I’m
currently staying in Henri Nouwen’s father’s house in Holland on a writing
retreat, thanks to the generosity of Laurent Nouwen who owns the house now. Henri’s parents—Laurent J. M. Nouwen
and Maria Nouwen--lived here in Geijsteren--a small, historic, quiet Dutch
village in Eastern Holland on the border with Germany—known as a pilgrimage
site for St. Willbrorus,
a missionary from Ireland who Christianized what is now the Netherlands.
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| Memorial Marker in Geijsteren |
Earlier this week, on crisp autumn day amid leaves
falling from the trees, I visited Henri’s parents’ gravesite in the old churchyard
of St Willibrordus Church.
Inscribed
below their names is Henri Nouwen’s name
in
memorium.
I breathed a prayer of
gratitude for my beloved teacher.
Though
he was born in the Netherlands and died here in this beautiful country, Holland
is not where his body is buried.
There
was a bit of a controversy about where best to lay him to rest.
On September 15, 1996, Henri left Daybreak, his community
near Toronto, for St. Petersburg, Russia, to work with a film crew on a Dutch documentary
on Rembrandt’s painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” He flew through Europe, making a stopover at
Schiphol Amsterdam Airport on September 16th and checked into a nearby
hotel in Hilversum for the night.
Sometime during the day, he had a cardiac arrest and somehow was able to
alert the hotel management. He was
brought by ambulance to the hospital at Hilversum, east of Amsterdam.
“It was from the hospital that we (brother Paul and I) were
called with the disturbing news that Henri had suffered a heart attack,”
Laurent remembers. “That same day we (Paul, sister Laurien, my father at the
age of 93, and I) visited Henri at the hospital. I stayed with him overnight and every day
thereafter…“
While in recovery from the first he suffered a second sudden
heart attack during the night. His
family was informed by staff shortly after he died in his hospital room on
September 21, 1996.
I
remember getting a distressing call from a mutual friend after his first heart
seizure, and again after he had died. I was on a faculty retreat in New Jersey
at which I could no longer fully participate after hearing the sad news…Henri had
been my professor and mentor at Yale Divinity School, and I had kept in touch
with him after my graduation and during his journey to South America, Harvard
and L’Arche. But I was unable to attend
his funeral.
The first of three funeral Masses for Henri Nouwen was
held on September 25th 1996 at St. Catharina Cathedral in Utrecht (the same
church where Henri was ordained in 1957) with a eulogy offered by his friend
and mentor, Jean Vanier. It was decided by members of his family and representatives
of L’Arche Daybreak that Henri should be buried close to his community in Richmond
Hill, near Toronto.
Henri’s spiritual home was with his extended family at
L’Arche Daybreak. After the funeral Mass
in Holland, his brother Laurent flew Henri’s body to Toronto for a full night
wake at Daybreak and the next day for a full-day wake at St. Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in
Richmond Hill where more than a thousand people paid their respects. This was followed by a second funeral Mass at
the Slovak Catholic Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Markham, Ontario on
September 28. A third memorial service occurred
a month later at St. James' Episcopal Church on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan
(which I attended and where I met Robert Jonas, John Dear, Wendy Greer, and
many others who were grieving the loss of our great teacher and friend).
Henri’s body was laid to rest in a simple pine coffin
built in the Daybreak wood shop, colorfully decorated by members of the L’Arche community. There was a dispute between the leaders of
Daybreak and the Catholic Bishop of Toronto about where Henri should be
buried. The Bishop insisted that Henri
as a Catholic priest should be buried at a Catholic cemetery. Indeed, Church Law requires that Roman Catholics in good standing be buried in consecrated ground,
blessed by a priest in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The nearest
qualifying cemetery was one in the city of King, about a half-hour drive from
Richmond Hill where Daybreak was located.
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| Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Cemetery |
Henri properly
was buried at Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery in King City north of Toronto
on September 28 the after the second
funeral Mass. The
name of the
cemetery--
“Sacred Heart”—symbolizes
Henri’s spirituality of the heartland the cause of his untimely death from
cardiac arrest. However, the restrictions
of Sacred Heart Cemetery do not aptly symbolize Henri’s large, open, inclusive,
ecumenical heart…
In his books and in private conversations, Henri
expressed his desire to be buried with the friends he lived with at L’Arche Daybreak
in Richmond Hill.
