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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.

-Henri Nouwen

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The More I Think

Henri Nouwen

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Live For Others

Peace Is First Of All The Art Of Being.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Prayer Is The Most Concrete Way To Make Our Home In God.

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

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

I Speak Of God's Love And Grace And Redemption And Freedom, But When I Say "in The Context Of This Community," It Is Heard Differently. To Be With People So Obviously Broken, So Obviously Handicapped, And Here To Discover Real Joy And Peace - That Makes The Word Of God Come Alive.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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.

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

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

Do Not Despair, Thinking That You Cannot Change Yourself After So Many Years. Simply Enter Into The Presence Of Jesus As You Are And Ask Him To Give You A Fearless Heart Where He Can Be With You. You Cannot Make Yourself Different. Jesus Came To Give You A New Heart, A New Spirit, A New Mind, And A New Body. Let Him Transform You By His Love And So Enable You To Receive His Affection In Your Whole Being.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

Every Time You Reject Yourself, You Idealize Others

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

Unconditional Love

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

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.

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Community Is Where Humility And Glory Touch.

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.

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.

The Resistance To Praying Is Like The Resistance Of Tightly Clenched Fists. This Image Shows A Tension, A Desire To Cling Tightly To Yourself, A Greediness Which Betrays Fear.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

When You Recognize The Festive And The Still Moments As Moments Of Prayer, Then You Gradually Realize That To Pray Is To Live.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Praying Is No Easy Matter. It Demands A Relationship In Which You Allow Someone Other Than Yourself To Enter Into The Very Center Of Your Person, To See There What You Would Rather Leave In Darkness, And To Touch There What You Would Rather Leave Untouched.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The 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.

One Of The Experiences Of Prayer Is That It Seems That Nothing Happens. But When You Start With It And Look Back Over A Long Period Of Prayer, You Suddenly Realize That Something Has Happened. What Is Most Close, Most Intimate, Most Present, Often Cannot Be Experienced Directly But Only With A Certain Distance. When I Think That I Am Only Distracted, Just Wasting My Time, Something Is Happening Too Immediate For Knowing, Understanding, And Experiencing. Only In Retrospect Do I Realize That Something Very Important Has Taken Place.

The Question Is Not: How Many People Take You Seriously? How Much Are You Going To Accomplish? Can You Show Some Results? But: Are You In Love With Jesus?

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

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

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

If You Are Not Able To Be Silent, You Will Not Be Able To Speak Well.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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

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.

Friendship Is One Of The Greatest Gifts A Human Being Can Receive. It Is A Bond Beyond Common Goals, Common Interests, Or Common Histories. It Is A Bond Stronger Than Sexual Union Can Create, Deeper Than A Shared Fate Can Solidify, And Even More Intimate Than The Bonds Of Marriage Or Community. Friendship Is Being With The Other In Joy And Sorrow, Even When We Cannot Increase The Joy Or Decrease The Sorrow. It Is A Unity Of Souls That Gives Nobility And Sincerity To Love. Friendship Makes All Of Life Shine Brightly.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Soul Of The Artist Cannot Remain Hidden.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.'

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

My Writing Has Developed Drastically . The Return Of The Prodigal Son Is The Most Important Thing I've Done, And My Most Mature Book.

Who Can Take Away Suffering Without Entering It?

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

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

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.

Your Heart Is Greater Than Your Wounds.

The Real 'work' Of Prayer Is To Become Silent And Listen To The Voice That Says Good Things About Me.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Why Is It Important That You Are With God And God Alone On The Mountain Top? It's Important Because It's The Place In Which You Can Listen To The Voice Of The One Who Calls You The Beloved. To Pray Is To Listen To The One Who Calls You 'my Beloved Daughter,' 'my Beloved Son,' 'my Beloved Child.' To Pray Is To Let That Voice Speak To The Center Of Your Being, To Your Guts, And Let That Voice Resound In Your Whole Being.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

To Live In The Present, We Must Deeply Believe That What Is Most Important Is In The Here And Now.

Live In The Present

A Waiting Person Is A Patient Person. The Word Patience Means The Willingness To Stay Where We Are And Live The Situation Out To The Full In The Belief That Something Hidden There Will Manifest Itself To Us.

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

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

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.

Joy And Laughter Are The Gifts Of Living In The Presence Of God And Trusting That Tomorrow Is Not Worth Worrying About.

Emit Gratitude As Though It Was Done

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

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.

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

Abundance Mentality

Compassion Means Full Immersion In The Condition Of Being Human.

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.

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

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

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.

I Kept Running Around It In Large Or Small Circles, Always Looking For Someone Or Something Able To Convince Me Of My Belovedness. Self-rejection Is The Greatest Enemy Of The Spiritual Life Because It Contradicts The Sacred Voice That Calls Us The "beloved". Being The Beloved Expresses The Core Truth Of Our Existence.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Our Greatest Fulfillment Lies In Giving Ourselves To Others.

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

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.

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.

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.

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