“We always have a choice to live the moment as a cause of resentment or as a cause for joy.”—Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) The insights of Henri Nouwen have shown millions of people how to choose joy in any moment—even moments full of pain and brokenness. Few spiritual writers have ever spoken so powerfully and directly to the heart as he did, in part because he compassionately bared his own soul and struggles to his readers, but also because he deeply understood that God can be discovered in every aspect of ourselves, even—almost especially—in the parts we find difficult to acknowledge. This anthology of Nouwen’s teaching covers all his major themes—God, love, life, death, psychology, woundedness, healing, and social action—and is drawn from among his more than forty books. It’s the perfect, compact introduction to this brilliant and humble Catholic priest whom Christianity Today called “one of the world’s great spiritual writers.”
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.
