Well, like Gil Scott Herron's resounding jazz classic, 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' one of the most exciting upheavals in religious thinking and practice, liberation theology, has generally been kept from prime time. Some may be puzzled how a book penned over three decades ago can still be relevant. And for any seeker intent on exploring the vibrant heart of modern Christianity, this book is a real keeper. Nouwen's book from 1983, Gracias!: A Latin American Journal appeared in my local library's free section. Such was the case recently when Henri J.M. Unexpectedly stumbling on a book from a favorite writer, however old, is often a source of great joy. Nouwen Catholic Elementary School in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

One of his most famous works is Inner Voice of Love, his diary from December 1987 to June 1988 during one of his most serious bouts with clinical depression. The results of a Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 indicate that Nouwen's work was a first choice of authors for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy.

Father Nouwen was a good friend of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. Nouwen wrote about his relationship with Adam, a core member at L'Arche Daybreak with profound developmental disabilities, in a book titled Adam: God's Beloved. In 1986 Nouwen accepted the position of pastor for a L'Arche community called 'Daybreak' in Canada, near Toronto. At the invitation of Vanier he visited L'Arche in France, the first of over 130 communities around the world where people with developmental disabilities live and share life together with those who care for them. His spirituality was influenced by many, notably by his friendship with Jean Vanier.

After a long period of declining energy, which he chronicled in his final book, Sabbatical Journey, he died in September 1996 from a sudden heart attack.

After nearly two decades of teaching at the Menninger Foundation Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and at the University of Notre Dame, Yale University and Harvard University, he went to share his life with mentally handicapped people at the L'Arche community of Daybreak in Toronto, Canada. The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, Clowning in Rome, The Life of the Beloved, and The Way of the Heart are just a few of the more widely recognized titles. Nouwen's books are widely read today by Protestants and Catholics alike. Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen (Nouen), (1932–1996) was a Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books on the spiritual life.

Gracias by Henri J.M. Nouwen