Courtney McGrailLife of the Beloved & Our Greatest Gift,
by Henri Nouwen
(Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99)
Anthony Redmond
It is 20 years since the untimely death, at Hilversum on September 21, 1996, of the famous Dutch Catholic priest and spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen. To mark the occasion Hodder and Stoughton have brought out this volume which brings together two of his most inspirational works.
Nouwen was a man of deep compassion and sensitivity and he suffered from loneliness and a craving to be loved and wanted. He was in many ways a vulnerable person and that’s what makes his writing so appealing and human.
The writer, Michael Ford, wrote a wonderful biography of Henri Nouwen aptly entitled Wounded Prophet. In Life of the Beloved, Nouwen asks how we can live a spiritual life in a totally secular world. Our Greatest Gift is a meditation on death and dying.
Militant atheism is growing, and with it a constant questioning and denial of spiritual values. In Our Greatest Gift Nouwen tells a delightful and instructive fable about twins in the womb, a brother and sister. The little sister says to her brother that she believes there is life after birth. The brother insists that, no, this is the only life they have. But the little girl insists that there must be life beyond this dark place in the womb.
There must be a place to be free to move, a place of light and freedom. She then says that she has something else to say.
Painful
She thinks there might be a mother. Her brother is furious and says he has never seen a mother and she should put such nonsense out of her head. No, he insists that the womb is the only place that exists and there is no mother.
“Don’t you feel the squeezes every once in a while?”, she asks him.“They really are quite unpleasant and sometimes even painful.”
“Yes”, he answered, “what’s special about that?”
“Well”, the sister said, “I think that these squeezes are there to get us ready for another place, much more beautiful than this, where we will see our mother face to face! Don’t you think that’s exciting?”
I absolutely love another story Nouwen relates about the Flying Rodleighs, trapeze artists who perform in a German circus. Henri went to see this captivating act as they moved through the air, flying and catching like elegant dancers. He got to know Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, and questioned him about the performance.
Rodleigh explained; “ As a flyer I must have complete trust in my catcher. You and the public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump!
“The secret is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher everything! When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands waiting for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catch bar…A flyer has to fly and a catcher has to catch, and the flyer has to trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him!”
This extraordinary story made an enormous impression on me and moved me deeply. Henri Nouwen had the wonderful ability to make us stop and think and use our imagination.
He writes: “When Rodleigh said this with so much conviction, the words of Jesus flashed through my mind: ‘Father into your hands I commend my spirit’ (Luke 23:46). Dying is trusting in the Catcher”!
“Caring for the dying is saying: ‘Don’t be afraid, remember you are the Beloved Son of God. He will be there when you make your long jump … don’t try to grab him, he will grab you…just stretch out your arms and hands and trust, trust, trust.”
The more I read Henri Nouwen the more I realise that his relevance will never fade.
He speaks to the human heart and our need for love, compassion and loyal and genuine friendship.
He was a warm and generous man who valued his friends and asked only that they made him feel loved and cared for.
His genuine love for people, especially the weak and deprived, was a salient feature of his entire life.