Now & Then Podcast | "My Friendship With Henri" in Four Parts

Sr. Sue Mosteller

Originally Released: Jan 13, 2019

In this four part interview series, Sister Sue Mosteller discusses how Henri taught a father to bless his son, talks about the unique relationship that he had with Adam, gives insight into Henri's breakdown, and shares what it was like to have him as a friend.

Links & References:

Sr. Sue Mosteller, Sr. Sue's Order of Canada Award, Catholic Register Article on Sr. Sue, L'Arche Daybreak, "Adam: God's Beloved" by Henri Nouwen Purchase USA | Canada, "The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey " by Henri Nouwen Purchase USA | Canada

Please note: book links are affiliate links

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• Sr. Sue Mosteller "My Friendship With" Part One | Episode Transcript

  Karen Pascal: Hello, welcome to Now and Then. I'm Karen Pascal. I'm the Executive Director of the Henri Nouwen Society and I am with Sister Sue Mosteller. Sue Mosteller was a great friend of Henri Nouwen. She got to know him when Henri made that enormous move from Harvard to coming to L’Arche Daybreak, to be the pastor. So tell me, what was that like? What did it look like first of all?

  Sr. Sue Mosteller: L’Arche Daybreak at the time, 1986, was in full growth. We had a big community and we were in front of questions that we didn't have answers for. We were trying to find our way around the fact that we had welcomed people from many different backgrounds and traditions, becoming quite interfaith, but without knowing how to live together and how to worship together as an interfaith community. And our dilemma--or our problem as we called it--was a big one because we had always wanted and seen ourselves to first of all be a Christian community and then to be a community but a spiritual community, a worshiping community. But we found in trying to arrange worships and so on that we always made each other mad because we weren't doing it in the tradition that somebody else belonged to and this was a difficulty for us. And we didn't want to water our spirituality down to nothing. We wanted to be spiritual. We didn't want to convert anybody. We wanted people to deepen in their own tradition. So we had a difficulty and in some ways we weren't able to give anybody within the community the authority to lead because nobody knew how. And so it was in our discussions of how can we do this and how do we make peace instead of war around our spirituality that we thought we might need a pastor.

  Karen: So you brought what, well, Henri was a Catholic priest. Did it become just Catholic or what happened and what did he bring to this situation?

  Sr. Sue: Well, the reason we asked Henri was because he had been spending a year in L’Arche in France and it's true he was a Catholic priest, he was very deeply Catholic and very dedicated to his Catholicism. But, and maybe I could just tell the story of Henri coming to Canada to do a wedding during that year. And while he was here, he had to buy a 14-day ticket. And so he didn't want to spend the whole 14 days with the family. And he wrote to us and said, I'm writing a book when I'm finished the wedding and so on, could I spend seven or eight days with you before my ticket is ready to go back to France? And so he said, I just need a quiet place. So we found a room in the community. We said you're welcome and we welcomed him to come and he got going on his writing, and that was fine.

  But after about a day or two of his visit one of the people with a disability in our community was hit by a car and was very seriously injured and in the hospital. And we were very, very upset about this. And this gentleman had lived with us for eight years. We loved him very much and he was dying in intensive care in the hospital and we were going and coming and so on until the second day when the family, realizing of course, that this was our fault because we were responsible for their son, asked us not to come to the hospital because they were upset and they were angry. So that just threw us into chaos and we just were praying and we were talking about Raymond and we wanted to do something. Henri heard about this when he was at the dinner table, he borrowed a car without telling anybody, he went to the hospital, he went into the emergency and sat down next to the father and just began a conversation with him and learned about his son, Raymond, who had been hit by a car who was living at L’Arche Daybreak. And they had this conversation back and forth. And then Henri said, well, “Could I meet Raymond?” So the father said, yes. He took him into intensive care. They met Raymond and came out. And so it was evening and Henri said, “I think I probably should go now.” But he said, “Could I ask you a question?” And the father said, yes. He said, “Have you blessed your son?” And Raymond's father said, “I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.” And Henri said, “Well, I'm just asking.” he said. “Raymond is very sick and we're not sure that Raymond's going to live.” And he said, “You know,” he said, “in the Old Testament many times when the son was going on a journey, the father always gave him a blessing just to send him off for his journey.” And he said, “I was just wondering if you wanted to give Raymond a blessing in case God wants to take him.”

