Introduction by the Abbot of Downside

BY

THE ABBOT OF DOWNSIDE

I T is a familiar experience that at different times of our life we have different tastes in literature. It is still commoner, for obvious reasons, that our taste in spiritual literature develops or varies. For the last few years I confess that I have found no writer so helpful to myself as Perejean Pierre da Caussade, of the Society of Jesus. Yet his principal work is nothing else than a compilation, published a hundred and ten years after ) his death, from his correspondence.

There is a kind of parallel for this in the famous treatise Sancta Sophia, which was put together from the various writings of Father Augustine Baker by Serenus Cressy. But in the case of Caussade the whole material of his great book, VAbandon de VAme, consisted of letters to a few Visitat ion nuns, incomplete and incorrectly copied, and all of these contained applications of one doctrine and one method of direction for one class of people.

P&re de Caussade did, however, publish a book in his own lifetime, though he did not put his name to it, but said simply e par un P. de la Compagnie de J£sus, Docteur en Th^ologie. 9 The permission of the Provincial of Champagne to print it was addressed to P£re Paul-Gabriel Antoine, the famous writer on Moral Theology. Since the works of Antoine in French were similarly anonymous, under the same description (either ‘ un Pere de la C. de J, 5 or ‘ un Docteur en

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Th^ologie ’), the public concluded that Antoine was the author of Caussade’s treatise.¹²

Of the life of this now celebrated writer only the main facts and dates seem to be known. He was born in 1675, and died in 1751 at Toulouse, where he entered the Jesuit novitiate for the province of Toulouse in 1693. He taught classics 1694-1702, did his theological studies 1702-6, and was ordained Priest in 1705; his final vows were in 1708. He taught grammar, physics, and logic till 1714. After this he is a preacher and confessor in various places, Rodez, Montauban, Auch, Clermont, St. Flour, Annecy, Beauvais, and in Lorraine; he is back at Toulouse in 1740. His only book appeared at Perpignan in 1741. He became successively Rector of the Colleges of Perpignan 1741-3, and Albi 1744-6. From 1746 to his death he is in the professed House at Toulouse, and is Director of the Seminaire des clercs, by which I presume Pere Dudon means the Jesuit Theological Students.

From a literary point of view there is nothing remarkable about his only published book, the Instruction on Prayer. It is a dialogue, and attempts no fine writing. The Spiritual letters are, however, admirably and charmingly expressed. But even these do not lead us to anticipate the eloquence of the notes on Abandon which had been combined into a treatise by a nun, and were reset by Pere Ramiere. De Caussade here speaks from experience and from the heart. His rhetoric is not unstudied: he indulges in apostrophe and interpellation as well as in careful periods. His words are lighted up with a magic splendour by his enthusiasm and zeal. His sentences are often superb in their formation as

{ You forget, at least in practice, this other incontestable truth that perfection does not consist in receiving great gifts from God, like the gifts of recollection, prayer, spiritual taste for divine things, but in simply adhering to al l the _wills of God in all imaginable situations, whether interior or exterior, in which Providence can place us.’ (Abandon, Vol. II, p. 62.) ‘I ought to desire my progress and perfection only as much as God wishes it and by the means he wishes 5 (p. 63) But of course God does desire our progress and perfection much more than we do (and he wishes us to desire it as much as he does); but only he can know the right means, the right way, the right end.

The whole rule of our life is God’s Will. At the last day we shall be judged according to our works. Our good vyLQrks are those ^accordance with God’s Will at the moment we do them. They are oux renunciation of self, they are the gift of ourselves to God. It is right to desire our own salvation and our own perfection, for this desire is a part of our nature. But we ought to desire it not only for our own sake, but still more for God’s sake, because he.wishesjt, and made us for himself. Charity is not the love which wants to get (though that is good), but the love which wants to give, which is better; God’s love can never want to get, but is always giving, always charity.

So our love is to be—a love which consists in giving ourselves to God. The active side is obedience to all God’s commands, counsels, and inspirations; the passive side is the acceptance of all God does by abandon.

