classic Saturday

The featured author this week is Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751). According to authors of Devotional Classics, Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith, "two key phrases have become identified with de Caussade's name. The first, 'self-abandonment to divine providence' implies a dynamic surrender of ourselves to the will and the way of God. The second, 'the sacrament of the present moment,' awakens us to the requirement of doing our duty, whatever it may be, a carrying out of God's purposes for us not only this day, or this hour, but this minute, this very minute."

A paragraph from de Caussade's The Sacrament of the Present Moment:

"Every moment, and in respect of everything, souls must say, like St. Paul, "Lord what should I do?" Let me do everything you wish. The Spirit wants one thing, the body another, but Lord, I wish only to do your divine will. Supplication, intercession, mental or vocal prayer, action or silence, faith or wisdom, particular sacraments or general grace, all these, Lord, are nothing, for your purpose is the true and only virtue in all things. It alone, and nothing else, however sublime or exalted, is the object of my devotion since the purpose of grace is the perfection of the heart, not of the mind."

Question offered at the end of this selection:

"'We must offer no resistance and blindly abandon ourselves to his divine will in perfect trust,' writes de Caussade. Which do you find more difficult: discerning God's will or doing it?"