Henri Quotes

The most important thing I've come to believe in is that people with mental handicaps have a unique mission to bring God's blessing to the World.

I was forced to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there, and to choose, in the face of it all, not death but life.

To receive spiritual direction is to recognize that God does not solve our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease.

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

Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.

The people who most affected me were the ones who got right in there with me, who cried with me, but who also had a certain authority, who dared to say what needed saying.

Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking.

Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance.

Life is not entertainment. Life is not distraction.

Aging does not need to be hidden or denied, but can be understood, affirmed and experienced as a process of growth by which the mystery of life is slowly revealed to us.

The gospel word of the day can become like a painting on the walls. of your inner room, the inner room that is your heart.

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.

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

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.

As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words. They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.

In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.

The Church is the body of Christ fashioned by baptism & the Eucharist.

Everything changes radically from the moment you know yourself as being sent into this world.

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

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

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

I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.

You are the heir to the Kingdom. Prosperity is your birth right and you hold the key to more abundance in every area of your life then you can possibly imagine.

Obviously a child can never conceive solitude if his parents aren't living it somewhere themselves. I don't mean that to be alone you have to get down on your knees for an hour in a yoga posture.

Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, "This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal."

I feel the problems I have are meant to purify me.

Jesus said Communion first, community comes out of that, and out of community, ministry.

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

The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering.

Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.

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

Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)

...the word that seems best to summarize the desire of the human heart is 'communion.' ...wherever we look it is communion that we seek.

By prayer, community is created as well as expressed.

When I was teaching, I didn't feel I had a home, a place where I truly belonged.

...we all want to hear stories, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Stories connect our little lives with the world around us and help us discover who we are.

Active waiting means present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.

I loved to teach, I loved my students, but I wanted to find a community. I prayed: "Lord, show me where you want me to go. I will go wanted wherever you call me - but please be clear."

While my friend always spoke about the sun, I kept speaking about the clouds, until one day I realized that it was the sun that allowed me to see the clouds.

Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.

Mysticism is for all, not just for a few special people.

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

You don't have to run around world proving you're lovable.

I don't pray enough, but I pray more now. Every morning at six o'clock have a half hour of meditation before the Blessed Sacrament. I pray with others too.

The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation.

By giving words to these intimate experiences I can make my life available to others.

The soul of the artist cannot remain hidden.

[...]when two people have become present to each other, the waiting of one must be able to cross the narrow line between the living or dying of the other.

People with handicaps teach me that being is more important than doing, the heart is more important than the mind, and caring together is better than caring alone.

Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are.