  The father started to cry and he said, “I'm sorry I have no idea what you're talking about. I wouldn’t know what to do or say.” Henri said, “Perfectly alright don't worry. I just wondered if you wanted to because if you wanted to do that, I'd be so happy to help you.” And the father said, “Well, yes I'd like to do that.” But he said, “I have no idea.” So Henri said, “Well, let's just go.” And he said, “It's very simple. I'll help you.” So they went back into intensive care and Henri said, “Now, why don't you just lean down into Raymond's ear and talk to him and tell him why you love him. This is a blessing for your son.”

  So this father who was just in agony and so on, he just was crying. And he was talking to Raymond and he was saying, “Please fight for your life because we love you and we want you to come back and we're here and we just don't want to lose you.” And he was crying and he talked to him for, I don't  know, Henri said five or 10 minutes, he’s just talking to him, telling him how much the family loved him and how sad his mother was and the whole thing. And so then the man stood up and then Henri said, “Now I'll just put my hand over yours and let's just bless him with the sign of the cross on his forehead and on his hands and on his feet for the journey.” So they did this, the father was just weeping and they came out and as they came out of the intensive care Raymond's father said, “Who are you anyway?” And he said, “Where did you come from?” So Henri said, “Well, I'm a Catholic priest.” And he said, “I'm visiting the L’Arche Daybreak community.” And he said, “I've heard so much because the people there are very upset and they're praying so much for Raymond and they really miss him.” So they finished that conversation. Henri, when he was leaving, said, “I could come back tomorrow if you'd like me to,” and the father said, “Yes, I would like you. And I'd like to do that again.” So anyway Henri went back the next day and I guess they did it again, I'm not sure. But that day when Henri was leaving, the father said,” Tell the people of Daybreak, I want them to come back and visit Raymond,” which was such a good thing for us. In the meantime at Daybreak, Henri said, “Now we're praying for Raymond, but let's do it as a community, not just as individuals.”

  So he said, “Let's get a picture of Raymond and we'll put it on everyone's dining room table.” We had eight homes. So we got eight pictures, we put them in those little plastic containers, put it on the dining room table and after the meal, we always hold hands and say a few prayers. And so Henri said, “I'll go to every house and I'll help people to pray.” So he went to every house and he said, when you're praying after supper, take the picture of Raymond in your hand and talk to God and tell God what you want for Raymond and why you love Raymond. And then pass the picture and just have it go around the table.” So we all did that. And then we all visited and Raymond actually got better in the days to come and he came home. In the meantime, Henri went back to France.

  And so right at the moment when we were saying we need help to do this thing with a humanism in our community and with interfaith. And so someone said, what about Henri Nouwen who visited us? And all of a sudden, we all looked around and we said, everybody in the community knows Henri. So we'll just ask people what do they think? Should we invite Henri to come? And we asked, and there was just a complete yes from the whole community. Henri helped us when Raymond was sick. And yes. So we wrote him a letter and just invited him to come. And he was very touched by it. He was on sabbatical. He was looking for home. He was searching and praying. And he said this letter really touched him. He said, nobody had ever asked him to do such a thing. And it's so funny because in the letter we wrote we said, “We don't have any salary for you, but we'll let you have a month off a year and you can write books and then you can get money for yourself to live.” And he didn't mind that at all. So he came for a three-year commitment and he stayed 10 years until he died.

  Karen: What a wonderful offer. We're not offering you anything other than a month off to write books. And he, meanwhile, is giving up tenure. Giving up, you know, the academic - he's reached the heights and yet it's something I love about Henri was he was always asking God where am I supposed to be? He was longing for L’Arche, I think he was longing for a community where he could really belong. And you folks had something to give him. What a fruitful time that was. I know it was, in both your life and in his life. If we are talking to an audience right now, that's listening and saying where could I learn more about this? What books would you recommend that they might read of Henri’s, that would capture some of that journey in his life?

  Sue: Well he did write a book called The Road to Daybreak, which was a sabbatical year that he took in advance of coming. And there his questions are certainly in that book. And after that he writes about his experience in the book, the classic book, Adam: God's Beloved. Because Adam was a man with a disability that we invited Henri to take care of when he first came to Daybreak so he would get to know, and to be really deeply part of the community of caring. And he and Adam through a journey, became very beautiful friends, and it was a big influence on Henri's life.

