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In a time when Evangelical Christian writings are so often filled with cliché and simple answers, Henri Nouwen breaks the norm. Born in pre war Netherlands to a Catholic family, whose uncle Bernard Alfrink was Cardinal Archbishop of the Netherlands, the Eucharist becomes an important metaphor in several of his 40 books. He writes, exposing his own pain and inner suffering, even his loneliness for human contact and he simple, eloquently and with great empathy writes of the suffering of others.
In 1957, at the age of 25, Henri Nouwen was ordained into the priesthood by that same uncle. Much of his life was spent in academia. He taught at the schools of Divinity of Yale, of Harvard and of Notre Dame as well as the Ontario Theological Seminary. But these are not the things for which Nouwen will be remembered. It is his writing, his enduring writing that stimulates the both intellect and the heart at once that moves so many to his books. It is his experience at L'Arche Daybreak, Toronto and the people he introduces us to that live there that endure in his readers hearts.
Nouwen visited the original L'Arche Trosley community in France in 1986 and "met" a print of the "Prodigal Son" by Rembrandt. He soon came to visit that painting in St. Petersburg through a series of unusual events and came to live in that community for a year. L'Arch Trosley is the one of 130 communities for people with mental handicaps. After that year there, he came to spend the last decade of his life as rector of L'Arche Daybreak in Toronto, which may have influenced his most profound and caring writing.
Nouwen spent the largest part of his adult life communicating with other people with words, about most any subject, in enviable academic environments. And then, through the vehicle of a painting and simultaneous communion with God in a museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, his life turned into a very different direction. This story is told in one of his best known and widely read books, "The Return of the Prodigal Son; A Story of Homecoming". The book uses the familiar parable to reflect themes of reconciliation, restoration, forgiveness, and homecoming. That story led him to the L'Arche communities.
After that year at L'Arche Trosley, he writes in "Can You Drink From the Cup" that he moved to L'Arche Daybreak in Toronto. The people living here had severe mental disabilities and many also had physical handicaps. He had gone from that academic environment where the spoken word was easy and was in abundance to a place where some people were unable to communicate with more than a few guttural sounds from their throats. He filled bathtubs and washed naked bodies, he cleaned orange juice spills, he took care of the physical needs of people he wrote he was almost afraid of at first and soon came to love deeply.
"Can You Drink From the Cup" is a metaphorical work. It's divided in 3 parts. When Nouwen was ordained, his uncle gave him an incredible gold chalice that he had been given at his ordination. Beautiful but not an expression of his current lifestyle, it resides in the sacristy of a local church. "Holding the Cup", the action of accepting the cup, and a metaphor within the metaphor, "The Cup of Sorrow". This little chapter is singly the most poignant piece of all his writing that I've read so far. I have read it many times including as a meditation at a Monday Thursday dinner. From holding, he goes on to Lifting the Cup (Cup of Blessing), and Drinking the Cup (Cup of Salvation).
Other books I'd strongly recommend of Nowen's are "The Wounded Healer", a book about Christian community (as are many of his books but this one in particular) and ministering to one another. In it, he talks about looking in ourselves for our own suffering as a way to start that ministry. "Life of the Beloved" is a book he wrote at the request of a secular Jewish journalist friend from NY who wanted to know about Christianity in everyday vocabulary; he thought his friends would also and it has become one of Nouwen's best-loved books. It is also a metaphorical book and uses the bread of the Eucharist rather than the cup this time to tell the story; it is Taken, Blessed, Broken and Given.
Dave Burrows
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