While I don't agree with all of Nouwen's theology, this was a great book. There is a lot of insight here, not just about God as the Father, but about our relationships with other Christians.

4.5 ⭐️

In het boek Eindelijk Thuis reflecteert Henri Nouwen op Rembrandts schilderij ‘Terugkeer van de Verloren Zoon’ en doet dit in drie delen: hij analyseert de weergave van de verloren zoon, de thuisgebleven zoon en de vader. Hij laat middels bijbelgetrouwe meditaties en zijn eigen geestelijke zoektocht zien dat beide zoons verloren waren en op hun eigen manier naar Jezus wijzen. Daarnaast daagt hij zijn lezers uit om zich niet alleen te identificeren met een of beide zoons, maar om zelf als de vader/Vader te worden. Hij stelt dat vaderschap niet mogelijk is zonder zelf zoon/dochter te zijn geweest en laat zien dat de reis om (als) de Vader te worden in zijn eigen leven een aanhoudende reis is. Het boek is eerlijk, persoonlijk en geeft door scherpzinnige vragen/overdenkingen stof tot nadenken. Zeker een aanrader!

It’s a little repetitive but Henri Nouwen does a great job of really helping us dive into the return of the prodigal son both through the passage itself and Rembrandt’s painting. He articulates very relatable situations that helped me see the elder and younger son in me. He also expounds on the beauty and necessity of becoming the father just as Jesus radically tells us to become like his own Father.

Really moving reflections on Rembrandt’s painting and the story itself. I was very convicted by this read and appreciated the time he took to delve into each character in this narrative and apply it to himself. His section on the older brother was especially good.

Five stars may be generous, but I’m going with it. While the Prodigal Son is ubiquitous, the meaning is fresh each time. This time some of my thoughts included:
Of course I’ve been (and am when I choose sin instead of the Savior) the younger son. And I am thankful for the character of the Father in those (many) instances.
And:
This is the first time I’ve seen someone put on a page the word “burden” in the way I’ve described it for years. I’ve been the older son when my salvation was a burden of responsibility instead of freedom in being the Father’s child.
But my mind was blown when he asked:
Are we willing to be the Father? !!! Yes. Those who abide in Him should walk like Him. So am I willing to be forgiving, welcoming, compassionate, etc. etc. etc. I hope so.
Quick, easy, insightful.

PHENOMENAL doesn’t begin to describe it!! I read this as a Lent study with my favorite podcast - The Daily Nothings. What! a! gift!! My prayer has become entirely alive through this book!!! Would recommend anytime, not just during Lent.

On the Prodigal Son -
“But had I, myself, really ever dared to step into the center, kneel down, and let myself be held by a forgiving God?”

“Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: ‘You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests’ - the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light.”

“The more I think about this question, the more I realize that the true voice of love is a very soft and gentle voice speaking to me in the most hidden places of my being.”

“Jesus does not ask me to remain a child but to become one.”

On the Elder Son -
“Once the self-rejecting complaint has formed in us, we lose our spontaneity to the extent that even joy can no longer evoke joy in us.”

“Joy and resentment cannot coexist”

“The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”

On the Father -


“Here lies the core of my spiritual struggle: the struggle against self-rejection, self-contempt, and self-loathing. It is a very fierce battle because the world and its demons conspire to make me think about myself as worthless, useless, and negligible.”

“Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not "How am I to find God?" but "How am I to let myself be found by him?" The question is not "How am I to know God?" but "How am I to let myself be known by God?" And, finally, the question is not "How am I to love God?" but
"How am I to let myself be loved by God?" God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home! In all three parables which Jesus tells in response to the question of why he eats with sinners, he puts the emphasis on God's initiative. God is the shepherd who goes looking for his lost sheep. God is the woman who lights a lamp, sweeps out the house, and searches everywhere for her lost con until she has tound it. God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home.”

“The parable of the prodigal son is a story that speaks about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all rejections have taken place. It is the first and everlasting love of a God who is Father as well as Mother. It is the fountain of all true human love, even the most limited. Jesus' whole life and preaching had only one aim: to reveal this inexhaustible, unlimited motherly and fatherly love of his God and to show the way to let that love guide every part of our daily lives. In his painting of the father, Rembrandt offers me a glimpse of that love. It is the love that always welcomes home and always wants to celebrate.”

“I am tempted to be so in pressed by the obvious sadness of the human condition that I no longer claim the joy manifesting itself in many small but very real ways. The reward of choosing joy is joy itself.”

