40 Days Of Prayer And Reflection - Spiritual Directive: Give Gratuitously

Your love, insofar as it is from God, is permanent. You can claim the permanence of your love as a gift from God. And you can give that permanent love to others. When others stop loving you, you do not have to stop loving them. On a human level, changes might be necessary, but on the level of the divine, you can remain faithful to your love.

One day you will be free to give gratuitous love, a love that does not ask for anything in return. One day also you will be free to receive gratuitous love. Often love is offered to you, but you do not recognize it. You discard it because you are fixed on receiving it from the same person to whom you gave it.

The great paradox of love is that precisely when you have claimed yourself as God's beloved child...you begin to grow into the freedom to give gratuitously.

-Henri J.M. Nouwen "The Inner Voice Of Love"

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40 Days Of Prayer And Reflection - Spiritual Directive: Always Come Back To The Solid Place

Greek Orthodox monastery of Rousanou, Meteora, Greece

You must believe in the yes that comes back when you ask, "Do you love me?" You must choose this yes even when you do not experience it.

You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure. But you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question. Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame. All of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built.

You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God's love even when you do not feel it. Right now you feel nothing except emptiness and the lack of strength to choose. But keep saying, "God loves me, and God's love is enough." You have to choose the solid place over and over again and return to it after every failure.

-Henri J.M. Nouwen "The Inner Voice Of Love"

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40 Days Of Prayer And Reflection - Spiritual Directive: Cry Inward

A split between divinity and humanity has taken place in you. With your divinely endowed center you know God's will, God's way, God's love. But your humanity is cut off from that. Your many human needs for affection, attention, and consolation are living apart from your divine sacred space. Your call is to let these two parts of yourself come together again.


You have to move gradually from crying outward - crying out for people who you think can fulfill your needs - to crying inward to the place where you can let yourself be held and carried by God, who has become incarnate in the humanity of those who love you in community. No one person can fulfill all of your needs, but the community can truly hold you. The community can let you experience the fact that, beyond your anguish, there are human hands that hold you and show you God's faithful love.


- Henri J. M. Nouwen "The Inner Voice Of Love"

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40 Days Of Prayer And Reflection - Spiritual Directive: Trust Your Inner Voice

Do you really want to be converted? Are you willing to be transformed? Or do you keep clutching your old ways of life with one hand while with the other you beg people to help you change?

Conversion is certainly not something you bring about yourself. It is not a question of will power. You have to trust the inner voice that shows the way. You know that inner voice. You turn to it often. But after you have heard with clarity what you are asked to do, you start raising questions, fabricating objections, and seeking everyone else's opinion. Thus you become entangled in countless, often contradictory thoughts, feelings and ideas and lose touch with God in you. You end up dependent on all the people you have gathered around you.

Only by attending constantly to the inner voice can you be converted to a new life of freedom and joy.

- Henri J. M. Nouwen "The Inner Voice Of Love" 

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