Margins
Spiritual Formation book cover
Spiritual Formation
Following the Movements of the Spirit
2010
First Published
4.33
Average Rating
192
Number of Pages
Henri Nouwen, the world-renowned spiritual guide and counselor, understood the spiritual life as a journey of faith and transformation that is deepened by accountability, community, and relationships. Though he counseled many people during his lifetime, his principles of spiritual direction and formation were never written down. Two of Nouwen's longtime students, Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird, have taken his famous course in spiritual direction and supplemented it with his unpublished writings to create the definitive series on Nouwen's thoughts on the Christian life. The first book in the series, Spiritual Direction, introduced readers to the core concepts of Nouwen's approach to the spiritual life. Book two, Spiritual Formation, showcases Nouwen's life-long effort to re-construct the five classical stages of spiritual development as movements in the journey of faith. The five classical stages are these: 1. Awakening (our desire) 2. Purgation (purifying our passions) 3. Illumination (of God) 4. Dark Night (of the Soul) 5. Unification (with God) Readings, stories, questions for personal reflection, and guided journal inquiry as articulated by Nouwen will provide readers with an experience in spiritual formation with the well-known author, priest, and guide. The third and final book in the series, Spiritual Discernment, is planned to release in 2012
Avg Rating
4.33
Number of Ratings
979
5 STARS
49%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
10%
2 STARS
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1 STARS
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Author

Henri J.M. Nouwen
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Author · 86 books

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.

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