Not all of his friends
and community members were Roman Catholic.
The right to burial at Sacred Heart Cemetery was restricted to members
of the parish, former parishioners and their families, and other members of the
Catholic faith.
As a pastoral provision,
a new plot of land was purchased and donated by the Augustinian Fathers in 1996,
with a plan to expand Sacred Heart Cemetery to include core members of the
L’Arche community when they died.
However, the new section was neglected, the plan to expand the Sacred
Heart cemetery was scrapped, and no more sites were made available to the
community after Henri was buried.
Henri’s brother, Laurent, after visiting the Sacred Heart
burial site in Kings, remarked to Sr. Sue Mosteller, executor of Nouwen’s
literary estate: “I just feel badly
because we haven’t really done what Henri asked. ” Namely, to be buried near his Daybreak
friends and family members.
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| St John's Anglican Cemetery |
In July 2010, fourteen years after his death, Henri’s
remains were moved from Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery north of Toronto to St.
John’s Anglican Cemetery in Richmond Hill-- closer to L’Arche Daybreak and
where the community was able to buy 20 plots to accommodate the needs of an
aging group of Catholic and non-Catholic members.
A simple wooden cross was planted, made by a carpenter at Daybreak and inscribed by Laurent with “Henri Nouwen 24 Jan. 1932 -- 21 Sept. 1996.”About 100 community members gathered at the
new gravesite to pray, sprinkle holy water, and remember Henri. (I remember
being there shortly after with other members of the Henri Nouwen Society board.
How fitting it was for him to be buried in a
cemetery named after John the Beloved (the disciple Jesus loved), one of
Henri’s favorites saints.
“It would be wonderful if it could have been a Catholic
cemetery,” Sr. Sue Mosteller admitted after his body was moved. “But it was Henri’s desires, and his family’s
wish to honor those desires, that made St. John’s the right final resting
place,” she said. Laurent Nouwen agreed:
“Indeed family members were not happy with his place at the cemetery at King. We were very happy when Henri found a final
place of rest amid his deceased friends from Daybreak at St. John’s Anglican (Jefferson) Church Cemetery.
Pastorally motivated rather than institutionally driven, claimed
by family and friends on three continents as one of their own, Henri is
remembered as a "catholic" (in the sense of universal) priest. An ecumenical pastor/priest and spiritual director with open
hands and a wide heart. In life and
death, he wanted to be close to those in his community, whatever their faith experience
or tradition. He now rests among four of his close friends from Daybreak--Bill,
Carol, Rosie and Peter--in the south/east section of St. John’s cemetery, 12125
Yonge Street, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. Time for a new Bishop to consecrate the sacred, ecumenical ground.
-->
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| Henri's Native Netherlands |
I remember what Henri once said and deeply believed:
“
When I die, my spirit will be accessible to
my friends…” Staying in his father’s
home, enjoying his brother Laurent, knowing that Henri was with his father,
sister and brothers before he died, as well as with community members, I feel particularly
close to my beloved teacher today.
In this
special place, surrounded by family photographs, framed icons, many books and
paintings, I am reminded of Henri. I’m grateful for his life and mission, and
very glad he is finally home.--MJC
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| Herni's final resting place at St. John's |
Willibrorus's 6th century shrine and chapel is only a 40- minute walk from Laurent Nouwen’s house where we were staying. On Sunday we walked in the rain down a chestnut covered path under the protection of a green canopy of old trees until we came to a sacred circle in the center of a 700 hectare forest, west of the village of Geijsteren in the Dutch province of Limburg.
I counted six pilgrim pathways leading to the six-sided chapel, which unfortunately was closed on Sunday. Next to the chapel is an ancient water well from the 4th or 5th century, and a border post dating from 1551, separating the pre-christian lands of of Cuijk and Kessel. Around the medieval chapel, various pre-Christian customs have been honored, including the Thunder god’s marriages the those who became goddesses.