There is no English word for abandon, for c abandonment ’ is only just coming into use in this transferred sense. The doctrine is mere Christianity, and even Natural Religion; but it was formulated in a special way by S. Ignatius, who chose the word ‘ in differ ence.’ S. Francis de Sales took up S. Ignatius’s teaching; he rejects such words as * conformity ’ (so Scaramelli and many others), or c resignation ’_(so Father Baker), as

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less expressive than 4 indifference.’ S. Francis is perhaps ignorant of the word abandon, but this admirable word was used by the French writers of his generation and the next. De Caussade takes it from his master, Bossuet: 4 Abandon a la divine Providence.’

The doctrine, however, he has derived not so much from Bossuet as from his Father S. Ignatius, who begins and ends his exercises with this simple and sublime teaching: in the Foundation he lays it down dryly, with irresistible logic; in the final Contemplatio ad amorem he spiritualizes it as the conclusion of the whole retreat: * Sume et suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem....’ I hope the reader knows this prayer by heart. It is very dear to every son of S. Ignatius; it sums up his doctrine; it sums up religion and perfection; it is exactly what Pere de Caussade reiterates in eve ry key.

Doubtless it is all in the Sermon on the Mount, in S. John, in S. Paul; evidently it has been practised by every holy soul since Adam. But the most necessary truths can be clarified and stated anew; and so has this truth been separated and developed by S. Ignatius and S. Francis, by Bossuet and Caussade. And it is therefore not astonishing that the last of these has been able to discover an element so obvious, so necessary, that it had not been urged by his greater predecessors. It is continually being found useful, to point to the obvious, the ordinary, the habitual, because we forget it; and it often comes as a revelation even when we knew we knew.it.

To reach this new element we must first insist on Caussade’s teaching that the who le universe i n its movement and development is God’s loving Providence; for each man his environment is the expression of Qod’s '7 Will; and not only the environment but the motions of ' nature and of grace within the soul are God’s ar ran gement, God’s leading; everything to each of us is God’s touch 1 _ex cept our own will, whenit_resists_his. We live in God, bathed in his action upon us through the u

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creatures around us and through our own reactions. Life has been described as correspondence with environment; a dead thing does not act or react. In the spiritual life our whole environment is God’s Hand upon,jus: diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum. The whole of perfection is to act in accordance with God’s c signified Will ’ and to react in accordance with his * Will of Good Pleasure, 5 which we find in all the circumstances, internal and external, of our life.

For we are not to choose our own perfection any more than we are to see our own progress. The question what is in itself most perfect is an academical one: our real perfection is God’s plan for each of us. We can be perfect here and now by Being exactly as God washes us tobe here and now: perfection is not an aim to be realized in a dim and doubtful future, but it is for this minute, this very minute, and not the next minute or two: hodie si vocem eius audieritis; this moment is the mosF precious of all moments, for it is the moment in which weTHhave the power of abandoning ourselves wholly to God’s Will. No other moment is in our power. We need not worry about what is to come; by hope we abandon to God the care of the morrow, of our perseverance, of our death, of our eternity; but by charity we abandon ourselves to His Will now.

Here, I venture to think, is Pere de Caussade’s novel contribution to ascetical literature. We all knew that it is only in the present that we merit, only in the present that we act, only in the present that we love. But he connects this necessary fact with our duty of confidence as to the past and the future: he insists on it as the safeguard against worry and despondency, the great danger of all dangers, and he expresses it in a startling phrase: 6 the Sacrament of the Present Moment. 5

God is everywhere, and in past and future: He is above all space and time: but to me, it is not the distant but the nem^ not^the^pjistjand juture_ but^ the pres ent moment, which is the veil of God, or rather the unveiling

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of God. I cannot always tell his Will for the future, but I can never doubt it ng w; and I can be always sure of being united to his Will now. If we seek him, we have found him.³

‘ Vraiment, dit Jacob, Dieu est en ce lieu et je n’en savais rien. Vous cherchez Dieu, chere ame, et il est partout; tout vous Fannonce, tout vous le donne; il a passe k cote, autour, au dedans at a travers de vous; il y demeure et vous le cherchez. Ah ! vous cherchez Videe de Dieu, et vous avez sa substance; vous cherchez la perfection; et elle est dans tout ce qui se presente k vous de soi-meme. Vos souffrances, vos actions, vos attraits sont des especes sous lesquelles Dieu se donne a vous par soi-meme, pendant que vous tendez vainement k des id£es sublimes, dont il ne veut point se rev£tir pour loger chez vous.⁴

‘ Marthe cherche a contenter Jesus par de beaux apprets; et Madeleine se contente de Jesus comme il lui plait de se donner a elle. Jesus trompe meme Madeleine; il se presente sous la figure d’un jardinier, et Madeleine le cherche sous Tidee qu’elle s’en formait. Les Apotres voient Jesus, et ils le prennent pour un fantome.

