By Frank O’Shea
Tinteán readers were first introduced to Fr Dan O’Donovan in 2020, https://tintean.org.au/2020/05/10/the-hermit-priest/
Dan is an Irish-Australian priest who lived for more than 40 years among the Aboriginal people of north-western Australia, some of that time as a hermit. Born in Berlin where his father was an Irish diplomat, he lived in succeeding years in London, Rome and Portugal. He did his secondary schooling with the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood, outside Dublin, before entering the Cistercian monastery in Roscrea. There he took solemn vows and was ordained a priest, before being posted to Tarrawarra monastery in Melbourne.
In his dealings with the Aboriginal people, Dan learned as much from them as he taught them. He was particularly fascinated by Dadirri, described by local woman Miriam-Rose Ungenmerr as ‘inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness.’ As a serious practitioner of an early Eastern Christian form of meditation, Dan came to love Dadirri and in 2001, wrote a 68-page booklet on it. He was also involved at this time with Hindu spirituality and the zen meditation practices he encountered in Tamil Nadu in India.
In 1996, Fr Dan was given a sabbatical from his parish duties and decided to go to India. What we have here is the day-to-day diary that he kept when he was there, travelling a great deal and investigating the different types of zen and other forms of meditation. For some of the time, he was under the monitoring and advice of a Jesuit priest Fr Ama Samy, joining different groups, and managing to say Mass whenever he could. There was a lot of sitting, their word for meditation.
It seems to have been a journey of discovery for Dan, though towards the end of his time in the south, he writes, ‘Mass later, feeling-less and empty. I find it increasingly strained here, and I am glad to be in to the last two weeks.’ Here was an ashram called Bodhi Zenda in Tamil Nadu where he stayed for 81 days in total. The advice given to him by Fr Ama at the end was, ‘Grow where you were planted.’
The remainder of his journey involved visiting the north of India and the four temples comprising the tirthra-yatra, two devoted to Shiva and two to Vishnu. His time in the north of India was eased by care from some Catholic nuns and priests, mostly but not all from the Jesuits. It is a surprise to learn that there are so many Catholic people and so much Catholic work in India.
My Indian Diary, Tirra-yatra 1996-1997. By Dan O’Donovan. Published by Mary Doyle and Val Noone, valnoone@iinet.net.au, 2023.
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