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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.

-Henri Nouwen

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In Other Words, First

Henri Nouwen

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Our Society Is So Fragmented, Our Family Lives So Sundered By Physical And Emotional Distance, Our Friendships So Sporadic, Our Intimacies So 'in-between' Things And Often So Utilitarian, That There Are Few Places Where We Can Feel Truly Safe.

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.

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

Lord Jesus, Master Of Both The Light And The Darkness, Send Your Holy Spirit Upon Our Preparations For Christmas. We Whose Hearts Are Heavy Seek The Joy Of Your Presence. We Are Your People, Walking In Darkness, Yet Seeking The Light. To You We Say, 'come Lord Jesus!'

To Forgive Another From The Heart Is An Act Of Liberation. We Set That Person Free From The Negative Bonds That Exist Between Us. As Long As We Do Not Forgive We Pull Them With Us, Or Worse, As A Heavy Load. The Great Temptation Is To Cling In Anger To Our Enemies & Then Define Ourselves As Being Offended & Wounded By Them. Forgiveness, Therefore, Liberates Not Only The Other But Also Ourselves. It Is The Way To The Freedom Of The Children Of God.

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.

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

Friendship Has Always Belonged To The Core Of My Spiritual Journey.

Spiritual Journey

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.

Fundraising Is A Very Rich And Beautiful Activity. It Is A Confident, Joyful And Hope-filled Expression Of Ministry. In Ministering To Each Other, Each From The Riches That He Or She Possesses, We Work Together For The Full Coming Of God's Kingdom.

The Great Challenge Is To Discover That We Are Truly Invited To Participate In The Divine Life Of The Father, The Son, And The Holy Spirit.

I Am Working On Three Things: On Being A Prayerful Person; On Staying Close To The Handicapped; And On My Writing. These Are My Constant Concerns.

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.

That's The Temptation Of The Devil: "turn Stones Into Bread! Be Relevant!"

It Is By Chance That We Met, By Choice That We Became Friends.

Life Is Not A Possession To Be Defended, But A Gift To Be Shared.

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.

Today's Reading Was "if They Ask You To Walk A Mile, Walk Two. Don't Take An Eye For An Eye Or A Tooth For A Tooth." You Have Chances Every Second To Live This Word, But It Has To Be In You. It Can't Just Be An Idea; It Has To Sink From The Mind Into The 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.

Intimacy Is Not A Happy Medium. It Is A Way Of Being In Which The Tension Between Distance And Closeness Is Dissolved And A New Horizon Appears. Intimacy Is Beyond Fear.

When I Could No Longer Cling To My Normal Supports I Discovered That True Support And Real Safety Lie Far Beyond The Structures Of Our World.

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.

If You Want To Know Anything About Community, You Have To Realize That The Contemplative Side Is Essential. Community Without Retreating And Quiet Time Never Survives.

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.

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

Perhaps Nothing Helps Us Make The Movement From Our Little Selves To A Larger World Than Remembering God In Gratitude. Such A Perspective Puts God In View In All Of Life, Not Just In The Moments We Set Aside For Worship Or Spiritual Disciplines. Not Just In The Moments When Life Seems Easy.

When We Are Securely Rooted In Personal Intimacy With The Source Of Life, It Will Be Possible To Remain Flexible Without Being Relativistic, Convinced Without Being Rigid, Willing To Confront Without Being Offensive, Gentle And Forgiving Without Being Soft, And True Witnesses Without Being Manipulative.

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.

Our First Responsibility In The Midst Of Violence Is To Prevent It From Destroying Us.

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

The Main Question Is Not, How Can We Hide Our Wounds...but How Can We Put Our Woundedness In Service To Others.

Service To Others

The Real Enemies Of Our Life Are The 'oughts' And The 'ifs.' They Pull Us Backward Into The Unalterable Past And Forward Into The Unpredictable Future. But Real Life Takes Place In The Here And Now.

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

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

Knowledge Of God

For Jesus, There Are No Countries To Be Conquered, No Ideologies To Be Imposed, No People To Be Dominated. There Are Only Children, Women And Men To Be Loved.

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 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.

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.