‘ Dieu se ddguise done pour elever Tame k la pure foi, et lui apprendre k le trouver sous toutes sortes d’esp£ces; car quand elle sait le secret de Dieu, il a beau se deguiser, elle dit: Le voila, derriere la muraille; il regarde a travers les treillis et par les fenetres. O divin amour, cachez-vous; bondissez d’epreuve en epreuve; liez par vos attraits et par devoirs; composez, melez, confondez, rompez comme des fils toutes les idees et toutes les mesures de Tame ! Qu’elle perde terre, qu’elle ne sente et ne s’apergoive plus ni chemins, ni voies, ni senders ni lumieres; qu’apres vous avoir trouve dans vos demeures et vos vetements ordinaires, dans le repos de la solitude, dans Toraison, dans Passuj ettissement a telles ou telles pratiques, dans les souffrances, dans les soulagements donnes au prochain, dans la fuite des conversations, des affaires; qu apres avoir tente toutes les manieres et tous les moyens connus de vous plaire, elle demeure a court, ne vous voyant plus en rien de tout cela comme autrefois. Mais que l’inutilite de ses efforts la conduise a laisser tout desormais, pour vous trouver en vous meme, et ensuite partout, en tout, sans distinction, sans reflexion. Car, 6 divin amour, quelle erreur de ne pas vous voir en tout ce qui est bon et dans toutes les creatures ! Pourquoi done vous chercher en d’autres que celles par lesquelles vous voulez vous donner ?...

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Demeurez, petit ver, dans l’obscur et etroit cachot de votre miserable coque, jusqu’a ce que la chaleur de la grace vous forme et vous fasse eclore. Mangez ensuite toutes les feuilles qu’elle presente, et ne regrettez pas, dans cette activite d’abandon, la quietude que vous avez perdue. Arretez-vous ensuite, quand cette divine action vous arrete; perdez, par des alternatives de repos et d’activite, par des metamorphoses incomprehensibles, toutes vos anciennes formes, methodes et manieres, pour vous revetir, en mourant et en resuscitant, de^ celle que cette divine action vous designera ellememe. 5 (Vol. I, pp. 110-12.)

This passage manifestly describes the passive Nights of the Senses and of the Spirit after S. John of the Cross, and the silkworm is borrowed from S. Teresa. But the character of the passage is pure Caussade. For the result of 4 abandonment 5 is not ordinarily to be a conspicuous and startling sanctity; on the contrary, God leads 4 abandoned 5 souls in unexpected ways^ in darkness, without aim, without satisfaction, without definite perceptions: 4 It is the character of abandon always to lead a mysterious life, and to receive extraordinary and miraculous gifts from God by the^use of common, natural, accidental things, in which there is apparently nothing but the chance of the world and the elements ’ (p. 125). When God is in all things, the use made of them by His order is not the using of creatures, but it is the enjoyment of the Divine action, which tr ansm its its gifts_by variedjcanals. These do not sanctify of themselves, but onTy~Ey the Divine action, which can and does frequently communicate its graces t o simple souls by things which would appear opposed to the end which is its jjjm. It givesJi ght by mud as well asjby niost subtle matter, and the instrument it wills to employ is always the only one 5 (p. 125). t ^is a development of S. Ignatius’s foundation:

All things besides man on the face of the earth have been created for man’s sake and in order to help him

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in the following out of the end for which he has been created. 5 When a simple soul has arrived at a ‘ state, 5 a habit, of abandonment, it becomes sensitive to God’s action and 4 passive, 5 so that all creatures (whether the external environment or the internal motions of nature and grace) are co-operating to push and to pull it along a straight line to God. There is no exception, whether joys or temptations, and there is but one narrow way for each.

