experience What Her Love Meant For Us. Real, Deep Love Is, As You Know, Very Unobtrusive, Seemingly Easy And Obvious, And So Present That We Take It For Granted. Therefore, It Is Only In Retrospect - Or Better, In Memory - That We Fully Realize Its Power And Depth. Yes, Indeed, Love Often Makes Itself Visible In Pain.

Ministry Means The Ongoing Attempt To Put One's Own Search For God, With All The Moments Of Pain And Joy, Despair And Hope, At The Disposal Of Those Who Want To Join This Search But Do Not Know How.

Discipline In The Spiritual Life Is The Concentrated Effort To Create The Space And Time Where God Can Become Our Master And Where We Can Respond Freely To God's Guidance.

The Man Who Can Articulate The Movements Of His Inner Life Need No Longer Be A Victim Of Himself, But Is Able Slowly And Consistently To Remove The Obstacles That Prevent The Spirit From Entering.

L'arche Is Not A Service Institution Or A Group Home. It Is A Community That Exists To Reveal God's Love. Our People Are Given To The World To Tell Others About Peace And Forgiveness And Celebration, To Make Them Aware That In The Midst Of Their Brokenness, There Is Joy; In The Midst Of Their Wounded Nature, There Is Healing.

Every Time You Reject Yourself, You Idealize Others

When Everything Is Dark, When We Are Surrounded By Despairing Voices, When We Do Not See Any Exits, Then We Can Find Salvation In A Remembered Love, A Love Which Is Not Simply A Recollection Of A Bygone Past But A Living Force Which Sustains Us In The Present. Through Memory, Love Transcends The Limits Of Time And Offers Hope At Any Moment Of Our Lives.

As Long As We Continue To Live As If We Are What We Do, What We Have, And What Other People Think About Us, We Will Remain Filled With Judgments, Opinions, Evaluations, And Condemnations. We Will Remain Addicted To Putting People And Things In Their "right" Place.

If We Want Other People To Give Us Something That Only God Can Give, We Become A Demon. We Say, "love Me!" And Before You Know It We Become Violent And Demanding And Manipulative. It's So Important That We Keep Forgiving One Another - Not Once In A While, But Every Moment Of Life.

Someday I Would Love To Write About Vincent Van Gogh - His Paintings And Letters Continue To Inspire Me Very Much. But It Remains Hard To Find The Time And Inner Rest To Write.

I Know That I Have To Move From Speaking About Jesus To Letting Him Speak Within Me, From Thinking About Jesus To Letting Him Think Within Me, From Acting For And With Jesus To Letting Him Act Through Me. I Know The Only Way For Me To See The World Is To See It Through His Eyes.

Community Life Is Not Easy For Somebody Like Me, Who Is Used To Living By Himself And Doing What He Wants. It's A Demanding Life, And You Quickly Get In Touch With Your Own Handicaps And Weaknesses.

Somewhere We Know That Without Silence, Words Lose Their Meaning.

Distance Friendship

Inspirational Long Distance Relationship

As We Read Spiritually About Spiritual Things, We Open Our Hearts To God's Voice. Sometimes We Must Be Willing To Put Down The Book We Are Reading And Just Listen To What God Is Saying To Us Through Our Words.

Our Spiritual Life Is A Life In Which We Wait, Actively Present To The Moment, Expecting That New Things Will Happen To Us, New Things That Are Far Beyond Our Own Imagination Or Prediction. This, Indeed, Is A Very Radical Stance Toward Life In A World Preoccupied With Control.

To Be Baptized Means To Make The Passage With The People Of Israel And With Jesus From Slavery To Freedom And From Death To New Life. It Is A Commitment To A Life In And Through Jesus.

For Me The University Has Always Been An Ideal Context For Spiritual Formation. I Always Felt That If You Want To Offer Spiritual Formation At The University, You Can.

I Wrote To My Bishop, The Archbishop Of Utrecht, Holland, And Explained That I Wanted Not Just Permission To Stay Longer, But A Mission. He Met Me At The Trosly L'arche Community And We Spent A Few Days Together . . . I Wanted Him To Get To Know L'arche, To Understand What I Was Doing There. Afterward He Said, "i Understand Now, Henri. You Have Found A Home For Your Self."

Spiritual Maturity Is Not Knowing What To Do With Your Whole Life, But Just Knowing What To Do Next.

It Is To This Silence [contemplative Prayer] That We All Are Called.

If You Feel Loved, You Can Do A Thousand Things. If You Feel Rejected, Everything Becomes A Problem.

Listening Is A Form Of Spiritual Hospitality By Which You Invite Strangers To Become Friends, To Get To Know Their Inner Selves More Fully, And Even To Dare To Be Silent With You.

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.

