Henri Nouwen

I had read a few things by Henri Nouwen 15 or 20 years ago, but participation in a retreat this week has given me a new appreciation of his writings and of his spirituality. The retreat was inspired by Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son, a small book written in 1992.

When I first built my Resources for Catholic Educators' Web site, I had included Nouwen as one of the "famous catholics" along with Thomas Merton, Jean Vanier, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romaro and others. I therefore had a page on Nouwen with a few links to online resources on him or his writings. I returned to that page after the retreat and decided to do a bit of digging to see what else I could add to its content. I have found quite a number of resources. One of these is a 13 minutes video called "The Beloved". It is on a Dutch Web site — Nouwen was originally from Holland before moving to Canada — but the video is in English with Dutch subtitles. If you are not familiar with Nouwen, it is a good introduction to his spirituality and well worth viewing.

The page of resources listed on the Resources for Catholic Educators' Web site can be found at http://www.silk.net/RelEd/nouwen.htm .