This is the book that began it all for me. It was through Clifford Williams’s meticulous examination of the human heart and its hidden motives that I first became aware of the complex motivations and illusions that were guiding my life. Through this book, God revealed to me the truth of my heart, but he also began to teach me about his grace.

This book is a classic primer on silence, solitude, and prayer. It is short — about 70 small pages — but packed with Henri Nouwen’s signature profound simplicity. In particular, he talks about prayer of the heart being the type of prayer that causes us to touch and be touched by God. Reading that section profoundly affected my prayer life and how I consistently seek to approach God today in the interior places.

In this book, Ronald Rolheiser first tackles the question, “What is spirituality?” He demonstrates how central spirituality is to the human experience, whether expressed in religious ways or not, and then goes on to ask, “How do we define Christian spirituality?”

Simply put, this book blew my mind. Several times. He challenges us to think about how we, as the incarnation of Christ’s body on earth, are meant to be the answer to our own prayers. He takes on the spirit of individuality that pervades the church and says that the brokenness and humanity in ourselves and others are the very essence of Christ that we must embrace to experience God in the world. And in a later chapter, he says that any efforts we make to bring greater justice on earth must be accomplished through a non-violent spirit of love, for love is the only transforming power that can melt the hardened spirit of the world.

These are just three examples of how one hearty book can provoke, challenge, guide, and sometimes even offend our common sensibilities. That the author is a Catholic priest, speaking from a truly Catholic perspective on some of the subjects he covers, does not fail to bring its own fair share of controversy to the pages of this book.

Henri Nouwen proposes a radical notion in this small but powerful book: the way of Christ is the way of downward mobility. Quite convincingly, he demonstrates how upward mobility ensnares and enslaves us to a life that is contrary to grace. In an identity based upon upward mobility, we are only as good as our last performance and the power we wield in our spheres of influence. He speaks of our temptations to be spectacular, to be relevant, and to be powerful, whereas the way of Christ seeks rather to serve than be served, to lose one’s life in order to gain it, and to carry a cross instead of a scepter.

This book is meant to be digested in small doses. What makes this easier are the Van Gogh charcoal drawings interspersed every few pages that provide moments of deeper contemplation and augment in truly moving fashion all that Nouwen is encouraging us to embrace.

If you are looking for a companion book for contemplative prayer, this book of prayers and charcoal drawings by Thomas Merton is among the highest of such companions. The prayers on each page are short but rich, and the accompanying charcoal drawings on each facing page give pause for reflection and responsive prayer in their own right.

This is truly a holy work that ushers the soul into the presence of God to speak in whispers with honesty and trust.

For seven months, beginning in the summer of 1974, Henri Nouwen adopted the vocation of a Trappist monk in search of greater peace, contemplation, and direction. He participated in the daily hours of the monks, upheld his share of daily chores, met with the spiritual director, and along the way kept a diary.

Although he had no intention of publishing the diary when he left, friends later encouraged him to pursue its publication because of the unselfconscious glimpse it could afford others into the honest journey deeper into Christ and the self. I’m so thankful he published it, and for exactly that same reason: through this diary, because of Nouwen’s searing honesty, which includes criticism, pain, adoration, and surrender, I could find my own soul’s journey within its pages. It is full of the fullness of the life in Christ, as we see prayer, work, reflection, community, fasting, submission, justice, celebration, and love modeled throughout its pages.

More than anything, Nouwen’s experience in the Abbey of the Genesee is about learning how to take all of life into the mindfulness of Christ.