Ukraine Diary

By Henri J.M. Nouwen

2023

First Published

4.14

Average Rating

169

Number of Pages

5H08M

Audio Length

“As we reflected on our experience in Ukraine, I felt a deep desire to stay faithful to the Ukrainian people and to keep choosing not just for the individual poor, who need support, but also for the country that is so clearly marginalized in the family of nations.” In 1993-94, Henri Nouwen, the Dutch-born priest and spiritual writer, made two trips to recently-independent Ukraine. There he led retreats, observed the resurgence of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and connected with local communities working with handicapped adults. These trips were deeply significant to Nouwen. And yet the full meaning of his observations may only now become clear. With extraordinary prescience, Henri identified in Ukraine certain spiritual and moral qualities struggling to assert themselves―exactly the qualities, almost thirty years later, that the Ukrainian people have mobilized in their struggle for freedom and independence. He found a people hungry for hope and healing, in need of the life-giving message he most wanted to that we are all “beloved of God,” and that God’s love meets us where we are most hurt, weak, and vulnerable. Read today, Nouwen’s previously unpublished work is like a time capsule, a message from the past with special meaning for today. In an introduction by Borys Gudziak, Archbishop-Metropolitan for the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, he “This modest, seemingly simple book about a visit to a distant land is in fact a subtle tale of how encounter genuinely and radically changes the lives of people.” In his moving afterword, Nouwen’s brother Laurent Nouwen describes how for twenty-five years after Henri’s death he continued an outreach of solidarity and service to the people of Ukraine through the Henri Nouwen Foundation.

Avg Rating

4.14

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

54%

4 STARS

18%

3 STARS

21%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

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.