The Friend Who Cares Makes It Clear That Whatever Happens In The External World, Being Present To Each Other Is What Really Matters. In Fact, It Matters More Than Pain, Illness, Or Even Death.

However, Community Is First Of All A Quality Of The Heart. It Grows From The Spiritual Knowledge That We Are Alive Not For Ourselves But For One Another. Community Is The Fruit Of Our Capacity To Make The Interests Of Others More Important Than Our Own. The Question, Therefore, Is Not 'how Can We Make Community?' But, 'how Can We Develop And Nurture Giving Hearts?'

You Are The Heir To The Kingdom. Prosperity Is Your Birth Right And You Hold The Key To More Abundance In Every Area Of Your Life Then You Can Possibly Imagine.

When We Approach Fundraising In A Spirit Of Gratitude, Our Confidence In Our Mission Does Not Depend On How The Person We Are With Responds To Our Request! We Are Free To Remain Secure In God's Love With Our Hearts Set Joyfully On The Kingdom.

There Are As Many Ways To Pray As There Are Moments In Life.

So I Am Praying While Not Knowing How To Pray. I Am Resting While Feeling Restless, At Peace While Tempted, Safe While Still Anxious, Surrounded By A Cloud Of Light While Still In Darkness, In Love While Still Doubting.

I Feel Strongly That The God We Meet In Solitude Is Always The God Who Calls Us To Community.

Prayer Is Not What Is Done By Us, But Rather What Is Done By The Holy Spirit In Us.

In 1984, Jean Vanier Invited Me Me To Visit L'arche Community In Trosly, France. He Didn't Say "we Need A Priest" Or "we Could Use You." He Said, "maybe Our Community Can Offer You A Home." I Visited Several Times, Then Resigned From Harvard And Went To Live With The Community For A Year. I Loved It! I Didn't Have Much To Do. I Wasn't Pastor Or Anything. I Was Just A Friend Of The Community.

The Difference Between Rich And Poor Is Not That The Rich Sin Is More Than The Poor, That The Rich Find It Easier To Call Sin A Virtue.

Your Life Is Not Going To Be Easy, And It Should Not Be Easy. It Ought To Be Hard. It Ought To Be Radical; It Ought To Be Restless; It Ought To Lead You To Places You'd Rather Not Go.

The Great Call For The Church Is To Not Just Be Concerned About Right Or Wrong Behavior, Which Is Moral Life, But About Communion With God, Which Is Mystical Life.

Forgiveness Means That I Continually Am Willing To Forgive The Other Person For Not Being God — For Not Fulfilling All My Needs. I, Too, Must Ask Forgiveness For Not Being Able To Fulfill Other People's Needs. … The Interesting Thing Is That When You Can Forgive People For Not Being God, Then You Can Celebrate That They Are A Reflection Of God.

In Solitude We Become Aware That We Were Together Before We Came Together And That Life Is Not A Creation Of Our Will But Rather An Obedient Response To The Reality Of Our Being United.

In Community, Where You Have All The Affection You Could Ever Dream Of, You Feel That There Is A Place Where Even Community Cannot Reach. That's A Very Important Experience. In That Loneliness, Which Is Like A Dark Night Of The Soul, You Learn That God Is Greater Than Community.

Solitude Is The Place Where We Can Connect With Profound Bonds That Are Deeper Than The Emergency Bonds Of Fear And Anger.

Joy Does Not Simply Happen To Us. We Have To Choose Joy And Keep Choosing It Every Day.

If You Start With Community And Want To Be Faithful To Community, You Have To Realize That What Binds You Together Is Not Mutual Compatibility Or Common Tasks, But God. In Order To Stay In Touch With That Call To Community, We Always Have To Return To Solitude.

From The Moment We Claim The Truth Of Being The Beloved, We Are Faced With The Call To Become Who We Are.

Jesus.. Says, 'let Go Of Your Complaints, Forgive Those Who Loved You Poorly, Step Over Your Feelings Of Being Rejected, And Have The Courage To Trust That You Won't Fall Into An Abyss Of Nothingness But Into The Safe Embrace Of A God Whose Love Will Heal All Your Wounds.

Life Is A Gift, Not To Possess, But To Share.

O Lord, Make This Lenten Season Different From The Other Ones. Let Me Find You Again. Amen.

Asking People For Money Is Giving Them The Opportunity To Put Their Resources At The Disposal Of The Kingdom.

Is My Growing Old Making Me Any Closer To Christ? Am I Only Getting Older Or Am I Getting More Godly?

The Fruits Of Your Labors May Be Reaped Two Generations From Now. Trust, Even When You Don't See The Results.

Solitude Is The Furnace Of Transformation.

Joy Is The Experience Of Knowing That You Are Unconditionally Loved.

To Learn Patience Is Not To Rebel Against Every Hardship.

