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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

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Joy Is What Makes

Henri Nouwen

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

Solitude Is Very Different From A 'time-out' From Our Busy Lives. Solitude Is The Very Ground From Which Community Grows. Whenever We Pray Alone, Study, Read, Write, Or Simply Spend Quiet Time Away From The Places Where We Interact With Each Other Directly, We Are Potentially Opened For A Deeper Intimacy With Each Other.

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.

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.

Solitude Begins With A Time And Place For God, And Him Alone. If We Really Believe Not Only That God Exists But Also That He Is Actively Present In Our Lives—healing, Teaching, And Guiding — We Need To Set Aside A Time And Space To Give Him Our Undivided Attention.

Let's Start With Jesus' Answer: "look For The Kingdom First And All Else Will Come Together." Life Is Fragmenting, Fragmented. I Have A Thousands Things To Do, Others Do Too. We Can Live Our Life As If The Main Question Is, "how Can Keep It Together? How Do I Juggle All The Balls? But The Real Question Is, "how Can I Stay Home - Interiorly Home - While I Do These Many Things?

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

Forgiveness Changes The Way We Remember.

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.

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

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

The Gospel Word Of The Day Can Become Like A Painting On The Walls. Of Your Inner Room, The Inner Room That Is Your Heart.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Waiting Is A Period Of Learning. The Longer We Wait, The More We Hear About Him For Whom We Are Waiting.

Christmas Is Believing That The Salvation Of The World Is God's Work, And Not Mine.

I Choose L'arche; L'arche Chooses Me. I Would Be Dead If I Weren't Here. I Need People To Love Me And Care For Me.

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.

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.

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.

Hope Means To Keep Living Amid Desperation And To Keep Humming In The Darkness.

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

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If Fear Is The Great Enemy Of Intimacy, Love Is Its True Friend.

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Through Discipline, Discipline Is The Other Side Of Discipleship. If You Want To Follow Jesus, You Have To Have Discipline.

The Pain That Comes From Deep Love Makes Your Love More Fruitful. It Is Like A Plow That Breaks The Ground To Allow The Seed To Take Root.

People Who Pray Stand Receptive Before The World. They No Longer Grab But Caress, They No Longer Bite But Kiss, They No Longer Examine But Admire.

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

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

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.

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 Am Very Grateful That I Am In Touch With So Many Different Church Groups. I Am Always Very Moved By The Fact That So Many People - Practically Over The Spectrum Of The Christian World - Are Responding To My Writing.

You Are A Christian Only So Long As You Constantly Pose Critical Questions To The Society You Live In, So Long As You Stay Unsatisfied With The Status Quo, And Keep Saying That A New World Is Yet To Come.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ministry In No Way Is A Privilege...it Is The Core Of The Christian Life. No Christian Is A Christian Without Being A Minister.

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

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.

Forgiveness Changes The Way We Remember. It Converts The Curse Into A Blessing. Forgiveness Indeed Heals Memories . . .

In 1970 I Felt So Lonely That I Could Not Give; Now I Feel So Joyful That Giving Seems Easy. I Hope That The Day Will Come When The Memory Of My Present Joy Will Give Me The Strength To Keep Giving Even When Loneliness Gnaws At My Heart.

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.

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?

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

Spiritual Journey

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.

There Is A Wonderful Story In The Gospel Of Luke (6:12-26). Jesus Went Up To The Mountain To Pray At Night; In The Morning He Came Down From The Mountain And Called His Twelve Apostles Around Him. In The Afternoon He Went Out On The Plain With Them To Preach The Good News And Heal The Sick. He Had Communion With God First, Then He Had Community, And Then He Went Out To Do The Work Of God. That's The Order Of Things.

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.

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.

Dare To Love And To Be A Real Friend. The Love You Give And Receive Is A Reality That Will Lead You Closer And Closer To God As Well As Those Whom God Has Given You To Love.

I Have Found It Very Important In My Own Life To Try To Let Go Of My Wishes And Instead To Live In Hope. I Am Finding That When I Choose To Let Go Of My Sometimes Petty And Superficial Wishes And Trust That My Life Is Precious And Meaningful In The Eyes Of God Something Really New, Something Beyond My Own Expectations Begins To Happen For Me. (finding My Way Home)

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.

We Have To Keep Asking Ourselves: 'what Does It All Mean? What Is God Trying To Tell Us? How Are We Called To Live In The Midst Of All This?' Without Such Questions Our Lives Become Numb And Flat.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Living A Spiritual Life Requires A Change Of Heart, A Conversion. Such A Conversion May Be Marked By A Sudden Inner Change, Or It Can Take Place Through A Long, Quiet Process Of Transformation. But It Always Involves An Inner Experience Of Oneness.

What Is Important Is How Well We Love. God Will Make Our Love Fruitful, Whether We See That Fruitfulness Or Not.

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.

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

Distance Friendship

Inspirational Long Distance Relationship

One Of The Main Tasks Of Theology Is To Find Words That Do Not Divide But Unite, That Do Not Create Conflict But Unity, That Do Not Hurt But Heal.

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

Who Can Take Away Suffering Without Entering It?

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

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.

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

The Only Feelings That Do Not Heal Are The Ones You Hide.

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

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?'

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

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.

The Mystery Of Ministry Is That We Have Been Chosen To Make Our Own Limited And Very Conditional Love The Gateway For The Unlimited And Unconditional Love Of God.

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.

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.

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.

