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HENRI NOUWEN'S WOUNDED HEART

by Maura Hanrahan

Henri Nouwen had a hole in his heart. This void accompanied him all his life, all the way to his premature death at a hospital in Holland. This hole in his heart, his constant companion, appears in every one of his many publications, shaping his books, setting their tone, and haunting the words he wrote.

     Whenever I dipped into Henri's writing, I recognized the hole in his heart and I could hear its inconsolable voice. But I never understood where it came from. I knew that about ten years before he died, Henri suffered through a debilitating depression for which there seemed no consolation. During that bleak time, Henri was face-to-face with his all-encompassing neediness. His diaries from that acutely painful episode were later published as The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom. In that slim little volume, he wrote: "You desire boundless love, boundless care, boundless giving."

     After I read my first Nouwen book, I learned that Henri was a homosexual. A Dutch priest, he lived a celibate life and described his sexuality as a handicap, "another cross to bear." He rarely discussed the fact that he was gay and the subject was, most of the time, almost taboo. One of his few gay activist moments as a gay man highlighted the deep concern and love he felt for others; at Yale in 1973 he gave the students copies of an essay he wrote for the book Is Gay Good?

     It was called the "Self-Availability of the Homosexual" and with love and kindness, it urges gay and lesbian people to nurture their spiritual and emotional health by genuinely accepting themselves and their sexuality. This, of course, flies in the face of the teachings of many churches, including Henri's own, and, for Henri who absolutely needed the good opinion of others, it was an act of courage.

     But during most of his life Henri's sexuality was cloaked in fear. An American friend of his, Robert Lentz, was expelled from a monastery for being gay --even though he was celibate. For Henri, who claimed the Church at the centre of his being, this was a terrifying prospect. It was a worry he carried with him through his 40-odd years in ministry. He adored the Church but the Church could not return his love.

     The Catholic Church views homosexuality as a sin. The instruction to love the sinner but hate the sin is nonsensical in cases such as this. Expression of one's sexuality --in whatever form-- reveals the essence of who one is. It is the soul speaking through the body. Our body-mind split tradition will not allow us to see this. But our bodies are ourselves. Because the Church did not know Henri Nouwen the gay man, it could accept Henri Nouwen. To be sure, he had a long, intense and rewarding career as a priest in that Church. But, in spite of apparent form, this love was unrequited --to a significant and hurtful degree. How difficult it must have been to be a gay man in a Church which you love, but which can accept only part of you. It is as if a slice of Henri was cut off and removed from the rest of him.

     Revealing the degree to which self-loathing grips a person in his situation, Henri could even be homophobic. In the 1980s he clashed with some of his Harvard students over this issue, telling them that the only way they could be acceptable to God was by burying their homosexuality since it was inherently evil. Obviously Henri's mind was tortured on this issue. One of the students accused him of trying to crucify them. Indeed. He was also crucifying himself.

     At times the hurt of being a gay man in the Roman Catholic Church was overwhelming for Henri. He wanted to belong in an all-consuming way but he could not belong. He turned to icons to help his woundedness. He commissioned from his friend, Robert Lentz, an iconographer, a piece featuring Christ enthroned while John approaches him bowing. Nouwen biographer, Michael Ford, described the scene as "formal yet affectionate."

     It was his way of consecrating his sexuality to Christ. "Christ the Bridegroom" was the first image he saw in the morning, Ford tells us, and the last he saw at night; thus, it book-ended his waking and sleeping hours.

     Sometimes flat and somewhat rigid, icons seem to belong to a world of long ago. But in Henri's relationship to his, he was able to experience his core wound and even embrace it. In Henri's words, "They do not reveal themselves to us at first sight. It is only gradually, after a patient, prayerful time that they start speaking to us. And, as they speak, they speak more to our inner than to our outer senses." In formulating these words, Henri had finally realized that his homosexuality was himself, his inner core.

     One hesitates to assess the interior life of others. But I cannot help but respond to Henri's unnecessarily difficult quest for self-acceptance as a gay man. Well into his life, Henri saw the film Maurice based on E.M. Forster's critique of classism and homophobia in England. After the movie, which ends in a surprising manner, Henri collapsed. His companion's description of this is recounted by his biographer, Michael Ford:

"...he had to stop on the highway because he was sobbing uncontrollably. He was so caught up with the story and the dilema the two main characters were living, because it was his. All I could do was hold him and let him cry. He was really in pieces."

     Henri Nouwen was well-educated, worldly, and widely adored. As a priest he was in a position of power and prestige. An author of dozens of books, he was acclaimed from the Yukon to Hungary to Australia. He had a family that was not unusual in that time and place; they were established, middle-class, with a father who was remote, but generally Henri's family supported him. In spite of his central place to so many people, the hole in Henri's heart never closed.

     His story invites us to consider the pain inflicted on gay and lesbian people. And to ensure we accept them and their sexuality. Right now, Henri's Church tells its adherents to split off a core part of someone and love the rest of them. This is impossible to do and it cannot lead to authentic love and acceptance --the kind to which Jesus called us. Jesus demanded that his people love the Pharisees, lepers, and other "outsiders" of his time. He saw their intrinsic value and their wholeness. He had faith that his people would do the same.

Maura Hanrahan is the author and editor of six books on various aspects of Newfoundland history and culture, most recently Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster (2004). Her newspaper articles have been published in four countries.