The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey

Henri Nouwen is a profound writer on the spiritual life. In this book he narrates through journal excerpts the transitional year between being a professor at Harvard Divinity School and being a priest and caregiver with the handicapped at Daybreak I in Toronto. Under the tutelage of Jean Vanier, Pére Thomas, and the L'Arche Community in France, he explores discernment and call, prayer and solitude, friendship and community, sexuality and chastity, ability and disability. The genesis of at least four other books he wrote—Return of the Prodigal Son, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying With Icons, and Adam: God's Beloved—are found in this book. Nouwen's transparency and the sharp contrasting of human weakness with the spiritual resources of the Christian faith will stir any reader to deeper reflection.

Nouwen spent his last ten years living with people with profound developmental disabilities at the Daybreak community in Canada. The Road to Daybreak is his diary of the year prior to that period. The epilogue of the book, however, is written at the end of his first year in the community. It illustrates the great gift of this Catholic priest: his ability to confess his weaknesses openly. He notes his despairs in joining a handicapped community and discovering the depth of his own handicaps. He was inept at the many practical details of living as a family, having lived an academic life in which others took care of such things as laundry, cooking, and cleaning. He was also unskilled at living intimately in community with others. He was embarrassed to discover his need for others to give him his sense of worth. It is healing to read someone openly clear about his despairs.

What a wonderful and enlightening journey! Henri describes his darkest yet most enlightening revelations as he enters into the world of complete dependence upon Jesus, and absolute surrender to the live within the Daybreak community. As a worship leader within a special needs community I can relate to all his experiences. Thank you, Henri, for sharing!

I found this book to be inspirational talk provoking and very interesting . It inspired me to sit down and start riding a spiritual the spiritual journey I've been traveling for the last eight years . I have been looking for the road to God to the perfect spiritual union with God through prayer and helping others . This book will help me to do those things as well as to write my own spiritual journey thank you .

I love Henri and was deeply touched by his Life of the Beloved. Will I enjoyed this book I chose it hoping to better integrate my work with students with developmental disabilities and my faith. But this book talks very little about the realities of serving this population. Not anyone’s fault but that’s where I was coming from.

Wonderful book by a wonderful person. My new favorite author.

This is one of the very good journals that Nouwen wrote. I recommend this. Here he gives us the journey from Harvard and the prestige he had teaching at that divinity school to this home in Toronto for challenged people with no fame and no notoriety. For Nouwen this was the journal for going home.

This is one of the best Nouwen books I've read. I would recommend it to anybody who is making a life decision.

Bought for a friend who absolutely loves it and has promised to lend it to me to read when she has finished. She tells me it is one to keep and re read.Henri Nouwen writes with simplicity and beauty and is easy to understand.I grew to love his writing having been recommended by my priest. On that basis and on my friend's praise I give it five stars!

Everyone who wants to be moved should read this. If you are involved with L’arche definitely read it🙏🏻

Henri Nouwen's journal is an encouraging read. He's not afraid to reveal his own failings and vulnerability as he records his journey whilst building up others and sharing the love of Christ. A true disciple , finding his life as he lays it down to serve others. Hopefully , through reading this journal, we will all find mercy and grace to live as Henri Nouwen did.

Having read this book recently, it has affected my life a great deal! To follow the process of getting from where Heri Nouwen was to L'arche in Canada was a humbling experience for me to read, and it was obviously a humbling experience for him as he went through so many situations which caused him to see himself and others differently. A book that can be read at one sitting or an entry a day (it is written in the form of a diary). Very moving and it has caused me to rethink some of my deeply cherished thoughts and feelings, challenging me to change some things! A must read book.

Recommended by a friend, now lent to several others, and still reading it myself. Ssacrificial work with the mentally disadvantaged, is a challenge I would like to rise to myself