The cycle of the liturgical year engages us with an entirely different rhythm than our usual frenzied pace. It invites us to live time in eternity, to discover a new understanding of God and creation. Henri Nouwen lived the liturgical year with sensitivity and imagination. The feasts and seasons inspired his sermons on the great mysteries of our faith. And praying the liturgical year gave him a glimpse of eternity in the present moment. Nouwen s responses to the spiritual seasons were often delicately woven into the fabric of his writing. Eternal Seasons gathers, for the first time, selections for an entire liturgical year from forty of Nouwen s books. This valuable companion features a thoughtful introduction for each of the liturgical seasons, followed by a generous selection of brief, readable passages. Whether focusing on the tenor of the season, the many dimensions of a feast day, or the import of a particular saint, these readings enable us to reflect and pray in closer harmony with the church s year. Eternal Seasons is ideal for personal reflection, group settings, and as a fresh resource for liturgical ministers of all Christian faiths.
Author
Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen (Nouen), (1932–1996) was a Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books on the spiritual life. Nouwen's books are widely read today by Protestants and Catholics alike. The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, Clowning in Rome, The Life of the Beloved, and The Way of the Heart are just a few of the more widely recognized titles. After nearly two decades of teaching at the Menninger Foundation Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and at the University of Notre Dame, Yale University and Harvard University, he went to share his life with mentally handicapped people at the L'Arche community of Daybreak in Toronto, Canada. After a long period of declining energy, which he chronicled in his final book, Sabbatical Journey, he died in September 1996 from a sudden heart attack. His spirituality was influenced by many, notably by his friendship with Jean Vanier. At the invitation of Vanier he visited L'Arche in France, the first of over 130 communities around the world where people with developmental disabilities live and share life together with those who care for them. In 1986 Nouwen accepted the position of pastor for a L'Arche community called "Daybreak" in Canada, near Toronto. Nouwen wrote about his relationship with Adam, a core member at L'Arche Daybreak with profound developmental disabilities, in a book titled Adam: God's Beloved. Father Nouwen was a good friend of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. The results of a Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 indicate that Nouwen's work was a first choice of authors for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy. One of his most famous works is Inner Voice of Love, his diary from December 1987 to June 1988 during one of his most serious bouts with clinical depression. There is a Father Henri J. M. Nouwen Catholic Elementary School in Richmond Hill, Ontario.