It Is Not Easy To Enter Into The Silence And Reach Beyond The Many Boisterous And Demanding Voices Of Our World And To Discover There The Small Intimate Voice Saying: 'you Are My Belived Child, On You My Favor Rests.'

Somewhere We Know That Without Silence Words Lose Their Meaning, That Without Listening Speaking No Longer Heals, That Without Distance Closeness Cannot Cure.

We Must Ask Ourselves How Many Times Others Would Benefit More From Our Silence Than From Our Words.

The More You Have Loved And Have Allowed Yourself To Suffer Because Of Your Love, The More You Will Be Able To Let Your Heart Grow Wider And Deeper. When Your Love Is Truly Giving And Receiving, Those Whom You Love Will Not Leave Your Heart Even When They Depart From You. The Pain Of Rejection, Absence, And Death Can Become Fruitful. Yes, As You Love Deeply The Ground Of Your Heart Will Be Broken More And More, But You Will Rejoice In The Abundance Of The Fruit It Will Bear.

The Deepest Satisfaction Of Writing Is Precisely That It Opens Up New Spaces Within Us Of Which We Were Not Aware Before We Started To Write. To Write Is To Embark On A Journey Whose Final Destination We Do Not Know.

Discipline Means To Prevent Everything In Your Life From Being Filled Up. Discipline Means That Somewhere You're Not Occupied, And Certainly Not Preoccupied. In The Spiritual Life, Discipline Means To Create That Space In Which Something Can Happen That You Hadn't Planned Or Counted On.

Solitude, Community, And Ministry Are Certainly Not Just For Celibates! Celibates Also Have A Hard Time Keeping Up.

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.

Take Prayer With You Wherever You Go. Say It Anytime, And Then Focus Your Mind And Heart On God.

Peace Is First Of All The Art Of Being.

The Leaders Of The Future Will Be Those Who Dare To Claim Their Irrelevance In The Contemporary World As A Divine Vocation.

Ministry Is A Very Confronting Service. It Does Not Allow People To Live With Illusions Of Immortality And Wholeness. It Keeps Reminding Others That They Are Mortal And Broken, But Also That With The Recognition Of This Condition, Liberation Starts.

Feelings Of Guilt Dominate Our Work As Peacemakers We Cannot Last Long. But When We Have Opened Each Other's Eyes To The Great Human Gifts Among All People We Can Indeed Make Peacemaking A Way Of Being.

Without Solitude It Is Virtually Impossible To Live A Spiritual Life. ...we Do Not Take The Spiritual Life Seriously If We Do Not Set Aside Some Time To Be With God And Listen To Him.

In Solitude We Become Aware That Our Worth Is Not The Same As Our Usefulness.

People Forget Ideas; They Don't Forget The Real Presence.

To Be A Minister Means Above All To Become Powerless, Or In More Precise Terms, To Speak With Our Powerlessness To The Condition Of Powerlessness Which Is So Keenly Felt But So Seldom Expressed By The People Of Our Age.

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.

Teaching, Therefore, Asks First Of All The Creation Of A Space Where Students And Teachers Can Enter Into A Fearless Communication With Each Other And Allow Their Respective Life Experiences To Be Their Primary And Most Valuable Source Of Growth And Maturation. It Asks For A Mutual Trust In Which Those Who Teach And Those Who Want To Learn Can Become Present To Each Other, Not As Opponents, But As Those Who Share In The Same Struggle And Search For The Same Truth.

God's Kingdom Is A Place Of Abundance Where Every Generous Act Overflows Its Original Bounds And Becomes Part Of The Unbounded Grace Of God At Work In The World.

The Best Of Community Does Give One A Deep Sense Of Belonging And Well-being; And In That Sense Community Takes Away Loneliness.

Self-rejection Is The Greatest Enemy Of The Spiritual Life Because It Contradicts The Sacred Voice That Calls Us The Beloved.

Community Is First Of All A Quality Of The Heart. It Grows From The Spiritual Knowledge That We Are Alive Not For Ourselves But For One Another.

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.

Ministers Are Powerless People Who Have Nothing To Boast Of Except Their Weaknesses. But When The Lord Whom They Serve Fills Them With His Blessing They Will Move Mountains And Change The Hearts Of People Wherever They Go.

Our Inclination Is To Show Our Lord Only What We Feel Comfortable With. But The More We Dare To Reveal Our Whole Trembling Self To Him, The More We Will Be Able To Sense That His Love, Which Is Perfect Love, Casts Out All Our Fears.

How Do You Pray? Take The Gospel Of Each Day And Spend Ten Minutes With It. Read It, And Read It Again. Walk Into The World With The Gospel In Your Heart.