“People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it.”

“God’s compassion is described by Jesus not simply to show me how willing God is to feel for me, or to forgive me my sins and offer me new life and happiness, but to invite me to become like God and to show the same compassion to others as he is showing to me.”

Henri Nouwen’s reflections on the parable of the prodigal son and the painting by Rembrandt that it inspired explore the radical consolation and calling received by the one who is pursued by God. I’d suggest that this is a highly accessible version of a Christian memoir, as it starts and always returns to Nouwen’s special relationship with Rembrandt’s painting. He recounts how he saw a poster of it in a colleague’s office, and eventually traveled to St Petersburg to spend two days in front of the artwork, speaking with other tourists about its meaning and effect on them. The book itself is helpfully very structured, taking the perspectives of the three main characters in the parable (the younger son, the elder son, and the father) and applying them to the life of Rembrandt, the Christian, and finally Nouwen himself.

This is a short book that packs a big punch; this is my second time reading and I look forward to the next time I pick this one up, as different parts of it strike me every time. On my first reading, I was most struck by the father’s love for his younger son, a love that arms him with a dignity and an identity that can never be taken away no matter how much the son feels he is unworthy of it: “…the younger son realizes that he has lost the dignity of his sonship, but at the same time that sense of lost dignity makes him also aware that he is indeed the son who had dignity to lose.” Nouwen applied the fact of the father’s blessing to his son to his own life, sharing how claiming his own identity as a beloved son of the father allowed him to have freedom from the world’s economy of worth based on attractiveness, intelligence, and success.

On this reading, I have been differently struck by Nouwen’s confession at the conclusion of the book that he is called to embody the radical solitude of the father’s love. He is called to loneliness, poverty, and obscurity as he pours out all his gifts on the children of the father. The father took Nouwen in at his time of great despondency, but does not call him to remain there: “When the prodigal son returns home, he returns not to remain a child, but to claim his sonship and become a father himself.” Nouwen identifies a pressure within the Church and society to remain a child; the structures of the world will tempt him to run from the fearful task of fatherhood. But the one who has been seen, and freed, by the father’s gaze, desires to love and call others into that compassionate, multiplying love embodied by the feast upon the fatted calf. When a Christian can look at all they have been given by God, they can look at the one who has overlooked, forgotten, and even abused them and welcome them back into a tender embrace. There are no questions: “Why did you leave me? Where did you go while you were gone?” There is only an invitation: “Will you come and sit by me? Will you let me hold you? Will you let me look at you and speak the truth to you about who you were created to be?”

On a handful of occasions, a work of art has riveted my attention. As a college student, a painting in the Butler Museum of Art titled "In Flanders Fields Where Soldiers Sleep and Poppies Grow" by Robert Vonnoh had that effect as I pondered young girls picking scarlet red poppies in what had once been a killing field. For Nouwen, it was a portion of Rembrandt's painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son that had this same effect. Eventually he spent several days meditating upon the original and out of this and reflection on the parable of Jesus, he wrote this book.

He looks at the painting and parable in light of the three principle figures--the younger son, the elder son, and the Father. Many authors have explored what it means to be the younger son lost in profligacy and the elder son, lost in his rectitude and resentment and Nouwen does this also. But he does two other striking things. He describes how Christ is both of these--the younger son in "becoming sin" and the elder son, in being the beloved Son who shares all things with his father. I might add that he is also the true Elder brother who cares for the lost brother. And he also considers something I had not considered before, what it means to become the father, as we surrender our sins of rectitude and excess to the love of the Father.

This last caught my attention. I've often wrestled with the sins of the elder brother--dutifully serving God and resenting those who seem to enjoy either greater fun or greater attention. But what I had not thought about before is becoming a father, loving generously both types of sons and extending the Father's love to them. Having recently lost my own father, I'm realizing that I am the father in my own family line and I've reached the time of life to step into this (although I've been a father for 27 years!). My question is what does it mean to make the move from being the repentant elder son to becoming the generous father? How does one develop the very different habits of heart of the father?

"People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted more than the darkness itself and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness."

This was a wonderful book about the parable of the prodigal son and how Rembrandt's painting makes this story more real. What I loved so much about this book was how it took art seriously. The words of the parable came from the mouth of God, but Rembrandt participated in the creative act of God by painting this story, which affected Nouwen hundreds of years later. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is wrestling with the idea of unconditional love.