For As Long As You Can Remember, You Have Been A Pleaser, Depending On Others To Give You An Identity. You Need Not Look At That Only In A Negative Way. You Wanted To Give Your Heart To Others, And You Did So Quickly And Easily. But Now You Are Being Asked To Let Go Of All These Self-made Props And Trust That God Is Enough For You. You Must Stop Being A Pleaser And Reclaim Your Identity As A Free Self.

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.

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

I've Had A Tremendous Problem With Depression In My Life. I'd Rather Not Talk About It, Because It's Over. But Depression Is Real.

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.

Live In The Moment

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.

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.

Pay Attention To The People God Puts In Your Path If You Want To Discern What God Is Up To In Your Life.

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

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

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.

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

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.

In Our Own Woundedness, We Can Become Sources Of Life For Others.

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

Somehow, Somewhere, I Know That God Loves Me, Even Though I Do Not Feel That Love As I Can Feel A Human Embrace, Even Though I Do Not Hear A Voice As I Hear Human Words...god Is Greater Than My Senses, Greater Than My Thoughts, Greater Than My Heart. I Do Believe That He Touches Me In Places That Are Unknown Even To Myself.

...we All Want To Hear Stories, From The Moment We Are Born To The Moment We Die. Stories Connect Our Little Lives With The World Around Us And Help Us Discover Who We Are.

True Hospitality Is Welcoming The Stranger On Her Own Terms. This Kind Of Hospitality Can Only Be Offered By Those Who've Found The Center Of Their Lives In Their Own Hearts.

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.

Live, Work, And Travel With Handicapped People, So I Can Stay Close To Them. But Since I Am Often Busy With Many Things, It's A Constant Struggle To Keep The Handicapped Members Of Our Community In The Center Of My Life.

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.

Community Always Calls Us Back To Solitude, And Solitude Always Calls Us To Community. Community And Solitude, Both, Are Essential Elements Of Ministry And Witnessing.

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.

Our Brokenness Has No Other Beauty But The Beauty That Comes From The Compassion That Surrounds It.

The Most Important Thing I've Come To Believe In Is That People With Mental Handicaps Have A Unique Mission To Bring God's Blessing To The World.

I'm Learning That The Blessing Is Located In Our Poor People, In People Who Are Weak; They Are The Ones We Should Stay Close To, Not Because They Need Us But Because We Need To Receive From Them The Blessing.

This Sounds Very Simple And Maybe Even Trite, But Very Few People Know That They Are Loved Without Condition Or Limits.

Fear Is The Great Enemy Of Intimacy. Fear Makes Us Run Away From Each Other Or Cling To Each Other But Does Not Create True Intimacy.

In This Crazy World, There's An Enormous Distinction Between Good Times And Bad, Between Sorrow And Joy. But In The Eyes Of God, They're Never Separated. Where There Is Pain, There Is Healing. Where There Is Mourning, There Is Dancing. Where There Is Poverty, There Is The Kingdom.

'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.

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.'

It's An Incredible Mystery Of God's Love That The More You Know How Deeply You Are Loved, The More You Will See How Deeply Your Sisters And Your Brothers In The Human Family Are Loved.

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.

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

When I Trust Deeply That Today God Is Truly With Me And Holds Me Safe In A Divine Embrace, Guiding Every One Of My Steps I Can Let Go Of My Anxious Need To Know How Tomorrow Will Look, Or What Will Happen Next Month Or Next Year. I Can Be Fully Where I Am And Pay Attention To The Many Signs Of God's Love Within Me And Around Me.

Life Is Not Entertainment. Life Is Not Distraction.

A Sense Of Solitude Is One Of The Most Beautiful Things That Parents Can Give A Child. It Doesn't Mean Leaving The Child Alone, But It Does Mean Creating Safe Spaces Where The Child Can Be With Other People. It Does Mean Directing Their Attention To God.

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.

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

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

We Are All Healers Who Can Reach Out And Offer Health, And We Are All Patients In Constant Need Of Help.

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.

Compassion Means Full Immersion In The Condition Of Being Human.

To Give Someone A Blessing Is The Most Significant Affirmation We Can Offer.

