HAVING just watched Krisnnamurti, reputed to be one of the most remarkable Eastern teachers of our time, talk to Oliver Hunkin on television, I am left refreshed yet saddened.
It is refreshing to hear meditation exalted as the most important activity for man; it is saddening to hear the Roman Catholic Church dismissed as a burdensome authority that plays on fear.
If the Church made the most of her own great mystical teachers, this glib accusation would not be made so readily. Admittedly St. Teresa of Avila has been declared a Doctor of the Church this year, but why is not more done to present our mystical teachers to the younger people?
The contemporary world is craving for the doctrine of the mystics. There seems no hope of finding it in Christianity— because we smother it under our social preaching, so the young turn to the oriental religions for their key to the understanding of life.
It is surely time the Church turned her attention to mystical theology if we are seriously interested in evangelisation. A renewed interest in mystical theology might also help to heal the painful divisions racking the Church, which are impeding her mission.
For some years now theologians seem to have focused their attention on the structure of the Church, often at the risk of dismantling it. Perhaps it is time to turn from the skeleton to the heart.
D. R. Boyce Morden, Surrey.