Suffering Invites Us To Place Our Hurts In Larger Hands. In Christ We See God Suffering – For Us. And Calling Us To Share In God’s Suffering Love For A Hurting World. The Small And Even Overpowering Pains Of Our Lives Are Intimately Connected With The Greater Pains Of Christ. Our Daily Sorrows Are Anchored In A Greater Sorrow And Therefore A Larger Hope.

Simply Being With Someone Is Difficult Because It Asks Of Us That We Share In The Other's Vulnerability, Enter With Him Or Her Into The Experience Of Weakness And Powerlessness, Become Part Of The Uncertainty, And Give Up Control And Self-determination.

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.

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.

As We Are Involved In Unceasing Thinking, So We Are Called To Unceasing Prayer.

Silence Is A Very Concrete, Practical, And Useful Discipline In All Our Ministerial Tasks. It Can Be Seen As A Portable Cell Taken With Us From The Solitary Place Into The Midst Of Our Ministry. Silence Is Solitude Practiced In Action.

When We Keep Claiming The Light, We Will Find Ourselves Becoming More And More Radiant.

Although We Tend To Think About Saints As Holy And Pious, And Picture Them With Halos Above Their Heads And Ecstatic Gazes, True Saints Are Much More Accessible. They Are Men And Women Like Us, Who Live Ordinary Lives And Struggle With Ordinary Problems. What Makes Them Saints Is Their Clear And Unwavering Focus On God And God's People.

The Tragedy Of Our Lives Is That, While We Suffer From The Wounds Afflicted On Us By Those Who Love Us, We Cannot Avoid Wounding Those We Want To Love.

When We Have Nothing To Cling To As Our Own And Cease Thinking Of Ourselves As People Who Must Defend Privileges, We Can Open Ourselves Freely To Others With The Faithful Expectation That Our Strength Will Manifest Itself In Our Shared Weakness.

Christian Community Is The Place Where We Keep The Flame Of Hope Alive Among Us And Take It Seriously So That It Can Grow And Become Stronger In Us.

Nuclear Man Is The Man Who Realizes That His Creative Powers Hold The Potential For Self-destruction. He Sees That In This Nuclear Age Vast New Industrial Complexes Enable Man To Produce In One Hour That Which He Labored Over For Years In The Past, But He Also Realizes That These Same Industries Have Disturbed The Ecological Balance And, Through Air And Noise Pollution, Have Contaminated His Own Milieu.

In A World So Torn Apart By Rivalry, Anger, And Hatred, We Have The Privileged Vocation To Be Living Signs Of A Love That Can Bridge All Divisions And Heal All Wounds.

Our Greatest Fulfillment Lies In Giving Ourselves To Others.

Joy Is Hidden In Sorrow And Sorrow In Joy. If We Try To Avoid Sorrow At All Costs, We May Never Taste Joy, And If We Are Suspicious Of Ecstasy, Agony Can Never Reach Us Either. Joy And Sorrow Are The Parents Of Our Spiritual Growth.

Although Many, We Might Even Say Most, Strangers In This World Become Easily The Victim Of A Fearful Hostility, It Is Possible For Men And Women And Obligatory For Christians To Offer An Open And Hospitable Space Where Strangers Can Cast Off Their Strangeness And Become Our Fellow Human Beings.

Joy Does Not Simply Happen To Us. We Have To Choose Joy And Keep Choosing It Every Day. It Is A Choice Based On The Knowledge That We Belong To God And Have Found In God Our Refuge And Our Safety And That Nothing, Not Even Death, Can Take God Away From Us.

Living In A Community With Very Wounded People, I Came To See That I Had Lived Most Of My Life As A Tightrope Artist Trying To Walk On A High, Thin Cable From One Tower To The Other, Always Waiting For The Applause When I Had Not Fallen Off And Broken My Leg.

The Beatitudes Say, "blessed Are The Poor". They Don't Say, "blessed Are Those Who Care For The Poor."

Precisely Where I Feel My Poverty Is Where I Discover God's Blessing.

The Church Is Not An Institution Forcing Us To Follow Rules But A Community Inviting Us To Still Our Hunger And Thirst At Its Table.

Hunger And Thirst

Reading With Children Is An Enormous Gift To Them. It's A Great Honor To Invite Children To Read With Adults.

This Is What Life Is About. It Is Being Sent On A Trip By A Loving God, Who Is Waiting At Home For Our Return And Is Eager To Watch The Slides We Took And Hear About The Friends We Made. When We Travel With The Eyes And Ears Of The God Who Sent Us, We Will See Wonderful Sights, Hear Wonderful Sounds, Meet Wonderful People ... And Be Happy To Return Home.

It Is God’s Passionate Pursuit Of Us That Calls Us To Prayer.

