Item 1587 - Solitude and intimacy in the family

6 p. of textual records

This item is a 6 page article by Henri Nouwen entitled, Solitude and Intimacy in the Family, published in a.d. Correspondence: Catholic Reflections on Catholic Life, Vol. 13, No. 3, July 31, 1976. This article consists of excerpts from two talks given by Nouwen. Nouwen states early in the article, ‘We live in a society in which loneliness has become one of the most painful human wounds. Growing competition and rivalry, pervading human life from birth to death have created a new acute awareness of man’s isolation’. Nouwen suggests that loneliness however, is an important part of our development as human beings and that attempts to do away with it, especially within marriage and family are not helpful to growth. ‘Maybe we have to say that a growing maturity in marriage means a growing regard for that deep place where man is totally alone and cannot be understood and touched, and a growing reverence for the mystery in each other which can never be fully grasped’. Nouwen sees that in marriage the husband and wife ‘ are called to be ministers to each other, binding each other’s wounds of loneliness.’ This will make it possible he suggests, to protect the private space that each needs, and will create a growth of true intimacy. ‘Then we become lovers who are not trying to fulfill each other, but who want to sound through to each other the all-fulfilling love which embraces us all’. Nouwen then speaks of the family which respects in the children the need also for space to be themselves, as gifts not possessions. This respect and true intimacy then leave room for hospitality in its true sense to others outside the family. Nouwen then discusses what he calls, receptive solitude, ‘therefore the first gift of family members to one another is the gift of solitude in which they can discover their real selves’. Nouwen concludes the article by stating, ‘Thus, marriage can indeed be a witness to the living truth that the wound which causes us to suffer now will be revealed to us as the place where God’s new creation took its first shape’.

Published in A.D. Correspondence: Personal Reflections on Catholic Life 13, no. 3 (July 31, 1976): [2-7].
Article indicates that 'Ave Maria Press will publish "Spirituality of Marriage and the Family", two recorded talks by Henri Nouwen (Modern Cassette Library -725, two talks on one cassette). It is from these talks that the following article has been been excerpted'.

Added by L Joson, 8 November 2017