  Karen: Sue, I thank you so much for sharing that with me. If you'd like to hear more, if you'd like to hear a little bit about Adam's story, we will have a second podcast that you can go to and you'll hear a little bit about what happened with Henri and with Adam. Thank you for joining us today.

• Sr. Sue Mosteller "My Friendship With" Part Two | Episode Transcript

  Karen Pascal: Welcome to Now and Then.  I'm Karen Pascal, I'm the Executive Director of the Henri Nouwen Society. I have with me today, Sister Sue Mosteller. Sue has been a wonderful friend of Henri Nouwen’s, probably one of the great influences in Henri's life from the stories that I know about Sue.  Sue, tell me about how you came to L’Arche Daybreak because that's really where you met Henri. How is it that you were there?

  Sr. Sue Mosteller: I belonged to a religious congregation. I was a teacher in the late sixties and early seventies when L’Arche was getting started. I was trying to get my B.A. by going to school at night and teaching during the day. And finally the congregation in 1967 gave me a sabbatical year to finish my studies. I wasn't the greatest academic so I arranged my courses for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so that I could have a year of long weekends. And I said to the sisters, because at that time we had to go out in pairs and we were often looking for partners. I said, I have lots of time and I I'm interested in people and so if you need a partner, you can ask me.

  And this day one came and she said, would you go with me tonight? There's a lecture happening at St. Mike's and I want to go. And I said, who is it? She said, I don't know she said, it's this man from France and he works with people with disabilities. And I said, “I'm really not very interested, so if you can find somebody else just do that.” But I said, “I'm free and if you need me, I'll go.” So she came at supper and said, “I couldn't find anybody.” So I went to the lecture of Jean Vanier, the first of six or seven lectures that he was giving at St. Mike's as a guest lecturer. And I sat down and I was completely taken by this beautiful person who introduced me to Jesus in a way I think that nobody had ever done before. He spoke about Jesus as a friend. And he knew Jesus and he knew the life of Jesus really well, and he loved Jesus.

  And so I still have very clear memories of sitting there with my heart just pounding because I had never heard that before. And so needless to say, I went to all seven lectures and became acquainted with Jean's spirituality. And then I met him and I told him that I was touched by it and he said, “I'm coming back. I'm going to give a little weekend in the fall.” And I went back to that and then I was able to make a retreat with him. And so it was after that, that I had this idea that maybe I could go because L’Arche Daybreak had started in 1969 and this was now 1970 or ’71 so I knew it had started. And it had started on a property that our congregation had owned at a certain time. So I talked to the congregational leader about my going to Daybreak. She wasn't terribly impressed and she said, “No, you can't go.” She said, “We need you in the classroom.” And she said, “Besides we live in convents. We don't live with men and women together,” and so on.

  So, however, Vatican II had happened several years before and the writings and everything were just getting across the ocean at that time. And they were talking about the Sisters really being with the people and being out more. Anyway, the next year I went back and said to my superior again, “I really feel this and I'd love to go and it's just up the road, I mean, I won't be that far away. And I know that my first vocation is for the Sisters, but this is a new community. It's starting, they need help. I have a lot of experience. I have community I can…”  Anyway, she initially said, “I don't think so.” And then we decided we'd pray for a few days and she called me and just said, “I think you should go.” And this was really unheard of at that time. It was not something that people were doing. This was very, very special and I felt privileged to be given that permission to do that. So I talked to the people at Daybreak and in 1972, I started my time there and I stayed there for 40 years.

  Karen: I think it's absolutely amazing when I think about who you have been working with in that time, two of the giants, spiritual giants: Jean Vanier and HenrI Nouwen. God put you in just the right place at the right time. That’s quite something. Another one of those giants was probably somebody that people didn't see as a giant. His name was Adam, but he had an amazing impact on Henri. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

  Sue: Adam was a beautiful, beautiful, giant. He was one of the men that we welcomed in our community of L’Arche  Daybreak. He was quite severely disabled with epilepsy and he had many, many seizures every day. Adam was not able to walk by himself or to dress or really to eat or to do anything alone. He needed help basically with everything. So we were at a certain moment in our history, we were able to welcome him into our community. And he was just such a beautiful man of peace. And as I say, suffering really too. So we welcomed Adam and his brother had already been welcomed. He also suffered from epilepsy, but he was not as severely disabled as Adam was, but we were able to welcome Adam when we had more help and we had more experience. And Adam proved to be just this marvelous presence in the middle of our community.