What Is Hope?hope Is That Inner Dynamic That Compels Us To Explore And Pursue The Expectations Built Into The Human Condition. Hope Was Born The Day The First Human Beings Discovered The First Bridge And Decided Not To Jump Off The Bridge In Despair, But To Cross It

I Am Learning That The Best Cure For Hypocrisy Is Community. Hypocrisy Is Not So Much The Result Of Not Living What I Preach But Much More Of Not Confessing My Inability To Fully Live Up To My Own Words.

A Happy Life Is A Life For Others.

There Are Areas I Have To Work On. I Had Some Questions And Some Struggles, But It Was An Enormously Important Time For Me.

People Who Read Your Ideas Tend To Think That Your Writings Reflect Your Life.

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.

The Mystery Of One Man Is Too Immense And Too Profound To Be Explained By Another Man.

Our Humanity Comes To Its Fullest Bloom In Giving. We Become Beautiful People When We Give Whatever We Can Give: A Smile, A Handshake, A Kiss, An Embrace, A Word Of Love, A Present, A Part Of Our Life...all Of Our Life.

Waiting Is A Dry Desert Between Where We Are And Where We Want To Be. (finding My Way Home)

When We Become Aware That We Do Not Have To Escape Our Pains, But That We Can Mobilize Them Into A Common Search For Life, Those Very Pains Are Transformed From Expressions Of Despair Into Signs Of Hope.

When We Honestly Ask Ourselves Which Person In Our Lives Means The Most To Us, We Often Find That It Is Those Who, Instead Of Giving Much Advice, Solutions, Or Cures, Have Chosen Rather To Share Our Pain And Touch Our Wounds With A Gentle And Tender Hand.

Jesus Invites Us To Abide In His Love. That Means To Dwell With All That I Am In Him. It Is An Invitation To A Total Belonging, To Full Intimacy, To An Unlimited Being-with. The Light Of The Spirit Reveals To Us That Love Conquers All Fear.

Life Is Not Entertainment. Life Is Not Distraction.

When We Are Crushed Like Grapes, We Cannot Think Of The Wine We Will Become.

When You Pray, You Open Yourself To The Influence Of The Power Which Has Revealed Itself As Love. The Power Gives You Freedom And Independence. Once Touched By This Power, You Are No Longer Swayed Back And Forth By The Countless Opinions, Ideas, And Feelings Which Flow Through You. You Have Found A Center For Your Life That Gives You A Creative Distance So That Everything You See, Hear, And Feel Can Be Tested Against The Source.

Solitude Is An Essential Element For The Spiritual Health Of A Child. If We Only Stimulate Our Children - Keep Them Busy With Endless Stories With No Space To Be Alone - That's Not Good.

In Our Production-oriented Society, Being Busy, Having An Occupation, Has Become One Of The Main Ways, If Not The Main Way, Of Identifying Ourselves. Without An Occupation, Not Just Our Economic Security But Our Very Identity Is Endangered.

One Of The Most Beautiful Ways For Spiritual Formation To Take Place Is To Let Your Insecurity Lead You Closer To The Lord. Natural Hypersensitivity Can Become An Asset; It Makes You Aware Of Your Need To Be With People And It Allows You To Be More Willing To Look At Their Needs.

When You're On The Bus Or Subway Or In Your Car, Why Busy Your Mind With All The Garbage Of Advertisements? Why Fill Your Mind With Television And Radio? Somehow You Have To Decide What Your Mind Will Receive. I Don't Mean You Shouldn't Ever Go To Movies Or Watch Television, But Control What Enters Your Mind And Heart. It's Not Just A Question Of Pushing Bad Things Out But Also A Question Of Holding On To Something Really Good.

Home Is The Center Of My Being Where I Can Hear The Voice That Says: 'you Are My Beloved, On You My Favor Rests' - The Same Voice That Gave Life To The First Adam And Spoke To Jesus, The Second Adam; The Same Voice That Speaks To All The Children Of God And Sets Them Free To Live In The Midst Of A Dark World While Remaining In The Light.

Without Pentecost The Christ-event - The Life, Death, And Resurrection Of Jesus - Remains Imprisoned In History As Something To Remember, Think About And Reflect On. The Spirit Of Jesus Comes To Dwell Within Us, So That We Can Become Living Christs Here And Now.

Our Tendency Is To Run From The Painful Realities Or Try To Change Them As Soon As Possible. But Cure Without Care Makes Us Into Rulers, Controllers, Manipulators.

Good Families Always Ritualize The Table. You Can Say, "this Is A Christmas Meal; This Is A Birthday Meal."

We Cannot Make It Rain But We Can See To It That The Rain Falls On Prepared Soil.

The Spiritual Life Is A Reaching Out To Our Innermost Self, To Our Fellow Human And To Our God.

Prayer Requires That We Stand In God's Presence With Open Hands, Naked And Vulnerable, Proclaiming To Ourselves And To Others That Without God We Can Do Nothing. As Disciples, We Find Not Some But All Of Our Strength, Hope, Courage, And Confidence In God. Therefore, Prayer Must Be Our First Concern.

