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Prayer Quotes by Henri Nouwen

39 Prayer quotes by Henri Nouwen

All Prayer quotes Henri Nouwen’s page

Henri Nouwen sees prayer as a quiet bridge that links our hearts with God’s and with the world. He says gratitude and even writing can become a form of prayer, and that true prayer asks us to let another person enter the deepest part of ourselves. He calls prayer the start and goal of any peacemaking work.

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Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking; he's always doing something.

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As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer.

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Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.

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Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.

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Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.

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It's good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go.

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Take prayer with you wherever you go. Say it anytime, and then focus your mind and heart on God.

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It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called.

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The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly…

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A prayerful life is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is…

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When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to…

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Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find…

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You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is…

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The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results?…

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Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal…

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That's prayer to let God's Word speak deep within you and tell you, "You are my beloved. You don't have to take…

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The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained - through…

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Prayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very beingBut when prayer is no longer…

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Perhaps nothing helps us make the movement from our little selves to a larger world than remembering God in gratitude. Such a…

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Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all…

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Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very…

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When you pray, you open yourself to the influence of the power which has revealed itself as love. The power gives you…

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You have to dare to live through the pain and struggle. Acknowledge your anguish but do not let it pull you out…

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Prayer requires that we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without…

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One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you start with it and look back…

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It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.

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The real 'work' of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me.

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Prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence.

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There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life.

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People who pray stand receptive before the world. They no longer grab but caress, they no longer bite but kiss, they no…

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

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Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God, here and now.

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Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer…

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I am deeply convince that the necessity of prayer, and to pray unceasingly, is not as much based on our desire for…

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When you are still young and not yet adult, you want to hold everything in your own hands, but if you have…

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Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking; he's always doing something. Prayer is to enter…

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It is good to have a prayer on your lips wherever you go. There are so many moments in life when you…

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Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place…

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Prayer is the way to both the heart of God and the heart of the world - precisely because they have been…

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More by Henri Nouwen

We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who…

The more we touch the intimate love of God which creates, sustains, and guides us, the more we recognize the multitude of fruits that…

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…

...we all want to hear stories, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Stories connect our little lives with the…

I have found it very important...to let go of my wishes and start hoping.

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…

Somewhere we know that without silence, words lose their meaning.

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…

This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without condition or limits.

“The more preoccupied we are with security the more visible the force of death becomes, whether in the form of a pistol beside our…

If you feel a great loneliness and a deep longing for human contact, you have to be extremely discerning...and ask yourself whether this situation…

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.

The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called…

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that…

Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be.