  And when Henri Nouwen came as our pastor, the leader of our community of L’Arche Daybreak decided that Adam's care, his morning routine would be a good place for Henri to get involved right in the heart of what L’Arche Daybreak is about. So he invited Henri from day one to help Adam with his morning routine. And Henri was shocked and he was not excited and he was scared to death to do this. But he took it on knowing that he would get all the help that he needed; that those men and women who were Assistants in Adam's home would just stay with him until he felt comfortable doing the routine on his own.

  So he did it with them for, I would say a couple of months because he was so scared, he was scared that the water in Adam's bath would be too hot or that he would hurt him in some way. And Adam couldn't speak so he couldn't tell him and he didn't respond a lot when we were working with him. So Henri was really scared, but he finally took it on. And it's so funny to read. He wrote a book called Adam, God's Beloved, and it's so beautiful to read the progression of the relationship because it starts with Henri saying “I never had any idea that I would ever have a relationship with Adam.” He said, “They kept telling me we want you to do this so you'll get to know Adam.” He said, “I couldn't imagine getting to know Adam because my whole life had been books and talking.” And he said, “Adam had neither of those. And I had no idea how that would happen.” But then gradually it begins to happen. And he said finally, “Adam was my friend, my teacher and my guide.” And he said, “of all the priests, all the intellectuals, all the people that I have ever known, nobody has been able to be that close to me as Adam and help me along my journey.” So it's a beautiful book to read and it talks of Adam's journey.

  Karen: Well, that's a wonderful invitation to our audience that if you haven't read the book, Adam, God's Beloved, I highly recommend you do. And it's easy to get. Go to our website, www.henrinouwen.org. And you can go to the bookstore and you can order any one of those books. There is a canon of books, 40 in fact, that were written by Henri Nouwen and I just encourage you. They’re books written to the heart and to your spirit. Henri makes a wonderful guide.

  Thank you for being with us and we look forward to talking with Sue Mosteller again.  I'd like to know what part she played in helping Henri through one of the roughest times of his life. Be sure and listen for the next episode of Now and Then.

• Sr. Sue Mosteller "My Friendship With" Part Three | Episode Transcript

  Karen Pascal: Welcome to Now and Then. I'm Karen Pascal, I’m the Executive Director of the Henri Nouwen Society. And I am with Sister Sue Mosteller. Sister Sue Mosteller was one of the leaders at the L’Arche Daybreak community for many, many years and was there at a very critical time when her friend Henri Nouwen was there. It was the time in which Henri actually experienced a real depression. So tell me what was going on? What happened that his world was shaken?

  Sr. Sue Mosteller: Well, I imagine there were a number of factors that brought this on, and of course he wasn't expecting it and neither were we. But he really experienced a very big crash, really. He just crashed. And it was quite evident quite soon that Henri wasn't really able to function and that he couldn't carry on with the work that he was doing in the community nor could he imagine where he could go or what he could do to try to get through this. But he was able to find a community in Winnipeg called Homes for Growth, which I'm not sure if it's still going, but it was going in those years. And he went to Homes for Growth in Winnipeg, and he stayed there seven months. And it was a time of very deep searching and getting support.

  He had the support of two people that he talked to each day who were guiding him and listening to him. And then of course, I guess friends were writing him and some of us were visiting him during that time. But it was I think - he said all the whole of his life came crashing down on him and he had to kind of start picking up pieces that went way, way back in his history. I don't know that of anybody that knows all that story except Henri himself but that's how he described it.

  Karen: It's interesting isn't it? For some of us perhaps, that's one of the most meaningful parts of Henri's life, only because Henri dealt with everything with such honesty. And I think the reality being that there are many people that are drawn to, and receive real food for their journey, from what Henri writes about because of his great honesty. But I think also really the reality of knowing that somebody could be that down, that discouraged, go that deep and somehow come back from that.

  I understand that he didn't take very many things with him, but I understood that he took the poster of Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son. What did that mean to him as he was there? How did that feed his spirit? Do you know?

  Sr. Sue: He had had an experience of that painting for the first time. Now he probably had seen it before, but when he was in Trosly during this year of sabbatical that led him to finally come to Daybreak. That was just the year before, a couple of years before this happened. He saw that poster on the door when he was talking to somebody, it was on the door of her office. And he said, when he looked at the painting, he was just taken by it because of the posture and the beauty and the light and the color and the so on of the father's hands and the gesture of the father with the son who had run away and come home. And he said that in his own heart and soul, he just had this experience of wanting to be in that place.

