Reflection of the Week - 18th April 2023

By Henri Nouwen

Posted Apr 18, 2023 in Faith

Jesus makes our deepest self known

Our heart is at the centre of our being human. There our deepest thoughts, intuitions, emotions, and decisions find their source. But it’s also there that we are often most alienated from ourselves.

We know little or nothing of our own heart. We keep our distance, as though we were afraid of it. What is most intimate is also what frightens us most.

Where we are most ourselves, we are often strangers to ourselves. That is the painful part of our being human. We fail to know our hidden centre; and so we live and die often without knowing who we really are. If we ask ourselves why we think, feel, and act in such and such a way, we often have no answer, thus proving to be strangers in our own house.

The mystery of the spiritual life is that Jesus desires to meet us in the seclusion of our own heart, to make his love known to us there, to free us from our fears, and to make our own deepest self known to us. In the privacy of our heart, therefore, we can learn not only to know Jesus but, through Jesus, ourselves as well.

Source: Henri Nouwen, Meditation Landing - Henri Nouwen

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