Revolution of Tenderness (Book Review)

Divyadaan Brothers, Revolution of Tenderness, Mumbai: Tej Prasarini, 2016, ISBN 978-81-87060-59-8, pp. x + 150, Rs. 150.

This book was released as a souvenir on the occasion of the Holy Father, Pope Francis declaring the Jubilee Year of Mercy. It is composed of a set of 10 articles written by student-brothers themselves and aiming to help the reader live out the year of mercy in mundane events of everyday life. The book opens with a prayer to be merciful to others and an anonymous poem that has no direct bearing on the theme of mercy but rather offers an insight into the direction the articles within will take.

The articles don’t follow a pre-conceived pattern but reflect the individual preference of the author. There are a handful of typos and grammatical errors that crept into the pages. A number of the articles appear a bit winding and taper in quality and logic towards the end turning gradually into glorified sermons. I found just a couple of articles worthwhile. While a good attempt was made to break down the virtue of mercy into the practicality of daily life, it wasn’t done systematically or fairly. While a lot of pious sentiments and ideas were put forth, very few stemmed from concrete experiences of mundane people. This in a sense defeated the whole purpose of the book. Another surprise was that hardly any mention was made either of the jubilee or of the Pope. I honestly expected something in that regard.


Sadly, the book is just a one time read. It has very little to offer in terms of novelty or insight into the mind of the Holy Father and of the Church. It turned out to give greater importance to psychology and social etiquette and failed to enter deeper into real issues. While promising much, the book delivered precious little.      

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent
Read more

St. Joseph: A Father after the Father's Heart (Book Review)

Image
  St. Joseph: A Father after the Father’s Heart , Hyderabad: Don Bosco Publishing House, 2021, Rs. 150, pp. 240. The book is a compilation of articles from various authors writing about qualities of St. Joseph. They have used the litany of St. Joseph as an index and have put together articles on each of the invocations. All the contributors are Salesians from different parts of India but there a couple of contributors from abroad as well. The book lends itself to be a souvenir of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared. Let me start out by commenting on the quality of production. The paper is of good quality and so is the design and layout. It is neat and has an attractive cover. Coming to the content, it gets rather repetitive but that is understandable considering that there is so little Biblical foundation for an exposition of St. Joseph. The articles often reference Pope Francis’ letter Patris Corde and extensively utilize Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortatio
Read more

A Day with Don Bosco

                              Don Bosco was declared the Patron of Youth by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He received his mission: to be Father to the young, in a dream at the tender age of nine. He nurtured this call throughout his life and never wasted an opportunity to gather boys and direct them to God. He did not do this as a spiritual director, (at least no at first!) but rather as a friend, a companion and a seminarian. As a young boy, he would attract youngsters with his magic tricks, tightrope skills, games etc and then get them to recite the rosary with him or recount to them the Sunday sermon (which he remembered thanks to his prodigious memory). Already then, he had ingeniously found a way to combine religion and entertainment. His entertainment was necer for entertainment sake but rather a façade or an advertisment for religious instruction. Even as a young priest, boys would long for more than just a wekkly encounter with him. They loved him and found in him a friend w
Read more