Learning To Weep, Learning To Keep Vigil, Learning To Wait For The Dawn. Perhaps This Is What It Means To Be Human.

The Art Of Living Is To Enjoy What We Can See And Not Complain About What Remains In The Dark. When We Are Able To Take The Next Step With Trust That We Will Have Enough Light For The Step That Follows, We Can Walk Through Life With Joy And Be Surprised At How Far We Go.

The Spiritual Life Is A Life Beyond Moods. It Is A Life In Which We Choose Joy And Do Not Allow Ourselves To Become Victims Of Passing Feelings Of Happiness Or Depression.

Prayer Is First Of All Listening To God. It's Openness. God Is Always Speaking; He's Always Doing Something.

In Other Words, First We Must Call People To Communion With God, To Intimacy With God, To A Sense Of Belonging. Most People Are Lost, Confused, Alienated. They Suffer And Struggle Immensely In Relationships. We Have To Proclaim Loudly And Clearly In Our Actions And In Our Words That God Loves Us That We Belong To Him. That's A Call To The Mystical Life.

The Members - Mentally Handicapped People Who Are Marginal In Society And Not Useful In An Economic Sense - Welcomed Me Into Their Lives. And I Was Loved, Not Because Of What S Doing But Because Of Who I Was.

We May Be Little, Insignificant Servants In The Eyes Of A World Motivated By Efficiency, Control And Success. But When We Realize That God Has Chosen Us From All Eternity, Sent Us Into The World As The Blessed Ones, Handed Us Over To Suffering, Can't We, Then, Also Trust That Our Little Lives Will Multiply Themselves And Be Able To Fulfill The Needs Of Countless People?

Life Is Precious. Not Because It Is Unchangeable, Like A Diamond, But Because It Is Vulnerable, Like A Little Bird. To Love Life Means To Love Its Vulnerability, Asking For Care, Attention, Guidance, And Support. Life And Death Are Connected By Vulnerability. The Newborn Child And The Dying Elder Both Remind Us Of The Preciousness Of Our Lives. Let's Not Forget The Preciousness And Vulnerability Of Life During The Times We Are Powerful, Successful, And Popular.

I Don't Pray Enough, But I Pray More Now. Every Morning At Six O'clock Have A Half Hour Of Meditation Before The Blessed Sacrament. I Pray With Others Too.

It Is Very Hard To Stay In Touch With Our True Identity Because Those Who Want Our Money, Our Time, And Our Energy Profit More From Our Insecurity And Fears Than From Our Inner Freedom.

...real Care Means The Willingness To Help Each Other In Making Our Brokenness Into The Gateway To Joy.

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.

Each Individual Human Being Can Claim The Spirit Of Jesus As The Guiding Spirit Of His Or Her Life. In That Spirit We Can Speak And Act Freely And Confidently With The Knowledge That The Same Spirit That Inspired Jesus Is Inspiring Us.

Trust That The Treasure We Look For Is Hidden In The Ground On Which We Stand.

The Question Is Not How Much Are You Going To Accomplish? Or Can You Show Some Results? But Are You In Love With Jesus? In Our World Of Brokeness And Despair, There Is An Enormous Need For Men And Women Who Know The Heart Of God; A Heart That Forgives, Cares, Reaches Out And Wants To Heal.

It Is Not That The University As Such Is Against Spiritual Formation. It Is Just That Often The University Does Not Know How To Integrate Spiritual Formation Within Its Academic Disciplines.

Nobody Escapes Being Wounded. We Are All Wounded People, Whether Physically, Emotionally, Mentally, Or Spiritually. The Main Question Is Not, 'how Can We Hide Our Wounds?' So We Don't Have To Be Embarrassed, But 'how Can We Put Our Woundedness In The Service Of Others?' When Our Wounds Cease To Be A Source Of Shame, And Become A Source Of Healing, We Have Become Wounded Healers.

Much Violence Is Based On The Illusion That Life Is A Property To Be Defended And Not To Be Shared.

One Way To Express The Spiritual Crisis Of Our Time Is To Say That Most Of Us Have An Address But Cannot Be Found There.

Often We Come Home From A Sharing Session With A Feeling That Something Precious Has Been Taken Away From Us Or That Holy Ground Has Been Trodden Upon.

God Is A God Of The Present. God Is Always In The Moment, Be That Moment Hard Or Easy, Joyful And Painful.

Patience Asks Us To Live The Moment To The Fullest, To Be Completely Present To The Moment, To Taste The Here And Now, To Be Where We Are. When We Are Impatient We Try To Get Away From Where We Are. We Behave As If The Real Thing Will Happen Tomorrow, Later, And Somewhere Else. Let's Be Patient And Trust That The Treasure We Look For Is Hidden In The Ground On Which We Stand.

