Spiritual Directions for the Journey
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Apr 3rd, 2013
“How do we make our deaths gifts for others? Very often people’s lives are destroyed, harmed, or permanently wounded by the deaths of their relatives or friends. We have to do whatever we can to avoid this. When we are near death what we say to those who are close to us, whether in spoken [...]
Posted in Henri Nouwen, This Sunday on Mar 10th, 2013
We are called to be as compassionate as God is compassionate. We are called to follow Jesus’ example as a son – “the younger son without being rebellious” and “the elder son without being resentful.” We are also called to grow into spiritual fatherhood – this means both father and mother, masculine and feminine. All [...]
Posted in Henri Nouwen, This Sunday on Mar 10th, 2013
Nouwen says the painting just as easily could have been called “The Welcome by the Compassionate Father.” In the painting, the father’s hands are the true central point. The light and the eyes of others focus on those hands. The left hand is masculine while the right hand is more feminine. So the character “is [...]
Posted in Henri Nouwen, This Sunday on Mar 10th, 2013
The elder son usually gets little attention in discussions of this Bible story. Yet, Nouwen explains how both Rembrandt and Henri himself had part of the dark, resentful side of the “elder son” in them. Henri admits he understands the envy that the elder son feels toward his younger brother. The elder son lived an [...]
Posted in Henri Nouwen, This Sunday on Mar 10th, 2013
Henri writes about the most famous person in the story: the younger son, the prodigal son. He says Rembrandt at a young age “had all the characteristics of the prodigal son: brash, self confident, spendthrift, sensual, and very arrogant”. The artist earned a lot, spent a lot, and lost a lot. The painting is about [...]
Posted in Henri Nouwen, Reflections from Fellow Wanderers on Mar 9th, 2013
The book, “Return of the Prodigal Son”, is based on Nouwen’s reflections on a Rembrandt painting called Prodigal Son, which hangs in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Prologue and Introduction tell of Henri’s encounter with the painting itself in 1986 and his move to the L’Arche Daybreak community in the town of Richmond [...]
Posted in Henri Nouwen, Reflections from Fellow Wanderers on Mar 9th, 2013
Some of my friends at St. Patrick’s may have noticed that I was scheduled to preach this weekend. As they (whoever they are) like to say nothing makes God smile more than people making plans. It turns out that this weekend is ShareLife Sunday, the annual appeal for folks to give to various Catholic Charities. [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Jan 27th, 2013
How can we forgive those who do not want to be forgiven? Our deepest desire is that the forgiveness we offer will be received. This mutuality between giving and receiving is what creates peace and harmony. But if our condition for giving forgiveness is that it will be received, we seldom will forgive! Forgiving the [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Jan 3rd, 2013
“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Nov 14th, 2012
I was musing on All Saints Day about the possibility that we are all saints. It seems Henri Nouwen wondered about similar possibilities. We often limit the Church to the organization of people who identify themselves clearly as its members. But the Church as all people belonging to Christ, as that body of witnesses who [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Sep 17th, 2012
It is the start of my first homily week in quite some time. When the readings get posted tomorrow you will see that the gospel focuses on the apostles and their argument about which one of them is the greatest. To start our reflections I thought I would see what my friend Henri Nouwen has [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Aug 26th, 2012
There were some folks sailing model boats on the small pond behind our house this morning. This was one of my Dad’s favorite past times in the final years of his life. It got me to thinking of him and when I arrived at my e-mail inbox this AM there was this reflection from my [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Jun 7th, 2012
“What makes us cling to life even when it is time to “move on”? Is it our unfinished business? Sometimes we cling to life because we have not yet been able to say: “I forgive you, and I ask for your forgiveness.” When we have forgiven those who have hurt us and asked forgiveness from [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Mar 12th, 2012
“Our tendency is to run away from the painful realities or to try to change them as soon as possible. But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators, and prevents a real community from taking shape. Cure without care makes us preoccupied with quick changes, impatient and unwilling to share each other’s burden. [...]
Posted in Big Questions, The Wisdom of... on Mar 5th, 2012
“So often in ministry, I have wanted to do it by myself. If it didn’t work, I went to others and said, “Please!” searching for a community to help me. If that didn’t work, maybe I’d start praying. But the order that Jesus teaches us is the reverse. It begins by being with God in [...]
