Henri Nouwen

Life

Nouwen was born on January 24, 1932, in Nijkerk, the Netherlands, the eldest of four children. His full name was Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen. In 1957 he was ordained a Catholic priest. He then studied psychology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen and researched the relationship between faith and mental health at the Menninger Clinic in Kansas.

He subsequently taught psychology at the University of Notre Dame and then pastoral theology at Yale Divinity School for about ten years. After leaving Yale, he lived with Trappist monks at the Abbey of the Genesee in New York State and spent six months in pastoral ministry in South America. In the fall of 1983 he visited Jean Vanier's L'Arche community in Trosly, France. Beginning with the 1983–84 academic year, he taught each spring semester at Harvard Divinity School.

In 1986 he left academia to become pastor of L'Arche Daybreak, a community for people with intellectual disabilities in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, where he spent the last ten years of his life. His experience of bathing, feeding, and caring for Adam, a man with severe disabilities, deeply shaped his later writings. He died of a heart attack on September 21, 1996, in Hilversum, the Netherlands, and was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Richmond Hill.

Ministry and Contributions

Nouwen wrote on psychology, pastoral ministry, spirituality, social justice, and community. His writing is marked by a confessional style in which he openly disclosed his own loneliness and spiritual struggles. He published thirty-nine books in all, which have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. The Henri Nouwen Society reports cumulative sales of more than 8.5 million copies. In addition to The Return of the Prodigal Son, his best-known works include The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, and Life of the Beloved.

The Return of the Prodigal Son records his long meditation on Rembrandt's painting The Return of the Prodigal Son, which he first saw in 1983, and on the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. He saw in himself both the younger son who left home and the resentful elder son. Ultimately, he came to understand that he was called to take the place of the father, who welcomes the returning child, forgives him, and holds a feast.

Influence on the Korean Church

His books are widely read by both Protestants and Catholics in Korea. In 2009 the Protestant publisher Poiema released The Return of the Prodigal Son (translated by Choi Jong-hoon) as the first volume of its "Henri Nouwen Spirituality Modern Classics" series. Later, to mark the twentieth anniversary of his death, it issued a special commemorative edition that included his posthumous work Finding My Way Home. Other books, such as Discernment and The Road to Daybreak, have also been translated. Scholars of Christian spirituality at Protestant graduate schools of theology have likewise presented him as a leading spiritual writer.

Assessment

The Henri Nouwen Society regards him as one of the most popular and influential spiritual writers of our time. His spirituality is described as pastoral and relational, focused less on constructing a systematic theology than on experiencing God's love in the midst of human weakness. It is also frequently noted that he is read across the boundaries between Catholicism and Protestantism. His decision to give up a professorship at prestigious universities and move to a community of people with disabilities is cited as a lived embodiment of his message, which emphasized the identity of being "the Beloved" over success.