My wife and I were asked to read this book together with another couple to aid us in processing our own stories and in identifying the younger son and/or elder son inclinations of our hearts. I found it to be a moving and helpful read. Nouwen uses the Rembrandt painting of the return of the prodigal son to frame up the book. I had never read Nouwen before, but I resonated with his words and the struggles that he felt in his own spiritual journey. I also just appreciated gleaning from a voice outside my own tradition.

Here is one impactful excerpt: “At issue here is the question: ‘To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?’ Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of the waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival, not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.”

Vrhunska knjiga. Preporuka!!
Prispodoba "Milosrdni otac" je zahvaljujući jednoj slici zbog koje je nastala ova knjiga... ostavlja bez teksta, dira u srce i rastavljate na komade, potice te na pitanja o kojima teško da si razmišljao, otvara oci...uvidas da si više kao stariji sin,a ne mlađi... Pokušavaš shvatiti Oca i njegovu ljubav - neuspoređujućoj ljubavi.

"... pouzdati se ili ne pouzdati u milosrdnu Božju ljubav. Taj izbor mogu učiniti samo i jedino ja."

5/5⭐


“Los dos necesitaban sanación y perdón. Los dos necesitaban volver a casa. Los dos necesitaban el abrazo de un padre misericordioso. Pero queda claro por la historia y por el cuadro, que la conversión más difícil fue la del que se quedó en casa.”

✝️Este libro narra la crisis que vivió Rembrandt en el momento de pintar el famoso cuadro que es título de éste libro y también la que vivió el autor de éste libro. Son las meditaciones del autor pero también del pintor, a trave de Nouwen. Fue uno de los últimos cuadros que Rembrandt pintó después de llevar una vida de sufrimiento. Así pues, esto es de lo que trata el cuadro y el libro: Es la expresión humana de la compasión divina.

✝️Me impactó todo el significado que tiene el cuadro que va mucho más allá de la parábola porque lo que pinta es muy profundo y el análisis espiritual que hace Henri Nouwen lo es mucho más. Por lo menos, es lo que sentí como lectora. Hubo momentos en que se me hizo difícil leerlo, no por la complejidad del libro, sino por lo que me generaba en mi interior (cierto enojo y rechazo)

✝️El cuadro de Rembrandt resume la propia lucha espiritual de dicho pintor holandés e invita a sus espectadores a que tomen una decisión personal sobre sus vidas. Cuando pintó “El Regreso del Hijo Pródigo”, había llevado una vida marcada por la gran confianza en sí mismo, el éxito y la popularidad, seguida de pérdidas muy dolorosas, desengaños y fracasos. A través de todo ello había pasado de la luz exterior a la luz interior, del retrato de los hechos externos al retrato de los significados profundos, de una vida llena de cosas y de personas a una vida marcada por la soledad y el silencio. Ya con los años, se volvió más profundo y silencioso. Era su vuelta espiritual a casa.

✝️El autor lleva a cabo una meditación que divide en tres partes: Primero desde la perspectiva del hijo menor (que es el que se marcha), después desde hijo mayor (que es el que permanece), y por último desde la posición del padre (que es el que acoge y lo da todo). Desgrana dicha parábola profundizando en cada uno de ellos con la ayuda del famoso cuadro de Rembrandt.

✝️Es un libro que me introdujo en un camino espiritual penetrando en lo profundo de mi alma y obvio, donde nos enseña la generosidad pero también a perdonar y por supuesto, en todo camino espiritual no está exento de dolor.

✝️Puede que al inicio resulte no sé si aburrido, pero es que Henri Nouwen (de profesión sacerdote) alarga la introducción que hace ya que narra su encuentro con el cuadro, pero una vez que da comienzo a analizar los elementos del cuadro y la parábola del evangelio, insisto, es muy profundo y atrapante de leer. 

✝️Está narrado de forma ágil; es más, es un libro que puede leerse rápido pero el libro mismo te lo impide, porque es un libro espiritual y ésto te exige tiempo y meditación. Me sacudió mi estructura y me conmovió, obligándome a identificarme con uno de los personajes pero, en mi opinión, todos participamos en mayor o menor medida de todas las formas de miseria humana. Sin duda, tengo mucho del hijo mayor.

✝️Recomendado para todo aquel que sea o no cristiano porque enseña qué es ser cristiano y ayuda a profundizar en la fe.