This clear teaching as to co-operation active and passive, minute by minute, with God’s leading, without anxiety, without other aims, without questionings, makes us anticipate quite securely what kind of mental prayer will be taught by Caussade to the advanced religious for whom his direction is intended. Evidently it will be a prayer of giving themselves to God, and oraison de simple remise will be the name which will occur to our minds; and the very name will suggest Bossuet. And in general we shall be right. Caussade often refers to Fenelon, to S. Francis de Sales, and S. J.-F. de Ghantal, but when he wrote a book on prayer he based it on Bossuet.

There was excellent reason for this. In the eighteenth century an apology for simple prayer was needed. The condemnation of Molinos and other Quietists had been exploited by the Janserjsts, whose aversion to contemplation has been pointed out by M. Henri Bremond. On this point no one opposed them successfully. By 1741 the Maurists, the Oratorians, and other orders were very Jansenistic; and the dogmatic theologians had long since ignored any forms of prayer but formal meditation on the one hand and qu asi-miraculo us ecstasie s and revelations on the other. The Jesuits were occupied against Jansenism in bringing the laity to the frequentation of the sacraments, and in teaching meditation to those who could be induced to live a life of piety. But the Jesuits themselves were being attacked by bitter enemies, the Jansenists, the Voltaireans, and most of the

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Governments of Europe, who were in thirty-five years to obtain their downfall and the destruction of half the Catholic missions of the world.

It was more than advisable, it was needful for a Jesuit to be on his guard. An unreasoning terror of Quietism prevailed, and the fires of contemplation were burning very low in eighteenth-century France. But the most famous opponentc£Quietism had been the incomparable Bossuet, in these latter days a Father of the Church, whose repute for learning and orthodoxy was as great as his fame for eloquence) He had led the French bishops in their issy articles against the Quietists; he had been the uncompromising enemy of Fenelon’s deductions from the ecstatic exclamations of Saints. A defence of prayer under his aegis and couched in his very words would admit of no reply—could encounter no attack. It would be privileged.

Consequently Caussade conceived the idea of a book on prayer taken entirely from Bossuet’s very large and learned refutation of Quietism, his Instruction sur les divers etats d'Oraison, and he adopted the very title of Bossuet’s tome: Instructions spirituelles en forme de dialogue sur les divers etats d'oraison, d'apres la doctrine de M. Bossuet y eveque de Meaux. It therefore represents itself as a summary of the positive teaching contained in and under M. de Meaux’s polemics.

It is interesting that Caussade has not used Bossuet merely as a recommendation for his own method, and in order to avoid censure. For he tells us in the preliminary dialogue that he was himself converted by the study of Bossuet, from whom he learned first to despise and detest the false mystics and then (on a second reading of the Instruction ) to esteem the true mystics. But for Bossuet, he adds, he might have remained all his life in the vulgar ideas as to what is known as mysticism. Consequently in Caussade’s case, at all events, Bossuet’s heavy tome produced the effect the writer had intended.

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The work is in two parts. The former half explains in detail the faults of the Quietists, and thus makes it clear that the second part is not Quietistic in teaching the prayer of simplicity or simple remise.

The latter part is the more interesting, and has therefore been republished frequently without the former. A readable paraphrase in English by L. V. Sheehan (Herder, 1923) has made this portion more accessible in this country. But that admirable writer on prayer, the Franciscan P£re Ludovic de Besse, in his excellent preface to the 1891 edition here reprinted and translated, was right in regretting that the first part had been so seldom republished. It has considerable importance, not only because nobody reads the Instructions of Bossuet, nor even because everything by Caussade is precious, but most of all because the real errors of Quietism are not well known. The dialogue explains them very clearly, and makes it quite impossible for the second part to be suspected of cognate errors.

