Matt Mcmanus

“We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with Him and Him alone. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. Solitude is a place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: A Study of Contemplative Prayer and Inner Devotion

“every Christian is constantly invited to overcome his neighbor’s fear by entering into it with him, and to find in the fellowship of suffering the way to freedom.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society

“For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.”
― Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises

“When we say to people, 'I will pray for you,' we make a very important commitment. The sad thing is that this remark often remains nothing but a well-meant expression of concern. But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate. It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. 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.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: A Study of Contemplative Prayer and Inner Devotion