That Is Our Vocation: To Convert The Enemy Into A Guest And To Create The Free And Fearless Space Where Brotherhood And Sisterhood Can Be Formed And Fully Experienced.

While My Friend Always Spoke About The Sun, I Kept Speaking About The Clouds, Until One Day I Realized That It Was The Sun That Allowed Me To See The Clouds.

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.

We Have To Trust That Our Stories Deserve To Be Told. We May Discover That The Better We Tell Our Stories The Better We Will Want To Live Them.

If You Meet God In Solitude, You Discover The God You Meet Is The God Who Embraces All People.

It Is Precisely In Times Of Spiritual Dryness That We Must Hold On To Our Spiritual Discipline So That We Can Grow Into New Intimacy With God.

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

Ministers Are Tempted To Join The Ranks Of Those Who Consider It Their Primary Task To Keep Other People Busy … But Our Task Is The Opposite Of Distraction … How To Keep Them From Being So Busy That They Can No Longer Hear The Voice Of God Who Speaks In Silence.

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.

Gratitude Goes Beyond The 'mine' And 'thine' And Claims The Truth That All Of Life Is A Pure Gift. In The Past I Always Thought Of Gratitude As A Spontaneous Response To The Awareness Of Gifts Received, But Now I Realize That Gratitude Can Also Be Lived As A Discipline. The Discipline Of Gratitude Is The Explicit Effort To Acknowledge That All I Am And Have Is Given To Me As A Gift Of Love, A Gift To Be Celebrated With Joy.

Hospitality Is Not To Change People, But To Offer Them Space Where Change Can Take Place.

When We Learn To Move Through Suffering, Rather Than Avoid It, Then We Greet It Differently. We Become Willing To Let It Teach Us. We Even Begin To See How God Can Use It For Some Larger End.

We Can Be Unhappy About Many Things, But Jy Can Still Be There... It Is Important To Become Aware That At Every Moment Of Our Life We Have An Opportunity To Choose Joy... It Is In The Choice That Our True Freedom Lies, And That Freedom Is, In The Final Analysis, The Freedom To Love.

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

God Doesn't Give Us Just Enough. God Gives Us More Than Enough: More Bread And Fish Than We Can Eat, More Love Than We Dared To Ask For.

Those We Most Love Cause Us Not Only Great Joy But Also Great Pain. Love Is Stronger Than Fear, Life Stronger Than Death, Hope Stronger Than Despair. We Have To Trust That The Risk Of Loving Is Always Worth Taking.

Positive Thinking

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.

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.

I Want My Work To Create Space Where People Can Meet God, Rather Than Give Them Something They Can "apply" To Their Daily Life.

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.

A Life Without A Lonely Place, That Is, A Life Without A Quiet Center, Easily Becomes Destructive. When We Cling To The Results Of Our Actions As Our Only Way Of Self-identifiction, Then We Become Possessive And Defensive And Tend To Look At Our Fellow Human Beings More As Enemies To Be Kept At A Distance Than As Friends With Whom We Share The Gifts Of Life.

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

The Way Of Jesus Is Radically Different. It Is The Way Not Of Upward Mobility But Of Downward Mobility. It Is Going To The Bottom, Staying Behind The Sets And Choosing The Last Place! Why Is The Way Of Jesus Worth Choosing? Because It Is The Way To The Kingdom, The Way Jesus Took, And The Way That Brings Everlasting Life.

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.

When We Honestly Ask Ourselves Which Person In Our Lives Mean The Most To Us, We Often Find That It Is Those Who, Instead Of Giving Advice, Solutions, Or Cures, Have Chosen Rather To Share Our Pain And Touch Our Wounds With A Warm And Tender Hand. The Friend Who Can Be Silent With Us In A Moment Of Despair Or Confusion, Who Can Stay With Us In An Hour Of Grief And Bereavement, Who Can Tolerate Not Knowing, Not Curing, Not Healing And Face With Us The Reality Of Our Powerlessness, That Is A Friend Who Cares.

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

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 Great Teachers Are Always Those Who Can Live The Tension. They Are Not Criticizing Everybody, They're Not Complaining. They Give Young People A Vision.

God Wants You To Live For Others And To Live That Presence Well.