  He wanted those hands. He wanted that love. He wanted that so badly. So that painting he spoke right then and there in that office and the woman said to him, you can get this poster, it's in Paris, you can buy it. And he bought, I'm sure he bought the store out, because he was sending it all over the world to people saying, look at this painting, isn't it beautiful. And so on. And he had that painting with him when he came to Daybreak. It was up in practically every building, he gave it as a gift. He had them framed. But for he, himself, it was a very, very important thing. And when he had this breakdown, he took that painting and the Eucharist, and he was in a room for these months. And basically, I mean, he may have had a few books, I don't know but basically those are the only two things that he had. And he studied that painting and he went into it. He got right into the being of the young son, and then someone told him, well, you know, you aren't the young son, you're the older son. There's a lot of resentment in you and so on. So he, all of a sudden shifted over and he became that elder son. He read the scripture and he said, ‘that's me.’ And then he went through his whole life saying all the places where he was resentful and where he had cold anger. And he was holding all these feelings but looking very good teaching, staying in the church, doing everything. So he became that person. And then somebody said to him, well, you shouldn't just be the son, the real journey is to become the father and to become loving and to be blessing people and so on. And then that was just a huge enlightenment for him. So then he became, during those seven months, it was just this whole journey of him getting, becoming the figures in the parable to a very, very deep degree. And then of course, when he came out a couple of years later, he wrote the book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, which is a classic book because he shows us how to do that.

  Karen: Weren’t you the person who actually said to Henri you've got to become the father.

  Sr. Sue: Yeah, that's right.

  Karen: Well, it's interesting. I think that's something for all of us to know. Here we are, this book, as you said, it's a classic. It is still such a source of spiritual food for so many. It is probably considered Henri's finest work. It's wonderful to know that it came out of the depths of pain and anguish, because in a way you feel God can do something with the stuff that I go through, that I feel overwhelmed by. There may be fruitfulness that comes out of it. That was something Henri was always talking about. He was always talking about fruitfulness. I think that's probably one of the richest things that was birthed out of that pain.

  Sr. Sue: Exactly. And he speaks of it in the book. He talks about the breakdown. So we get a sense of how he was living that and how this helped him to gradually, but so gradually - and he was very fragile when he first came home after seven months. It took time. It was not something, I mean, when you think of seven months and then you think of three or five or 10 more months of just integrating all that he had seen that he really believed and that he wanted to grow into. So this is a human journey, but it's an education for the heart much more than for the mind. It's something where the yearning of our hearts is realized in a way that we could never have imagined. And he became in the community--it was so obvious; he could not stop telling us how much God loved us. He just couldn't, and blessing every place we went, we got a blessing and he blessed us and so on. In this last paragraph in The Prodigal Son, he says, “When I look at my aging hands, I realize that I've been given these hands to bless people and not to curse them, but to bless them and to send them on their way and to trust them and to help them become full human beings.” It's beautiful.

  Karen: Oh, Sue, thank you so much. That's a wonderful, wonderful story. If you have not read The Return of the Prodigal Son let me encourage you. It's a treasure. You will enjoy that book. Thank you for being with us. Join us again for Now and Then.

• Sr. Sue Mosteller "My Friendship With" Part Four | Episode Transcript

  Karen Pascal: Hello, welcome to Now and Then. I'm Karen Pascal, the Executive Director of the Henri Nouwen Society and I am with Sister Sue Mosteller.  Sister Sue was a dear friend of Henri Nouwen’s, someone who worked with him, someone who enjoyed his company at L”Arche Daybreak where they both were there for 10 years.

  Sue, I would like to ask you what it felt like first of all, to have just Henri in your everyday life. Was he a good friend?

  Sr. Sue Mosteller: Oh yes. It took time, but we became friends and yes I would say we were very good friends. It was challenging also because we were very different. And we worked together so that made our encounters more than what most people would have. But he was just this most beautiful man. And of course, I can talk very positively about him now that he's gone. I wish I had been as kind when he was here. But he was wonderful to work with. He was very humble. He was listening. He was so pastoral and his heart’s desire was just to help people to grow and to deepen. And this was a quality that just touched me so much that whoever he spoke to, he was interested in them as a person, but as a person on a human journey. And he was really-- he made himself there to listen as a shepherd who wants to give them affirmation for the journey, who wants to nourish them and help them on their way. And who wants to, when they're in crisis, reach out to keep them from danger. And so these qualities were very, very dear to me.  I really I loved him in a very deep way, I would say.

