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The Great Spiritual Task Facing Me Is To So Fully Trust That I Belong To God That I Can Be Free In The World--free To Speak Even When My Words Are Not Received; Free To Act Even When My Actions Are Criticized, Ridiculed, Or Considered Useless.... I Am Convinced That I Will Truly Be Able To Love The World When I Fully Believe That I Am Loved Far Beyond Its Boundaries.

-Henri Nouwen

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The Great Spiritual Task

Henri Nouwen

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The Great Spiritual Task Facing Me Is To So Fully Trust That I Belong To God That I Can Be Free In The World--free To Speak Even When My Words Are Not Received; Free To Act Even When My Actions Are Criticized, Ridiculed, Or Considered Useless.... I Am Convinced That I Will Truly Be Able To Love The World When I Fully Believe That I Am Loved Far Beyond Its Boundaries.

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Our Lives Are Unique Stones In The Mosaic Of Human Existence -- Priceless And Irreplaceable.

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

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

Our Life Is...a Time In Which Sadness And Joy Kiss Each Other At Every Moment.

The Church Will Always Be Renewed When Our Attention Shifts From Ourselves To Those Who Need Our Care. The Blessing Of Jesus Always Comes To Us Through The Poor. The Most Remarkable Experience Of Those Who Work With The Poor Is That, In The End, The Poor Give More Than They Receive. They Give Food To Us.

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.

Forgiveness Is The Name Of Love Practiced Among People Who Love Poorly. The Hard Truth Is That All People Love Poorly. We Need To Forgive And Be Forgiven Every Day, Every Hour Increasingly. That Is The Great Work Of Love Among The Fellowship Of The Weak That Is The Human Family.

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.

Everything Changes Radically From The Moment You Know Yourself As Being Sent Into This World.

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

The Church Is The Body Of Christ Fashioned By Baptism & The Eucharist.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

Solitude Is The Place Of Purification And Transformation, The Place Of The Great Struggle And The Great Encounter.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

God Is Your Safety And Your Home. You Are Well Embraced." Start Living The Multi-formity Of Life From This Place. If You Can Hold On To That, It All Becomes One.

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.

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.

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

Too Many Of Us Are Lonely Ministers Practicing A Lonely Ministry.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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

As Long As We Have Our Stories There Is Hope.

People Who Have Known The Joy Of God Point Each Other To Flashes Of Light Here And There, And Remind Each Other That They Reveal The Hidden But Real Presence Of God. They Discover That There Are People Who Heal Each Other's Wounds, Forgive Each Other's Offenses, Share Their Possessions, Foster The Spirit Of Community, Celebrate The Gifts They Have Received, And Live In Constant Anticipation Of The Full Manifestation Of God's Glory.

The Art Of Living Is To Enjoy What We Can See And Not Complain About What Remains In The Dark.

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

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 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.

Writing Is Not Just A Job. It Helps Me To Pray. It's A Way Of Being.

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.

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.

I Was Forced To Enter The Basement Of My Soul And Look Directly At What Was Hidden There, And To Choose, In The Face Of It All, Not Death But Life.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

[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.

Most Christian Leadership Is Exercised By People Who Do Not Know How To Develop Healthy, Intimate Relationships And Have Opted For Power And Control Instead. Many Christian Empire-builders Have Been People Unable To Give And Receive Love.

Intimate Relationships

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The More You Are Called To Speak For God's Love, The More You Will Need To Deepen The Knowledge Of That Love In Your Own Heart. The Farther The Outward Journey Takes You, The Deeper The Inward Journey Must Be. Only When Your Roots Are Deep Can Your Fruits Be Abundant.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Real Greatness Is Often Hidden, Humble, Simple, And Unobtrusive. It Is Not Easy To Trust Ourselves And Our Actions Without Public Affirmation. We Must Have Strong Self-confidence Combined With Deep Humility.

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

The Soul Of The Artist Cannot Remain Hidden.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Still Believe That The University Is A Place Where People Can Develop Their Minds And Learn Skills, But Also They Can Develop Their Personalities And Their Spiritual Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hope Is Willing To Leave Unanswered Questions Unanswered And Unknown Futures Unknown. Hope Makes You See God's Guiding Hand Not Only In The Gentle And Pleasant Moments But Also In The Shadows Of Disappointment And Darkness.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Joy That Compassion Brings Is One Of The Best-kept Secrets Of Humanity. It Is A Secret Known Only To A Very Few People, A Secret That Has To Be Rediscovered Over And Over Again.

Best Kept Secrets

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The More I Think About The Human Suffering In Our World And My Desire To Offer A Healing Response, The More I Realize How Crucial It Is Not To Allow Myself To Become Paralyzed By Feelings Of Helplessness And Guilt. More Important Than Ever Is To Be Very Faithful To My Vocation To Do Well The Few Things I Am Called To Do And Hold On To The Joy And Peace They Bring Me. I Must Resist The Temptation To Let The Forces Of Darkness Pull Me Into Despair And Make Me One More Of Their Many Victims.

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.

Friendship And Love Are Impossible Without A Mutual Vulnerability.

Love And Friendship

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.

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.

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

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

...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.

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?'

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!'

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Where Is Peace To Be Found? The Answer Is Surprising But Clear. In Weakness. Why There? Because In Our Weakness, Our Familiar Ways Of Controlling And Manipulating Our World Are Being Stripped Away, And We Are Forced To Let Go From Doing Much, Thinking Much, And Relying On Our Self-sufficiency. Right There Where We Are Most Vulnerable, The Peace That Is Not Of This World Is Mysteriously Hidden.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Every Time I Take A Step In The Direction Of Generosity, I Know I Am Moving From Fear To Love.

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.

In God's Eyes The Most Significant Is Often The Most Hidden.

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.

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

I Am Beginning Now To See How Radically The Character Of My Spiritual Journey Will Change When I No Longer Think Of God As Hiding Out And Making It As Difficult As Possible For Me To Find Him, But Instead As The One Who Is Looking For Me While I Am Doing The Hiding.

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.

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.

Keep A Space Where God Can Let Something Totally New Take Place.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

There Is Nothing So Important In The Family As The Sacred Quality Of The Meal.

Listening Is Much More Than Allowing Another To Talk While Waiting For A Chance To Respond. Listening Is Paying Full Attention To Others And Welcoming Them Into Our Very Beings. The Beauty Of Listening Is That Those Who Are Listened To Start Feeling Accepted, Start Taking Our Words More Seriously And Discovering Their True Selves.

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.

Forgiveness Changes The Way We Remember.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?'

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.

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.

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

Emit Gratitude As Though It Was Done

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

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.

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

Distance Never Seperates Two Hearts That Really Care, For Our Memories Span The Miles And In Seconds We Are There. But Whenever I Start Feeling Sad Cuz I Miss You I Remind Myself How Lucky I Am To Have Someone So Special To Miss.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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