Jesus Does Not Respond To Our Worry-filled Way Of Living By Saying That We Should Not Be So Busy With Worldly Affairs. He Does Not Try To Pull Us Away From The Many Events, Activities, And People That Make Up Our Lives. . . . He Asks Us To Shift The Point Of Gravity, To Relocate The Center Of Our Attention, To Change Our Priorities. Jesus Does Not Speak About A Change Of Activities, A Change In Contacts, Or Even A Change Of Pace. He Speaks About A Change Of Heart.

Peacemaking Is A Full-time Vocation That Includes Each Member Of God's People.

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

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.

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

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

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

Hiddenness Is The Place Of Purification. In Hiddenness We Find Our True Selves.

The Spiritual Life Is Not A Life Before, After, Or Beyond Our Everyday Existence. No, The Spiritual Life Can Only Be Real When It Is Lived In The Midst Of The Pains And Joys Of The Here And Now.

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

The Greatest Trap In Our Life Is Not Success, Popularity Or Power, But Self-rejection.

Meaningful Life

The People Who Most Affected Me Were The Ones Who Got Right In There With Me, Who Cried With Me, But Who Also Had A Certain Authority, Who Dared To Say What Needed Saying.

When People Show You Their Boundaries ("i Can't Do This For You") You Feel Rejected...part Of Your Struggle Is To Set Boundaries To Your Own Love. Only When You Are Able To Set Your Own Boundaries Will You Be Able To Acknowledge, Respect And Even Be Grateful For The Boundaries Of Others.

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.

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."

...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.

Theological Formation Is The Gradual And Often Painful Discovery Of God's Incomprehensibility. You Can Be Competent In Many Things, But You Cannot Be Competent In God.

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

We Are Not The Healers, We Are Not The Reconcilers, We Are Not The Givers Of Life. We Are Sinful, Broken, Vulnerable People Who Need As Much Care As Anyone We Care For.

The World Is Evil Only When You Become Its Slave.

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.

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

Unconditional Love

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.

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.

Becoming The Beloved Is Pulling The Truth Revealed To Me From Above Down Into The Ordinariness Of What I Am, In Fact, Thinking Of, Talking About And Doing From Hour To Hour.

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.

When The Imitation Of Christ Does Not Mean To Live A Life Like Christ, But To Live Your Life As Authentically As Christ Lived His, Then There Are Many Ways And Forms In Which A Man Can Be A Christian.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Prayer Is Not A Pious Decoration Of Life But The Breath Of Human Existence.

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

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.

Today I Personally Believe That While Jesus Came To Open The Door To God's House, All Human Beings Can Walk Through That Door, Whether They Know About Jesus Or Not. Today I See It As My Call To Help Every Person Claim His Or Her Own Way To God.

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.

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

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.

If You Believe You Are The Beloved Of God, You Need To Spend Time Listening To His Voice - Period! You Can't Say, "yes God Calls Me The Beloved, But I Have To Go Out To Do Something Now."

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.

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.

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

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- 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.

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.

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.

Once You Are In Communion With God, You Have The Eyes To See And The Ears To Hear Other People In Whom God Has Also Found A Dwelling Place.

If I Were To Let My Life Be Taken Over By What Is Urgent, I Might Very Well Never Get Around To What Is Essential.

My Whole Life I Have Been Complaining That My Work Was Constantly Interrupted, Until I Discovered That My Interruptions Were My Work.

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.

We Need To Remind Each Other That The Cup Of Sorrow Is Also The Cup Of Joy, That Precisely What Causes Us Sadness Can Become The Fertile Ground For Gladness.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Prayer Is The Beginning And The End, The Source And The Fruit, The Core And The Content, The Basis And The Goal Of All Peacemaking.

What Is Forgotten Cannot Be Healed, And That Which Cannot Be Healed Easily Becomes The Cause Of Greater Evil.

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.

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 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?

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

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.

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.

It Is This Nothingness (in Solitude) That I Have To Face In My Solitude, A Nothingness So Dreadful That Everything In Me Wants To Run To My Friends, My Work, And My Distractions So That I Can Forget My Nothingness And Make Myself Believe That I Am Worth Something. The Task Is To Persevere In My Solitude, To Stay In My Cell Until All My Seductive Visitors Get Tired Of Pounding On My Door And Leave Me Alone. The Wisdom Of The Desert Is That The Confrontation With Our Own Frightening Nothingness Forces Us To Surrender Ourselves Totally And Unconditionally To The Lord Jesus Christ.

Where True Inner Freedom Is, There Is God. And Where God Is, There We Want To Be.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

A Spiritual Life Without Prayer Is Like The Gospel Without Christ.

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

Each Day Holds A Surprise. But Only If We Expect It Can We See, Hear, Or Feel It When It Comes To Us. Let's Not Be Afraid To Receive Each Day's Surprise, Whether It Comes To Us As Sorrow Or As Joy It Will Open A New Place In Our Hearts, A Place Where We Can Welcome New Friends And Celebrate More Fully Our Shared Humanity.

It Is Hard To Bear With People Who Stand Still Along The Way, Lose Heart, And Seek Their Happiness In Little Pleasures Which They Cling To...you Feel Sad About All That Self-indulgence And Self-satisfaction, For You Know With An Indestructible Certainty That Something Greater Is Coming.

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.

Gratitude As A Discipline Involves A Conscious Choice. I Can Choose To Be Grateful Even When My Emotions And Feelings Are Still Steeped In Hurt And Resentment. It Is Amazing How Many Occasions Present Themselves In Which I Can Choose Gratitude Instead Of A Complaint.

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.

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