By Anthony de Mello, SJ

Somewhere early in my religious life I had the great good fortune of making a retreat under an extraordinary man, Father Jose Calveras, who had the reputation of teaching people how to pray during his retreats. I knew of venerable old Jesuits who had been many years in religious life and came away from Father Calveras’ retreat saying, “This man has really taught me to pray,” not entirely accurate, of course, because there’s barely any Christian who doesn’t know to pray in some way or other. I suppose what they meant was that Calveras had thought them to pray more satisfactorily and in greater depth. This he certainly did for me.