Live For Others

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.

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.

Where Are You Getting Your Affection? Who's Touching You? Who's Holding You? Who Makes You Feel Alive? Who Says, "you Are A Beautiful Person, You Are The Beloved Of God, Don't Forget It"? That's An Important Discipline.

I Feel The Problems I Have Are Meant To Purify Me.

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.

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.

Ministry Is The Least Important Thing. You Cannot Not Minister If You Are In Communion With God And Live In Community.

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.

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.

The World Is Evil Only When You Become Its Slave.

Christian Life Is Not A Life Divided Between Times For Action And Times For Contemplation. No. Real Social Action Is A Way Of Contemplation, And Real Contemplation Is The Core Of Social Action.

The Real Question Is: How Can I Live So That My Death Will Be Fruitful For Others?

Dear God, I Am So Afraid To Open My Clenched Fists! Who Will I Be When I Have Nothing Left To Hold On To? Who Will I Be When I Stand Before You With Empty Hands? Please Help Me To Gradually Open My Hands And To Discover That I Am Not What I Own, But What You Want To Give Me.

When We Give Generously, With An Abundance Mentality, What We Give Away Will Multiply.

Abundance Mentality

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.

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.

We Need To Be Angels For Each Other, To Give Each Other Strength And Consolation. Because Only When We Fully Realize That The Cup Of Life Is Not Only A Cup Of Sorrow But Also A Cup Of Joy Will We Be Able To Drink It.

A Happy Life Is A Life For Others.

I Am The Prodigal Son Every Time I Search For Unconditional Love Where It Cannot Be Found.

Unconditional Love

But What I Would Like To Say Is That The Spiritual Life Is A Life In Which You Gradually Learn To Listen To A Voice That Says Something Else, That Says, "you Are The Beloved And On You My Favour Rests."... I Want You To Hear That Voice. It Is Not A Very Loud Voice Because It Is An Intimate Voice. It Comes From A Very Deep Place. It Is Soft And Gentle. I Want You To Gradually Hear That Voice. We Both Have To Hear That Voice And To Claim For Ourselves That That Voice Speaks The Truth, Our Truth. It Tells Us Who We Are.

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.

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.

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.

Solitude Does Not Pull Us Away From Our Fellow Human Beings But Instead Makes Real Fellowship Possible.

Jesus Said Communion First, Community Comes Out Of That, And Out Of Community, Ministry.

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

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

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.

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.

In The Face Of The Oppressed I Recognize My Own Face, And In The Hands Of The Oppressor I Recognize My Own Hands. Their Flesh Is My Flesh, Their Blood Is My Blood, Their Pain Is My Pain, Their Smile Is My Smile.

As Long As We Have Our Stories There Is Hope.

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.

Obviously A Child Can Never Conceive Solitude If His Parents Aren't Living It Somewhere Themselves. I Don't Mean That To Be Alone You Have To Get Down On Your Knees For An Hour In A Yoga Posture.

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.

Yes, It's A Competitive World, But Where Is Your Heart?

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

To Receive Spiritual Direction Is To Recognize That God Does Not Solve Our Problems Or Answer All Our Questions, But Leads Us Closer To The Mystery Of Our Existence Where All Questions Cease.

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.

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.

I Always Try To Turn My Personal Struggles Into Something Helpful For Others.

The Farther The Outward Journey Takes You, The Deeper The Inward Journey Must Be.

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.

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

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

You Don't Think Your Way Into A New Kind Of Living. You Live Your Way Into A New Kind Of Thinking.

Compassion Can Never Coexist With Judgement Because Judgement Creates The Distance, The Distinction, Which Prevents Us From Really Being With The Other.

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

Indeed, When God's Glory Dwells In Me, There Is Nothing Too Far Away, Nothing Too Painful, Nothing Too Strange Or Too Familiar That It Cannot Contain And Renew By Its Touch. Every Time I Recognize The Glory Of God In Me And Give It Space To Manifest Itself To Me, All That Is Human Can Be Brought There And Nothing Will Be The Same Again.

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.

The Crisis Of Our Prayer Life Is That Our Minds May Be Filled With Ideas Of God While Our Hearts Remain Far From Him.

