"More enslaving than our occupations...are our preoccupations. To be preoccupied means to fill our time and place long before we are there....It is a mind filled with 'ifs.'"

"Not only being occupied but also being preoccupied is highly encouraged by our society...Their unrelenting insistence that we will miss out on something very important is we do not read this book, see this movie, hear this speaker, or buy this new product deepens our restlessness and adds many fabricated preoccupations to the already existing ones. Sometimes it seems as if our society has become dependent on the maintenance of these artificial worries."
~Henri Nouwen

"As long as we have only a vague inner feeling of discontent with our present way of living, and only an indefinite desire for 'things spiritual,' our lives will continue to stagnate in a generalized melancholy. We often say, 'I am not very happy. I am not content with the way my life is going. I am not really joyful or peaceful, but just don't know how things can be different, and I guess I have to be realistic and accept my life as it is.' It is this mood of resignation that prevents us from actively searching for the life of the Spirit."

"We must honestly unmask our self-deceptive games."
~Henri Nouwen

"Meditation is the growing inner availability to the word so that the Word can guide us, can open us, can remove our fears, cna come to dwell in us. True meditation is thus letting the Word become flesh in us. It is through this incarnation of the Word in us that we enter eternal life."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"Through the discipline of the Book, the Word of God can continue to become flesh in us. Reading the Scriptures as God's most intimate word for us is thus the realization of the incarnation in the concrete reality of our present life."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"The discipline of the Christian disciple is not to master anything, but rather to be mastered by the Spirit."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"To follow Christ requires the willingness and determination to let God's Spirit pervade all the corners of out minds and hearts and there make us into other Christs. Formation is transformation, and transformation means a growing conformity to the mind of Christ, who did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"Indeed, the search for spectacular glitter is an expression of doubt in God's complete and unconditional acceptance of us."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"To be a person and to be seen, praised, liked, and accepted have become nearly the same for many. Who am I when nobody pays attention, says thanks, or recognizes my work? The more insecure, doubtful, and lonely we are, the greater our need for popularity and praise. Sadly, this hunger is never satisfied."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ


"In this life, there is no finished symphony. We are built for the infinite, Grand Canyons without a bottom. Because of that we will, this side of eternity, always be lonely, restless, incomplete, still a virgin - living in the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable."
~Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing

"In a variety of ways we are made to believe that we are what we produce. This leads to a preoccupation with products, visible results, tangible goods, and progress. The temptation to be relevant is difficult to shake since it is usually not considered a temptation, but a call."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"This expression of downward mobility is unnatural for us, because it belongs to the essence of out sinful, broken condition that every fiber of our being is infused with the spirit of rivalry and competition."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"If discipleship requires following Jesus in downward mobility, is this truly a human option? Is it possible to take Jesus totally seriously? Or would that simply mean embarking on a self-destructive, even masochistic, road? I wonder if in practice we haven't already answered this question. haven't we already decided that Jesus cannot be taken at his word, but rather needs to be adapted to our way of upward mobility?"
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

"The way of the cross, the downward mobility of God, becomes out way not because we try to imitate Jesus, but because we are transformed into living Christs by our relationship with his Spirit. The spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of Christ in us, a life that sets us free to be strong while weak, to be free while captive, to be joyful while in pain, to be rich while poor, to be on the downward way of salvation while living in the midst of an upwardly mobile society."
~Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ

“Our whole way of living is structured around climbing the ladder of success and making it to the top. Our very sense of vitality is dependant upon being part of the upward pull and upon the joy provided by the rewards given on the way up. Our parents, teachers, and friends impress upon us from the moment we are able to pick up the cues that it is our holy task to make it in this world. To be a real man or woman is to show that one cannot only survive the long competitive struggle for success but also come out victorious…….Thus life is presented as a series of battles which we can win or lose. When we win we have lived up to the ideals of out milieu, but when we lose it is clearly because of our own shortcomings….”
~Henri Nouwen

Sacraments are very specific events in which God touches us through creation and transforms us into living Christs.
~Henri Nouwen

"When we keep close to the word of Jesus, reflecting on it, 'chewing' on it, eating it as food for the soul, we will enter even more deeply into the everlasting love of God."
~Henri Nouwen

"Everything that comes from God asks for an open and faithful heart."
~Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey