Photography by Ron P. Van den Bosch and Theo Robert

I’m not sure what to think of this book.

I’m obviously not Catholic (I’m sure a quick perusal of my blog can tell you that), so when reading a book by a Dutch Catholic Priest, I naturally begin reading with slight trepidation. I’ve read Thomas Merton before as well as other Catholic mystics, but such books (no matter the theme) always seem flavored with Catholic theology at some point, so any heretical poisons that kill the true Gospel of Christ (grace-through-sacraments, works-based salvation, the deviations from the Word about what sainthood, really means, etc.) are so visible they make it easy for someone like me to put it down without reservation.

But then comes Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen, and at least in this book, he flips the script. He writes this book on prayer, he says, in cooperation with a number of his students over the course of many heart-to-heart discussions about prayer and its power in the life of a Christian. And he writes the entire book to Christians, for Christians, and about Christians. There’s never any discussion about how one becomes a Christian or knows they’re a Christian. It’s simply an understood fact that, if you’re reading this book, you’re a Christian. And if you’re a Christian, then you’d better be pursuing a personal relationship with God through prayer. It’s a no-brainer.

This book describes the humility and brokenness required in prayer. It describes the honesty we must have with ourselves about our sin and attitudes when coming to God in prayer. It describes the freedom we can realize in prayer. It takes through the possibilities of change, hope, compassion, and even revolution that we can have through prayer. It never mentions priests. It has a passing reference to some student’s use of Hail Marys, but it doesn’t command or even recommend it (in fact, that single sentence quoting a student is the only overtly Catholic line in the book). There’s just so many great points about prayer in this book, I simply wonder about Nouwen.

Now I am certainly not so much a separatist as to say that there are no born-again Christians in the Catholic Church (only that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach the true Gospel of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone). My mother, in fact, once led a Catholic neighbor to the Lord through the true Gospel as found in the Bible (Romans 10:9-15; Titus 3:5; etc.), and this woman in turn led her husband and sons to Christ in proper Ephesians 2:8-10 fashion. Yet this family never left the Catholic church. In the mother’s words: “The Catholic church might not teach people how to become Christians, but they definitely teach people how to be Christian.” While I would certainly take issue with the implications of this logic, I can’t jump right in to take issue with the logic itself.

Catholic teachings often include the importance of being a good person, living like Christ, and living the life that God expects. In most of our Evangelical churches, we teach the very same things, yet to born-again Christians. Still there exists that massive hole in the Catholic perspective: the Gospel that saves a soul in the first place. And this cannot ignored! To quote Paul: “If anyone teaches you any other Gospel than the one [Paul’s epistles] delivered, let him be accursed.”

Obviously after that diatribe, I ain’t recommending this book. Still, I did want to share some insightful quotations from the book as they relate to one’s personal prayer relationship with God.

The important thing about prayer is not whether it is classified as petition, thanksgiving, or praise, but whether it is a prayer of hope or of little faith…When the man of little faith prays, it is a prayer without hope. Likewise, it is without despair, for despair is only possible for someone who knows what it means to hope. (Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands, 78, 81)

Whenever you feel that a little praying can’t do any harm, you will find that it can’t do much good either. Prayer has meaning only if it is necessary and indispensable. (Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands, 94)

Therefore, a life in prayer is a life with open hands where you are not ashamed of your weakness but realize that it is more perfect for a man to be led by the other than to seek to hold everything in his own hands. Only within this kind of life does a spoken prayer make sense. A prayer in church, at table or in school is only a witness to what we want to make of our entire lives. Such a prayer only recalls to mind that praying is living and it invites you to make this an ever-greater reality. Thus there are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life. Sometimes you seek out a quiet spot and you want to be alone, sometimes you look for a friend and you want to be together. Sometimes you’d like a book or some music. Sometimes you want to sing out with hundreds, sometimes only to whisper with a few. Sometimes you want to say it with words, sometimes with a deep silence. In all these moments, you gradually make your life more a prayer and you open your hands to be led by God even to where you would rather not go. (Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands, 158)

Catholic anthropology may teach some useful things about man, I’ll admit, but Catholic soteriology teaches some horrible things about salvation. With that in mind, a Catholic book on prayer or Christian living, while potentially helpful, is something that’s built on a very unstable foundation and must be explored only with the most discerning of hearts. For that reason, I can’t recommend this book, even though I did enjoy it.

©2020 E.T.