The Living Reminder: Service and Prayer in Memory of Jesus Christ
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In this rich and deceptively simple book, beloved writer Henri Nouwen speaks--from the heart and from his own experience--of the joys and challenges of religious service. He shows how ministry cannot be separated from spirituality and reveals how anyone involved in religiously motivated service can act as a healing, sustaining, and guiding reminder of Jesus.
Henri J. M. Nouwen
Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932–1996) was the author of The Return of the Prodigal Son and many other bestsellers. He taught at Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame universities before becoming the pastor of L’Arche Daybreak near Toronto, Canada, a community where people with and without intellectual disabilities assist each other and create a home together.
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The Living Reminder - Henri J. M. Nouwen
DEDICATION
To the alumni of Yale Divinity School
whose continuing interest and support
is a source of great encouragement for
its students and faculty.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The content of this book was first presented in the form of three lectures at the International Conference of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education and the Canadian Association for Pastoral Education.
I am grateful to Vernon Kuehn for inviting me to the conference and to Robert Bilheimer, director of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minnesota, for offering me a quiet place, a peaceful time, and a gentle community in which to work. I also want to thank Fred Hofheinz and the staff of the Lilly Endowment for their encouragement and financial support.
I owe a special word of thanks to Jack Jerome, Jim Mason, and Bud Kaicher for their skillful typing of the manuscript, to Phil Zaeder for his sound advice, and to Sylvia Zaeder and Stephen Leahy for their editorial assistance.
Finally, I want to express my deep appreciation to my friend and assistant John Mogabgab whose many insights and suggestions helped me to give this book its final form.
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PROLOGUE
THE MINISTER AS A HEALING REMINDER
Introduction
The Wounds
The Healing
The Healer
Conclusion
THE MINISTER AS A SUSTAINING REMINDER
Introduction
The Sustenance
The Sustaining
The Sustainer
Conclusion
THE MINISTER AS A GUIDING REMINDER
Introduction
The Guidance
The Guiding
The Guide
Conclusion
EPILOGUE
NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
BACK AD
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
PROLOGUE
EXPLORING CONNECTIONS
What are the spiritual resources of ministers? What prevents them from becoming dull, sullen, lukewarm bureaucrats, people who have many projects, plans, and appointments but who have lost their heart somewhere in the midst of their activities? What keeps ministers vital, alive, energetic and full of zeal? What allows them to preach and teach, counsel and celebrate with a continuing sense of wonder, joy, gratitude, and praise?
These are the questions of this book. They concern the relationship between the professional and the personal life of those who want to work in the service of the Gospel. They call for a careful exploration of the connections between ministry and spirituality.
Ministry is service in the name of the Lord. It is bringing the good news to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives and new sight to the blind, setting the downtrodden free and announcing the Lord’s year of favor (Luke 4:18). Spirituality is attention to the life of the spirit in us; it is going out to the desert or up to the mountain to pray; it is standing before the Lord with open heart and open mind; it is crying out, Abba, Father
; it is contemplating the unspeakable beauty of our loving God.
We have fallen into the temptation of separating ministry from spirituality, service from prayer. Our demon says: We are too busy to pray; we have too many needs to attend to, too many people to respond to, too many wounds to heal. Prayer is a luxury, something to do during a free hour, a day away from work or on a retreat. The few who are exclusively concerned with prayer—such as Trappists, Poor Clares, and some isolated hermits—are really not involved in ministry. They are set free for single-minded contemplation and leave Christian service to others.
But to think this way is harmful; harmful for ministers as well as for contemplatives. Service and prayer can never be separated; they are related to each other as the Yin and Yang of the Japanese Circle.
In this book I want to explore the connection between ministry and spirituality and show how service is prayer and prayer is service. After considerable thought, I felt that the best way to set about this exploration would be to look at ministry as remembrance
and at the minister as a living reminder of Jesus Christ. In both the Old and New Testament to remember
has a central place. Abraham Joshua Heschel says: "Much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in