Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God's heart has become one with ours.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the power of prayer to connect us with the suffering of humanity through a shared divine compassion.
Henri Nouwen's quote reflects on the profound impact of prayer, suggesting that through this spiritual practice, individuals can empathize with the pain and struggles faced by humanity. It articulates the idea that our hearts can resonate with the collective suffering—such as war, hunger, and loneliness—not due to our own emotional strength, but because our hearts are united with God's, allowing us to share in and bear the weight of these tribulations together.
In practice
In a conference on spirituality, one might use this quote to inspire a discussion on the role of prayer in connecting with human suffering.
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. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.
The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering – for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.
Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)
Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour.
Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.
Jim Crow segregation was bipartisan. The refusal of women suffrage was bipartisan. The denial of the basic dignity of members of the LGBTQ community has long been bipartisan. The Three-Fifths Compromise was the creation of a punitive national unity at the expense of black people's basic humanity.
The specific patterns, out of which a building or a town is made_x000D_ may be alive or dead. To the extent they are alive, they let our inner_x000D_ forces loose, and, set us free; but when they are dead they keep_x000D_ us locked in inner conflict.
We save the world by being alive ourselves.
Both God's love and God's wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax - in the cross.
I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.
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