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.

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.

The Great #‎ Conversion Called For By Jesus Is To Move From Belonging To The World To Belonging To God.

I Have An Increasing Sense That The Most Important Crisis Of Our Time Is Spiritual And That We Need Places Where People Can Grow Stronger In The Spirit And Be Able To Integrate The Emotional Struggles In Their Spiritual Journeys.

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.

Forgiveness Changes The Way We Remember.

His (christ's) Appearance In Our Midst Has Made It Undeniably Clear That Changing The Human Heart And Changing Human Society Are Not Separate Tasks, But Are As Interconnected As The Two Beams Of The Cross.

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.

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

Once We Deeply Trust That We Ourselves Are Precious In God's Eyes, We Are Able To Recognize The Preciousness Of Others And Their Unique Places In God's Heart.

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.

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.

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

When Suddenly You Seem To Lose All You Thought You Had Gained, Do Not Despair. You Must Expect Setbacks And Regressions. Don't Say To Yourself "all Is Lost. I Have To Start All Over Again." This Is Not True. What You Have Gained You Have Gained....when You Return To The The Road, You Return To The Place Where You Left It, Not To Where You Started.

What Once Seemed Such A Curse Has Become A Blessing. All The Agony That Threatened To Destroy My Life Now Seems Like The Fertile Ground For Greater Trust, Stronger Hope, And Deeper Love.

A Life Without A Lonely Place, That Is, Without A Quiet Center, Becomes Destructive.

...when You Can Look Into The Face Of Human Beings And You Have Enough Light To Recognize Them As Your Brothers And Sisters. Up Until Then It Is Night And Darkness Is Still With Us. Let Us Pray For The Light. It Is The Peace The World Cannot Give.

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.

Jesus Didn't Live Alone. He Had Peter, John, And James Around Him. There Were The Twelve And The Other Disciples. They Formed Circles Of Intimacy Around Jesus. We Too Need These Circles Of Intimacy, But It's A Discipline.

Television Is Obviously An Enormous Intruder. Quite Often People Say They Have No Time, But In Fact They Waste A Lot Of Time On Things That Are Not Healthy.

The Discipline Of Gratitude Is The Explicit Effort To Acknowledge That All I Am And Have Is Given To Me As A Gift Of Love, A Gift To Be Celebrated With Joy.

Now I Wonder Whether I Have Sufficiently Realized That During All This Time God Has Been Trying To Find Me, To Know Me, And To Love Me. The Question Is Not 'how Am I To Find God?' But 'how Am I To Let Myself Be Found By Him?' The Question Is Not 'how Am I To Love God?' But 'how Am I To Let Myself Be Loved By God?'

Do Not Tell Everyone Your Story. You Will Only End Up Feeling More Rejected. People Cannot Give You What You Long For In Your Heart. The More You Expect From People's Response To Your Experience Of Abandonment, The More You Will Feel Exposed To Ridicule.

Joy Is Based On The Spiritual Knowledge That, While The World In Which We Live Is Shrouded In Darkness, God Has Overcome The World.

Beneath Our Frantic Activities, There's A Deep Desire To Show The World We Are Worthwhile.

We Are Called To Be Fruitful - Not Successful, Not Productive, Not Accomplished. Success Comes From Strength, Stress, And Human Effort. Fruitfulness Comes From Vulnerability And The Admission Of Our Own Weakness.

[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.

What Makes Us Human Is Not Our Mind But Our Heart, Not Our Ability To Think But Our Ability To Love.

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

Your Heart Is Greater Than Your Wounds.

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.

Friendship And Love Are Impossible Without A Mutual Vulnerability.

Love And Friendship

Solitude Is The Furnace Of Transformation. Without Solitude We Remain Victims Of Our Society And Continue To Be Entangled In The Illusions Of The False Self.

We Enter Into Solitude First Of All To Meet Our Lord And To Be With Him And Him Alone. Only In The Context Of Grace Can We Face Our Sin; Only In The Place Of Healing Do We Dare To Show Our Wounds; Only With A Singleminded Attention To Christ Can We Give Up Our Clinging Fears And Face Our Own True Nature.

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