Henri Nouwen
Dutch Catholic priest, professor, psychologist, and spiritual writer whose books — including The Wounded Healer (1972), The Return of the Prodigal Son (1992), Life of the Beloved, In the Name of Jesus, Reaching Out, and Out of Solitude — have sold more than seven million copies and are taught widely across denominational lines as foundational texts of pastoral and contemplative Christianity. Born 1932 in Nijkerk, ordained in 1957, Nouwen taught at the Menninger Foundation, Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard before leaving academia in 1986 to live as pastor in residence at L'Arche Daybreak — a community for adults with intellectual disabilities near Toronto — where he remained until his death in 1996. His writing turns repeatedly to a small set of themes: belovedness as the foundation of identity, brokenness as the doorway to communion, hospitality as the heart of Christian practice, and downward mobility as the shape of a Christ-following life.
quotes in library
Quotes by Henri Nouwen
115 quotes“To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life.”
“It is to look at our lives in the light of God.”
“And to know that God's word is the most loving thing that can be said about us.”
“Go into yourself. Go into your loneliness. Then transform it.”
“Loneliness, transformed, becomes solitude.”
“And solitude is the place where God meets you.”
“Death is not the great separator. Love is the great connector.”
“What we have loved cannot be taken from us.”
“It is woven into who we are.”
“And what is woven into who we are accompanies us beyond death.”
“This is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith.”
“Live as the beloved.”
“That is the name of God's love for you, and that is the name of your truest self.”
“Live from there.”
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