With Burning Hearts: A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life

by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Book Overview

From mourning to discernment, from invitation to intimacy, and from community to the charge to go forth and witness, this work seeks a fuller understanding of the Eucharist through the story of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0883449846
• ISBN13: 9780883449844
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Orbis Books
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

With Burning Hears Review

This is a great meditation on the Euchar5ist and its application to everyday life. I highly recommend it to believers (and others?) Ray Jorgensen

A manual for letting go of pain and loss

Henri Nouwen introduces a new and life-changing idea: living losses Eucharistically. He starts by acknowledging that life is full of "dark" and "agonizing" losses: "It is a world of endless losses, and many, if not most, of our fellow human beings walk with faces downcast on the surface of this planet." We go through life mourning...just like the two disciples walking to Emmaus, ruminating on their loss of Jesus. Nouwen says that must mourn for our losses. We must "shed tears over them and allow ourselves to grieve deeply," acknowledge "the painful truth of our brokenness," and "experience the abyss of our own life" where "everything is constantly shifting and changing." In doing this, we realize that we are not the only ones with losses: in fact, all of humanity is "moaning and groaning" with the pain of losses. Then Nouwen reveals that "there is a blessing hidden in our grief" - a gift is hidden in our tears. He says that suffering can actually lead us to gratitude. But what is the gift, and how do we recognize it? Nouwen says that "through mourning our losses we come to know life as a gift." We need to gain a contrite heart, by realizing that our losses are connected with evil, and that there is evil in our own hearts - and so, "we are willing to take responsibility, even for the pain we didn't cause directly: blaming is converted into an acknowledgment of our own role in human brokenness." We begin to cry: "Lord have mercy". We cry out for the "healing of our cynical hearts", and we "dare to believe" that there may be a gift hidden in our pain. We come to the Eucharistic celebration. We meet Jesus in the sacred Scriptures, though which he speaks to us. And we realize that we have a role to play in the salvation of the world: "The great temptation of our lives it to deny our role as chosen people and so allow ourselves to be trapped in the worries of our daily lives." Jesus makes our hearts burn. He encourages us to "let go of our hardened hearts and become grateful." We learn that our losses were not an end, but a "necessary way to freedom" and a "suffering leading to glory." We receive the Eucharist, and enter into communion with Christ. "It is at that place of communion that we cry out: `God, my God, why have you abandoned me?` It is at that place, too, that our emptiness gives us the prayer: `Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.'" Because, as Nouwen explains, "Communion with Jesus means becoming like him. With him we are nailed on the cross, with him we are laid in the tomb, with him we are raised up to accompany lost travelers on their journey." We no longer belong to the world that brings us so many losses, so much pain: "There we belong to Christ and Christ to us, and with Christ we belong to God." We are then called to bring the good news to others - we have a mission. We must learn to listen to their losses, and then to tell them: "Didn't you know that what you are complaining about can also be lived as a way to so

Easy, yet substance

Enjoyed the graphics and the book was a quick read. It had good insights!

Excellent

Recently I heard a priest from Opus Dei state that Henri Nouwen's books are not spiritual writing, that all of Nouwen's books are about Nouwen. After finishing this volume I would have to disagree lately, but not completely, this book like many of Nouwen's draws from Henri's personal experience, but all writers write from the lense that filters all we see and do. How could our life experience not affect how we see the world. Nouwen states in the introduction: "Every day I celebrate the Eucharist. Sometimes in my parish church with hundreds of people present, sometimes in the Daybreak chapel with members of my community, sometimes in my father's living room with just him and me. Very few days pass without my saying, `Lord, have Mercy,' without the daily readings and a few reflections." p.9 The rest of the book is a series of reflections on the Christian life through the filter of the Eucharist and through the eyes of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The five sections in the book are: 1. Mourning Our Losses: "Lord Have Mercy" 2. Discerning the Presence: "This is the Word of God" 3. Inviting the Stranger: "I Believe" 4. Entering into Communion: "Take and Eat" 5. Going on a Mission: "Go and Tell" Each section draws us into a deeper understanding of our life, and our life as a people of the word and of the Eucharist. The first section focuses on loss, our loss of what we believe in, what we hope for and what we sometimes dream of. After loss the disciples questioned their following Jesus, and if we are honest sometimes we doubt as well. "We remember the time that Jesus was so real for us that we had no question about his presence in our lives. He was our most intimate friend our counselor and guide. He gave us comfort, courage, and confidence. We could feel him, yes, taste and touch him. And now? We no longer think of him very much, we no longer desire to spend long hours in his presence. We no longer have that special feeling about him." p. 27,28. through the losses we have in our life we have come to have periods of doubt and struggle with our faith, we come bruised and broken by this world. "We come to the Eucharist with hearts broken by many losses, our own as well as those of the world." p. 31 but Nouwen goes on to give us hope, our hearts are broken and we experience loss so that we can also be healed and restored, so that through the Eucharist we can receive the water of God's grace. After we have a renewed hope and have begun healing we must discern the presence of God in our lives. He declares "We cannot live without words that come from God, words to pull us out of our sadness and lift us up to a place from where we can discover what we are truly living." p.51 In this section we are reminded that God's words give life, we are nourished by them, challenged, encouraged and admonished. "Without the word, our life has little meaning." p.60 As Catholics as Christians how could we not live immersed in the Word, in t

A Walk Down the Road With the Gentlest of Writers

Henri Nouwen explains the Lord's Supper in the context of the two disciples' walk with Jesus down the road to Emmaus at the end of Luke's gospel. He sees five interrelating movements in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, each movement corresponding to an event along the disciples' walk. This is a meditation, not a theological treatise, so the soul and the mind share the road. Nouwen's meditations are challenging and joyous, and this is one of the best I've read. Going on any trip with Henri Nouwen brings joy, whether it's into a painting ("Return of the Prodigal Son"), into the desert ("Way of the Heart"), across a calendar ("Bread for the Journey"), or into his own anguish ("Inner Voice of Love"). I was so taken with Nouwen challenge to a "eucharistic life" in this book that I have celebrated the Lord's Supper by myself several times.