Nouwen's Book Details Impact of Rembrandt's Painting

For those of you who have read a Henri Nouwen book, you know how introspective he was and how he agonized over his relationships—both with the deity as well as with his fellow humans.

In his book, “The Return of the Prodigal Son, A Story of Homecoming”, Nouwen tells of an emotionally-charged encounter he had while viewing a reproduction of Rembrandt’s painting entitled “The Return of The Prodigal Son” and the impact of that encounter upon his life.

Completed sometime around 1660, in the latter part of Rembrandt’s life, the painting depicts most clearly three figures—the disheveled and starved younger son, the relieved and grateful father who embraces this lost son, and the older brother whose unhappiness over his brother’s return is clearly evident. The painting had been immediately purchased by agents of Catherine the Great of Russia and has hung since then in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.

In this book, Nouwen describes how he—and presumably the reader--- can identify with each of the three characters. In particular, Nouwen thinks of himself in the role of the elder son who stayed at home and sacrificed his youth and his ambitions to be a faithful son. According to Nouwen, the older son’s scorn of his brother’s abandonment of his family and of his father’s ready reconciliation and forgiveness makes him as pitiful and as in need of acceptance as the prodigal.

In the concluding chapters and the prologue of this small 150-page book, Nouwen identifies his need—again, our need--- to become like the nearly blind and total accepting father.

Born in Holland in 1932, Nouwen became an ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. He spent the better part of his life in the United States where he taught at a number of prestigious universities, including Notre Dame and Yale Divinity School.

On September 21, 1996, Nouwen, not yet 65 years old, died of a heart attack. He was in Holland at the time and was about to travel to Russia to work on a film about Rembrandt’s powerfully expressive painting.

Other books by Nouwen at the Library include “The Wounded Healer” (1972) and “Ministry and Spirituality” (1996).

The “Friends” of the Columbus Public Library have begun a new service whereby volunteers “adopt” an area of the non-fiction collection and spend an half-hour or so each month “shelf-reading” to make certain that the books are arranged in correct order. Patrons are encouraged to make an appointment with the Library Director to review the Dewey Decimal System and be assigned a small area to keep in order.