Live In The Moment

[praying] Demands That You Take To The Road Again And Again, Leaving Your House And Looking Forward To A New Land For Yourself And Your [fellow Human]. This Is Why Praying Demands Poverty, That Is, The Readiness To Live A Life In Which You Have Nothing To Lose So That You Always Begin Afresh.

The University Has Become A Place That Prepares You For The Fights In The World.

I Have Always Felt That If I Am Very Personal And Connected With What I Myself Am Living, My Writing Will Transcend Ecclesial Boundaries.

The Great Illusion Of Leadership Is To Think That Man Can Be Led Out Of The Desert By Someone Who Has Never Been There.

When We Have Sold Our Identity To The Judges Of This World, We Are Bound To Become Restless, Because Of A Growing Need For Affirmation And Praise.

Community Is Where Humility And Glory Touch.

For Many, Religion Has To Do With What We Are Allowed To Do And Not Allowed To Do. In The End, That Doesn't Bear Fruit.

As A General Remark, I Would Say We Must Move From The Moral To The Mystical Life.

When You Have Loved Deeply, That Love Can Grow Even Stronger After The Death Of The Person You Love. That Is The Core Message Of Jesus.

Jesus Says, "keep Your Heart On The Kingdom First. Keep Your Heart On God's Love. Keep Focused On The Fact That You Are God's Beloved Daughter Or Son. That's The Truth Of Who You Are.

Who Am I? Where Have I Come From? Where Am I Going?-are Not Questions With An Answer But Questions That Open Us Up To New Questions Which Lead Us Deeper Into The Unshakeable Mystery Of Existence.

The Journey From Teaching About Love To Allowing Myself To Be Loved Proved Much Longer Than I Realised.

Every Time There Are Losses, There Are Choices To Be Made. You Choose To Live Your Losses As Passages To Anger, Blame, Hatred, Depression And Resentment, Or You Choose To Let These Losses Be Passages To Something New, Something Wider, And Deeper.

Which Questions Guide Our Lives? Which Questions Do We Make Our Own? Which Questions Deserve Our Undivided And Full Personal Commitment? Finding The Right Questions Is Crucial To Finding The Answers.

[the Return Of The Prodigal Book] Came Out Of My Emotional And Spiritual Journey During The Four Months I Was Gone From Daybreak Because Of Depression.

Life Is Just A Little Opportunity For You During A Few Years To Say, "i Love You, Too."

...the Word That Seems Best To Summarize The Desire Of The Human Heart Is 'communion.' ...wherever We Look It Is Communion That We Seek.

Prayer Is First Of All Listening To God. It's Openness. God Is Always Speaking; He's Always Doing Something. Prayer Is To Enter Into That Activity... Convert Your Thoughts Into Prayer. As We Are Involved In Unceasing Thinking, So We Are Called To Unceasing Prayer. The Difference Is Not That Prayer Is Thinking About Other Things, But That Prayer Is Thinking In Dialogue,... A Conversation With God.

I Often Wonder If My Knowledge About God Has Not Become My Greatest Stumbling Block To My Knowledge Of God.

Knowledge Of God

Hospitality Means Primarily The Creation Of Free Space Where The Stranger Can Enter And Become A Friend Instead Of An Enemy. Hospitality Is Not To Change People, But To Offer Them Space Where Change Can Take Place. It Is Not To Bring Men And Women Over To Our Side, But To Offer Freedom Not Disturbed By Dividing Lines.

When We Break Bread And Give It To Each Other, Fear Vanishes And God Becomes Very Close.

Any Dance Of Celebration Must Weave Both The Sorrows And The Blessings Into A Joyful Step....to Heal Is To Let The Holy Spirit Call Me To Dance, To Believe Again, Even Amid My Pain, That God Will Orchestrate And Guide My Life.

Those Who Are Marginal In The World Are Central In The Church, And That Is How It Is Supposed To Be! Thus We Are Called As Members Of The Church To Keep Going To The Margins Of Our Society. The Homeless, The Starving, Parentless Children, People With Aids, Our Emotionally Disturbed Brothers And Sisters - They Require Our First Attention.

As Long As We Relate To The Trees, The Rivers, The Mountains, The Fields And The Oceans As Properties Which We Can Manipulate According To Our Real Or Fabricated Needs, Nature Remains Opaque, And Does Not Reveal To Us Its True Being.

The Third Discipline Is Community. Whom Do You Choose As Your Companions? Whom Do You Choose To Be Friends With, To Live With? Are They People Who Love You, And Care For You, And Nurture You?

Our Life Is Full Of Brokenness - Broken Relationships, Broken Promises, Broken Expectations. How Can We Live With That Brokenness Without Becoming Bitter And Resentful Except By Returning Again And Again To God's Faithful Presence In Our Lives.

