Let's start with Jesus' answer: "Look for the kingdom first and all else will come together." Life is fragmenting, fragmented. I have a thousands things to do, others do too. We can live our life as if the main question is, "How can keep it together? How do I juggle all the balls? But the real question is, "How can I stay home - interiorly home - while I do these many things?
Henri NouwenYou have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you "the beloved."
Henri NouwenLife is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, "I love you, too."
Henri NouwenWe 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.
Henri NouwenJoy 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.
Henri NouwenOur humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life...all of our life.
Henri Nouwen[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.
Henri Nouwen