A Letter of Consolation Quotes

“Long before you, mother, or I was born, the death of Christ was celebrated in the Eucharist. And it will be celebrated long after we have died. During our few years of conscious participation in the Eucharist, our lives and deaths become part of this ongoing proclamation of the life and death of Christ. Therefore I dare to say that every time I celebrate the Eucharist and every time you receive the body and blood of Christ, we remember not only Christ’s death but also her death, because it was precisely through the Eucharist that she was so intimately united with him. This”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, A Letter of Consolation

“[H]idden in us there are levels of not-knowing, not-understanding and not-feeling that can only be revealed to us in our moments of great crisis. For some people such moments never come, for others they come frequently. For some they come early, for others they come quite late. We might think that we have a certain insight into 'what life is all about' until an unexpected crisis throws us off balance and forces us to rethink our most basic presuppositions. In fact, we never really know how deeply our lives are anchored, and the experience of crisis can open up dimensions of life that we never knew existed.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, A Letter of Consolation