This Brief Lifetime Is My Opportunity To Receive Love, Deepen Love, Grow In Love, And Give Love.

To Live A Spiritual Life We Must First Find The Courage To Enter Into The Desert Of Our Loneliness And To Change It By Gentle And Persistent Efforts Into A Garden Of Solitude. The Movement From Loneliness To Solitude, However, Is The Beginning Of Any Spiritual Life Because It It Is The Movement From The Restless Senses To The Restful Spirit,l From The Outward-reaching Cravings To The Inward-reaching Search, From The Fearful Clinging To The Fearless Play.

Lifting Our Cup Means Sharing Our Life So We Can Celebrate It. When We Truly Believe We Are Called To Lay Down Our Lives For Our Friends, We Must Dare To Take The Risk To Let Others Know What We Are Living.

People Have Filled An Enormously Important Role In My Life - More Than Books! For Me, It's Not The Formal Advising Or The Therapy That Meant So Much. It Was More The Fact That Someone Committed Himself Or Herself To Me. They Were Really Interested In My Life; They Wanted To Know What I Was Doing; They Followed Me; They Dared To Confront And Challenge Me.

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.

As Peacemakers, We Must Resist All The Powers Of War And Destruction And Proclaim That Peace Is The Divine Gift Offered To All Who Affirm Life. Resistance Means Saying 'no' To All The Forces Of Death, Wherever They May Be.

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.

'how Much Longer Will I Live?'... Only One Thing Seems Clear To Me. Every Day Should Be Well-lived. What A Simple Truth! Still, It Is Worthy Of My Attention.

Although I Am A Committed Catholic Priest, And Nowhere Hide That Fact, My Focus Is Very Much A Spiritual Journey.

As Those Who Are Chosen, Blessed, Broken, And Given, We Are Called To Live Our Lives With A Deep Inner Joy And Peace. It Is The Life Of The Beloved, Lived In A World Constantly Trying To Convince Us That The Burden Is On Us To Prove That We Are Worthy Of Being Loved.

We Seldom Realize Fully That We Are Sent To Fulfill God-given Tasks. We Act As If We Were Simply Dropped Down In Creation And Have To Decide To Entertain Ourselves Until We Die. But We Were Sent Into The World By God, Just As Jesus Was. Once We Start Living Our Lives With That Conviction, We Will Soon Know What We Were Sent To Do.

The Lord Is Coming, Always Coming. When You Have Ears To Hear And Eyes To See, You Will Recognize Him At Any Moment Of Your Life. Life Is Advent; Life Is Recognizing The Coming Of The Lord

Spiritual Identity Means We Are Not What We Do Or What People Say About Us. And We Are Not What We Have. We Are The Beloved Daughters And Sons Of God.

Waiting Time Is Not Wasting Time. Waiting Patiently In Expectation Is The Foundation Of The Spiritual Life.

I Really Believe That What We Finally Want Is To Know God, As God Has Come To Be Known Through Jesus. Knowledge Is Knowledge Of The Heart - The Spirit - I Would Say. It Is The Spirit In Us Who Reveals God.

Based Or Our Baptism, All Are Called To A Mystical Life, To Communion With God. We Need To Claim That, To Taste It And Feel It, To Trust That The Deeper We Live This Communion, The More Our Behavior Will Witness To The Truth.

The Evangelical Movement Has Become Just A Bit Victimized By A Success-oriented Culture, Wanting The Church - Like The Corporation - To Be Successful.

A Little Criticism Makes Me Angry, And A Little Rejection Makes Me Depressed. A Little Praise Raises My Spirits, And A Little Success Excites Me. It Takes Very Little To Raise Me Up Or Thrust Me Down. Often I Am Like A Small Boat On The Ocean, Completely At The Mercy Of Its Waves. All The Time And Energy I Spend In Keeping Some Kind Of Balance And Preventing Myself From Being Tipped Over And Drowning Shows My Life Is Mostly A Struggle For Survival: Not A Holy Struggle, But An Anxious Struggle Resulting From The Mistaken Idea That It Is The World That Defines Me.

Your Heart Is Greater Than Your Wounds.

Prayer Is The Center Of The Christian Life. It Is The Only Necessary Thing. It Is Living With God, Here And Now.

Jesus Was A Revolutionary, Who Did Not Become An Extremist, Since He Did Not Offer An Ideology, But Himself. He Was Also A Mystic, Who Did Not Use His Intimate Relationship With God To Avoid The Social Evils Of His Time, But Shocked His Milieu To The Point Of Being Executed As A Rebel. In This Sense He Also Remains For Nuclear Man The Way To Liberation And Freedom.

Intimate Relationships

Trending Author

Zack De La Rocha

Janet Evanovich

Category