My first encounter with Fr. Nouwen was driven, initially, by an attempt to make sense of my own spiritual woundedness. I had purchased the book as a part of some books I got prior to entering into pastoral ministry; since I have not yet done my seminary training in counseling and pastoral care, I figured a little bit a writing in the right direction could be useful to me.

But I think I was wrong in all these senses. Nouwen in The Wounded Healer does not provide any answer to spiritual wounds, nor does he provide the typical seminary "CPE" structures. Praise God that he doesn't! Instead, Nouwen sketches out a profound view into the existential-spiritual state of humanity under modernity and then provides a few onramps into Christian ministry following the example of Jesus. It isn't thick theological discourse, it isn't even a fully fleshed-out thesis, and, yet, there is an incredible poignancy in Nouwen's short work here.

Divided into four chapters, The Wounded Healer explores the woundedness of humanity through the angles of modernity, generations, and anecdotes, seeking all the while to sketch out and reveal the deep anxieties that we all struggle to set our fingers on. Those seeking here for a conversation on Sin will be looking in the wrong place. True, Nouwen's conversation is largely about the problem of Sin (and the problem of Death), about what happened in Genesis chapter 3, but woundedness is not quite the same thing, and it would be a major evangelical error to equate the two and (thus) find Nouwen's hamartiology lacking. My sense in reading Nouwen is that while mainline and Catholic hamartiologies would find his terminology most conducive to their paradigms of Christian ministry, the evangelical should not have trouble understanding Nouwen's claims and practices in light of his or her own harmatiological (and soteriological) terms. And the evangelical should wrap their minds around these claims and practices because Nouwen's vision of ministry is so utterly oppositional with our evangelical practices in which we shore up the evils of modernity without actually ministering, pastoring, and caring to the spiritual and psychological needs of our flocks.

In short, Nouwen's view of ministry is thoroughly needed, especially in the evangelical camp, and especially as our culture becomes more and more entrenched and predicated by the powers of modernity. If Wendell Berry is a Christian poet who uncovers modernity's disillusioning and anxious estate, and if Walter Brueggemann is a Christian theologian who describes the prophetic voice that combats it, then Fr. Nouwen is a Christian pastor who prescribes the type of compassion necessary to care for those who live under it. As a pastor myself, I find Nouwen's suggestions provocative to my own desire to pursue my Self, and I have a practical sense of the way to "tomorrow" for both myself and my congregation thanks to this book.

It’s been two decades since I’ve read Henri Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer, and nearly five since Nouwen first penned the book. In addition to that distance, there is a significant distance between the Nouwen’s life as a minister and my own. Nouwen was a Roman Catholic who did ministry as a professor, alongside Trappist monks, and to those with disabilities.

And yet there is so much Nouwen has to offer for ministers such as myself. Nouwen’s primary argument is that ministers must operate not from ideology, but from embodiment. For Nouwen, to do ministry we must be broken. When we offer those who are hurting ideas, our aloofness injures those we are trying to heal. Nouwen explains that this begins with Jesus, “[W]e have forgotten that no God can save us except a suffering God, and that no man can lead his people except the man who is crushed by its sins.”

Nouwen says, “Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: “Who can take away suffering without entering it?”

Nouwen continues, “The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.” To be those God can use to be a balm to those who are hurting, we have to experience the pain ourselves.

Nouwen urges us to focus on the individual, not the crowd. If we minister to one, we will minister to all. He explains, “[W]hat is most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others.”
Ironically, the way to healing is to acknowledge the challenges of the way of Christ. Nouwen says, “The Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift.”

In fact, the minister’s job is to lean into the pain. The wound must be exposed: lovingly and with care, but exposed nonetheless. Nouwen says, “A minister is not a doctor whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared.”

Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer has some of the most important insights I’ve ever considered about Christian leadership. While there are sections that drag and some where the reader feels the separation of time and location, there are moments where Nouwen feels so close that you can hear God’s loving voice enter your own situation with tenderness and wisdom. Every pastor ought to read The Wounded Healer, and many lay Christians as well. While the book is short, the best is the second half. You won’t be doing yourself that much of a disservice to start in Chapter 3 and read the final two chapters of the book.


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Nouwen is such a thoughtful thinker and writer. Always appreciate his teachings and the way he communicates them. Good read for anyone who is ministering to people.

“His [Jesus’s] appearance in our midst made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.”

One word: impressed.

Henri Nouwen! You have so succinctly put the social condition of our world into words. I am so thankful that I had the chance to read this work, and I am deeply thankful to walk away with greater assurance of reality and a deeper understanding of what suffering points to. It was also interesting to see how many parallels Nouwen makes with medical healing throughout the book. Those concepts are certainly not far from each other— but I say this as I am generally a strong advocate of the idea of spiritual healing > biological healing.

To those who share the faith: I believe the themes Nouwen expands upon as essential for continuing in our calling. It's a concise read (a little dense in the beginning), but if you are invested in the mission, you will certainly be intrigued.