579 Quotes by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Solitude is the furnace of transformation.

God is the hub of the wheel of life. The closer we come to God the closer we come to each other. The basis of community is not primarily our ideas, feelings, and emotions about each other but our common search for God. When we keep our minds and hearts directed toward God, we will come more fully “together.

I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries.

The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.

What I do know with unwavering certainty is the heart of the father. It is a heart of limitless mercy.

From that heart come the words, “Do you love me?” Knowing the heart of Jesus and loving him are the same thing. The knowledge of Jesus’ heart is a knowledge of the heart.

If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.

The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God’s Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.

By giving words to these intimate experiences I can make my life available to others.