Anthony De Mello When Bombay-born Fr. Anthony de Mello died of a heart attack at Fordham University, USA, at the start of a lecture trip across the US in 1987 at the age of 56, his numerous admirers were stunned and aghast. De Mello was at the height of his powers.
De Mello’s admirers were somewhat relieved when they learnt that he had left with his publishers Gujarat Sahitya Prakash a manuscript collection of more stories which were later published as The Prayer of the Frog in two volumes. Later two more manuscripts surfaced: Contact with God ( a collection of conferences), One Minute Nonsense (some more stories) and The Call to Love.
As Fr de Mello’s popularity mounted, 10 years after his death
Fr. David Toolan S.J. (RIP), a Jesuit editor, wrote: “In my judgment, Father de Mello’s Sadhana remains the best Catholic ‘how to’ book for someone looking for instruction in methods of prayer. Some of de Mello’s early texts, the CDF acknowledges, ‘can be helpful in achieving self-mastery, in breaking the bonds and feelings that keep us from being free, and in approaching with serenity the various vicissitudes of life’. But overall de Mello’s writings are said to exhibit a ‘progressive distancing from the essential contents of the Christian faith’.
Fr. Toolan goes on: “The Vatican is bewildered by de Mello’s emphasis on ‘awareness’ and ‘interior enlightenment’ over against Scripture, doctrine, and belief—and puts the worst possible construction on de Mello’s awkward formulations. His stress on awareness, I would say, tries to get at the difference between theory and experience, external conformity and interiorised faith, or the letter of the law versus the spirit. The Vatican complains of ‘ambiguity’ and ‘perplexity’ in interpretation.
“But of course. De Mello was not writing theology; he was a collector of parables, and loved to shake people up, get them thinking or reimagining. Above all, he was an artist in helping people to reimagine God—as much greater and more giving than they had dreamed… De Mello used an odd principle to get at the unfathomable goodness of God—the idea that God couldn’t be worse than you and I, but had to be at least as good as we are at our best. What came out of that pedestrian principle was a radical doctrine of divine abundance and grace.”
“He loved stories,” says Fr. Joseph Brown, a Jesuit priest who coordinated de Mello’s workshops in St. Louis, USA. “He was an entertainer, a storyteller and a challenger. He blows your mind. He is one of the most powerful speakers I have ever heard. He makes you see things in different ways. He was a genius of devising exercises for people to get in touch with themselves and to pray out of that experience.”
Link (here)
Readers were lapping up his books which straddled eastern and western spirituality for the first time in a way that was accessible to people everywhere. Sadhana, a virtual transcript of a workshop on vipassana meditation, was his enduring best seller.His other books included The Song of the Bird, One Minute Wisdom and Wellsprings. The first two were collections of transformative stories and the last a collection of exercises in the mould of Sadhana.
De Mello’s admirers were somewhat relieved when they learnt that he had left with his publishers Gujarat Sahitya Prakash a manuscript collection of more stories which were later published as The Prayer of the Frog in two volumes. Later two more manuscripts surfaced: Contact with God ( a collection of conferences), One Minute Nonsense (some more stories) and The Call to Love.
As Fr de Mello’s popularity mounted, 10 years after his death
the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) woke up and issued a notification warning of the dangers of de Mello’s work which it declared “incompatible with the Catholic faith” and a cause of “grave harm”.
Fr. David Toolan S.J. (RIP), a Jesuit editor, wrote: “In my judgment, Father de Mello’s Sadhana remains the best Catholic ‘how to’ book for someone looking for instruction in methods of prayer. Some of de Mello’s early texts, the CDF acknowledges, ‘can be helpful in achieving self-mastery, in breaking the bonds and feelings that keep us from being free, and in approaching with serenity the various vicissitudes of life’. But overall de Mello’s writings are said to exhibit a ‘progressive distancing from the essential contents of the Christian faith’.
Particularly objectionable, it is alleged, are his concept of the unknowability and cosmic impersonality of God, his sense of Jesus ‘as a master alongside others’, a preference for ‘enlightenment’, criticism of the church, and an excessive focus on this life rather than life after death.Bishops were ordered to ensure that the offending texts are withdrawn from sale and not reprinted.”
Fr. Toolan goes on: “The Vatican is bewildered by de Mello’s emphasis on ‘awareness’ and ‘interior enlightenment’ over against Scripture, doctrine, and belief—and puts the worst possible construction on de Mello’s awkward formulations. His stress on awareness, I would say, tries to get at the difference between theory and experience, external conformity and interiorised faith, or the letter of the law versus the spirit. The Vatican complains of ‘ambiguity’ and ‘perplexity’ in interpretation.
“But of course. De Mello was not writing theology; he was a collector of parables, and loved to shake people up, get them thinking or reimagining. Above all, he was an artist in helping people to reimagine God—as much greater and more giving than they had dreamed… De Mello used an odd principle to get at the unfathomable goodness of God—the idea that God couldn’t be worse than you and I, but had to be at least as good as we are at our best. What came out of that pedestrian principle was a radical doctrine of divine abundance and grace.”
“He loved stories,” says Fr. Joseph Brown, a Jesuit priest who coordinated de Mello’s workshops in St. Louis, USA. “He was an entertainer, a storyteller and a challenger. He blows your mind. He is one of the most powerful speakers I have ever heard. He makes you see things in different ways. He was a genius of devising exercises for people to get in touch with themselves and to pray out of that experience.”
Link (here)
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