Don't get too tired to pray: Fr. Henri Nouwen & his writings

I wish I had, but I never got to meet him. Fr. Nouwen was a Catholic priest, a prolific writer, a Yale and Harvard professor who spent the last years of his life living in a community with the cognitively disabled as pastor - and aide - to many as he shared in their community. He also spent months in a Trappist monastery, traveled to third world countries and wrote. And wrote.

In fact, Fr. Nouwen wrote over 40 books, 39 of which are still in circulation. I've read a number of his books and am now reading two that I've never read before - one called The Genesee Diary from his time in a Trappist Monastery and the other called Seeds of Hope which is a collection of excerpts from his other works.

When I was at a book fair at my parish last month, I was looking at a few of Nouwen's books that were on display and had a wonderful conversation with someone who had not yet discovered his writings. After talking to me the person bought four of his books!

Although I certainly find his writings helpful to me because he does write about living with disabled people and shares many insights from those experiences of community, what I hold most dear is his ability to write openly about his own spiritual and very human struggles and defects. He thinks of writing as a ministry, one in which he is able to openly share about his journey to become more Christ-like in his daily life.

So during his time in the monastery, he speaks, for example, of how after he announced to all of his friends that he was going away for a time to live as a monk, he began to write people he knew letters and then was upset when his mailbox was empty! Eventually he realized that perhaps they were honoring his choice to have solitude - and questioned his own motives for wanting and needing their attention when he should be about the business of prayer and closer union with God. He concludes that it is his attachment to a need for unconditional love which causes him this emotional and spiritual pain and writes of his efforts to transform his life into one that looks quite different over the months he stays in the monastery.

But one phrase out of his book really struck me. He was told by someone at the monastery to try to find balance between work, prayer and rest by stopping work whenever he found himself becoming too tired to pray. I really loved that phrase because I pay absolutely no attention to anyone telling me "not to get too tired". But I can certainly tell myself not to get too tired to pray - and know that would indeed be God's will.