Great devotions for the Christmas season. Loved it!

bit too liturgical for me

An enjoyable read, perfect for Advent.

Love this book for its inspiration and stillness.

It took me a couple tries to find an Advent devotional that was thoughtful, Scriptural, and practical. This one met all of my expectations and more- each devotional corresponds to a day in Advent and the symbolic meaning behind that day in history and the church calendar. Really love Nouwen!

Not what I expected. Didn't find it at all special for Advent. Just excerpts from Nouwen's works with a Bible passage, a prayer and an "advent action" which definitely was geared toward people of the Catholic faith. Glad I also did Max Lucado's Advent meditation which although they were short they were much more meaningful.

Beautiful daily devotions for the Holy season of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. The meditations are arranged with commentary, a Bible passage, prayer and suggestions for faith in action practice.

An okay devotional.

Advent can be a good time to get into the habit of daily prayer, or a time to try something new to enrich it. This book is helpful for either goal. It is an easy to read book of daily devotionals for the Advent and Christmas season. Each day's section is divided into four sections: a reading from one of the writings of Henri Nouwen, a reading from the Bible, a prayer, and an "Advent Action", which is, as the name implies, a concrete action to accomplish that day, which relates to the theme of the readings and prayer.

As an example, on day 13, we read Nouwen discussing the Latin words for listening and listening with great attention (obedire and audire) and for not listening (surdus), applying them to Psalm 23 and concluding that "Listening starts precisely when you move from the mind to the heart and let the truth of your being center you down". The scripture reading for the day is Psalm 23. The prayer asks God to help us pay full attention to Him. The Advent Action is to memorize a prayer that will be helpful in times of trouble.

Most of the Advent actions are very doable, but many are challenging. They call the reader to reach beyond him/herself but not so far that it is easy to say "I can't do that, I know it, and so there is no need to try". Live with this book through Advent and you will be ready to welcome the Lord on Christmas.

I underlined several passages to refer to again but, overall, this wasn't the best of Henri Nouwen. I think it may be because it was a compilation of his thoughts, edited by someone else, rather than a book he organized and wrote himself. Still, he offers insight into living a spiritual life in our every day world. I liked the shortness of the thoughts and quotes for each day of Advent.

I love the selections of Nouwen’s writings in this book. But I didn’t love the layout and other aspects of this devotional

I enjoy Henri Nouwen's words and reflections and also how this book was put together to cover both Advent and the 12 days of Christmas. It was good, but each reflection was very brief.