  Karen: Now he clearly saw your giftedness. You're a writer as well. And did he draw you out? Did he encourage you? Did he want you to read his work and critique it? What was your kind of relationship over writing?

  Sr. Sue: Well, I mean he was very, very encouraging, although I am not a writer. I like to tell stories and that's what I can write, but I don't make things up in my head. So he was able to articulate some of these experiences that were marvelous and deep. But he gave me all his stuff to read before he published it. And he gave it to a number of people. I was not the only one. And he was really open to feedback. The other thing was that he was so generous; well, the most generous person I ever met in my whole life, with everything: his money, his car, his goods, his, everything. It was just for anybody who needed or wanted it.

  But he also wanted to share his ministry. So from a very early moment when he was invited - 60 invitations a week or so - to go and give talks and do things he began to take people from Daybreak with him, people with disabilities and the assistants, and he would invite them to speak about their life at Daybreak. And he would bring them right into the audience and have them on the stage and work with him. And he invited me very closely into that ministry. I did lots of retreats and things with him, and we traveled together to do talks and things like that. So he was not needing to just have center stage by himself. He was really generous, open, easy, happy to have people with him and including people. And his friends, his, I want to say his 1200 closest friends, because he had a million friends -that his friends that came to visit him in droves at Daybreak, he didn't take them off to a corner by himself. The first thing he did was put them at the dinner table in one of the houses and he'd be someplace else. And they were just sitting there, scared to death and not knowing what to do, but he just wanted them to know the community. He wanted to share the community with them. So we got to know so many of his friends, which has been such an asset since his death, because those friendships continue and people are very, very wonderful.

  Karen: Now Henri died very suddenly, September 21st, 1996. Nobody was anticipating that he would die, least of all you Sue. And when the will was read, you were in for a surprise. What did you discover?

  Sue: Well we had to practically force him to make a will. We kept saying, “You're flying all over the world and you have all these people in all these different countries and friends and assets and things like that. We don't know what's yours, what's theirs. We have no idea. And you better just get it settled because it's not fair to us if we have to pick up any of the pieces.”

  So sure enough, it's what happened. And he died very suddenly. And it took us several years to, I mean, it was all over, but anyway, he had left a beautiful will. And so I had to go through it the morning of his death to find something for the people in Holland, because he died in Holland, they were calling us. And so I was looking for what they were asking for.

  And all of a sudden I saw my name and I said, “Oh, that's nice, Henri left me something.” I don't know but I didn't stop to read it. So I went on and I found the stuff and everything. Anyway later someone said, well, “You know, you're in Henri's will.” I said, “That's right my name was there.” And they said, “Yeah, you're the literary executrix of his estate.” And I said, “What does that mean?” And they said, “Well, you know, all his papers and letters and things, like you're responsible for all of that.” So needless to say that was a surprise, not being so literary myself.

  Karen: What an inheritance.

  Sue: What a gift. I mean what a gift. So it has been a gift. For 20 years I've been involved in it but I'm not responsible today for anything, because I've retired from all of it. But there's some wonderful people, especially Karen, who are looking after the legacy today. And Henri had published 40 books. We took a hundred boxes of papers from Yale University. We had a hundred boxes in our basement. We hired the most wonderful archivist, Gabrielle Earnshaw, who worked for 16 years cataloging everything in the Kelly Library at St. Michaels. And today we have a collection that's beautiful: 16,000 letters that Henri received and 8,000 letters that we have collected since his death. And so things are beginning to be published now out of the archives. And this is a great, great asset.

  Karen: Well Sue you were the right person for that job. You treasured it. I'm sure you resented it at some point. I once heard the line that if you'd known what he was going to do, you would've killed him, but it was a little late.

  But here's this treasury of, as you said, papers, documents, original manuscripts, loads of pictures, all sorts of things. And we would encourage you, this is a place you can go online and you can connect with them. It's the Henri J.M. Nouwen Archive and Research Center at the University of Toronto, St. Michael's College, in the Kelly Library, or just connect with us at henrinouwen.org. We will connect you there because there's some wonderful, wonderful materials to research and see, talks to listen to.

  And thank you Sue for being with me today and just for sharing insights into how you and Henri Nouwen were friends for life and beyond life. Thanks.

  Sr. Sue:

  Thank you.