For though the latter part is perhaps easier to read, the former part is equally valuable. The careful definitions of Quietism as reprobated by Bossuet are still necessary to-day, in order to distinguish true contemplation from its perversions; and by this method we get both an apology for ‘ simple 5 prayer and a clearer understanding of its nature. In this first part we also find Bossuet’s doctrine of abandon, and the distinction between beginners and the advanced, and teaching as to the progress from discursive meditation to contemplation. In this part Gaussade also develops the truth that contemplative prayer is not so much elevating (so far as a soul’s own consciousness of it is concerned) as lowering: of all prayers it is la plus aneantissante, and does not lead to vanity but to appauv - rissement; i Nothing is more sublime in the books than contemplation, nothing more beautiful, more grand in theory than passive forms of prayer; but injgractice nothing is more humiliating, more crucifying. 5 It is

XXV111 the oraison de tenebres, de confusion, d'impuissances, d’ane'antissements, 4 in which it seems as if the mind, the reason, the human will, the whole man, loses itself to become before Thee, O my God, as a beast of burden,* ut iumentum apud Te; and this, because it is 4 the school of the heart * to make it supple and pliant. But so dark is it at times, so vague and elusive that it is often practised unawares, and the contemplative is not privy to his own prayer, and will complain that he does not and cannot pray.

It is also in this first part that Caussade begins to warn us against worrying about our own prayer— retours sur nous-memes —unnecessary^ introspection, the delirious joy of pondering about. ourselves. And he also hints at the curiously divided consciousness which develops, and turns contemplatives into psychologists in spite of themselves.

Bossuet’s doctrine is elsewhere found, in his letters to Mme. de Maisonfort and in his beautiful tract 4 Mani&re courte et facile pour faire oraison en foi et de simple presence de Dieu. 5 But Caussade has extracted equally definite teaching from the large polemical treatise, and the result is an instruction which seems to me second only to Ste. J. F. de Chantal in usefulness. I need not say that, as aCgoo&Jesuit^Pere de Caussadeassumes that all have begun by the practice of meditation, and that they will not advance into the contemplative prayer he describes until they have developed the signs insisted on by S. John of the Cross.

Perhaps, however, the most peculiar point in Caussade’s doctrine is an a ttempt to diminish or escape.the Night of the Senses (I mean the painful unlearning of meditation, and learning of comfortless and supersensual prayer) in the case of those who are nearing the chasm between the two states of soul. He recommends that those who still meditate should be ready to pause, when they can, and welc ome such minute s of attentionto God, The tendency is always to worry

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about recurring to the subject of meditation. Caussade advises inattention to the subject, whenever it means the beginning of ‘ obscure contemplation.’ This encouragement of pauses is merely a practical way of expressing S. John of the Cross’s advice to welcome obscure contemplation, and not to regard it as a sinful divagation from the subject or as a sign of laziness.

This simple prayer is the correlative of the habit of abandonment, or rather it is the_same_t^ing. Consequently the prayer is equally good, and the soul is equally content with it, whether it is dry or pleasant, distracted or full of peace. It humbles, it tries, it strips, it crucifies. It leads in unsuspected ways to no apparent goal; for God’s ways are unsearchable, and there are manifold qualities and species of sanctity. All that Caussade says of abandonment is true of prayer, so that one who has attained the habit of abandonment is always praying in this way—giving himself to God. The rule is simply to pray_as,_we j.can at the moment^and that is the way^ God wishes us to pray; to ask no other prayer; to be grateful for what grace gives at the moment. A prayer that humbles us is better for us than a prayer which makes us satisfied that we have prayed well.

It is clear that the saintly Jesuit must be describing his own practice of abandon and his own method of prayer. Is there not also, perhaps, some autobiography concealed in those chapters of the treatise on Abandonment which Pere Ramiere has grouped together as fi Trials attached to the state of Abandonment ’ ? These trials are blame and criticism by persons regarded as wise and pious; the apparent uselessness of one’s life; the visible exterior faults which others perceive in abandoned souls, and which they perceive in themselves; their interior humiliations, which God provides; the obscurity of their state and their apparent opposition to the Will of God. The fruit of these trials is precious; but it is hardly earned. I quote as an example:

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‘ Despicable in the eyes of others, the souls which God raises to this state are yet more despicable in their own eyes. There is nothing in all their sufferings and doings that is not very little and very humiliating; there is nothing striking in their way of life, all in it is common; and within are.worries, without are contradictions and plans overturned... no heroic enterprises, no excessive fasting or almsgiving, nor an ardent and_ allembracing zeal 7 CJniteH“simpTy to God by faith and | love, they see all the phenomenal part of themselves 1 in disorder. They despise themselves the more when they come to compare themselves with those who pass for saints, and who are capable of subjecting themselves to rules and methods, and show nothing but what is orderly in all their character and in the succession of their actions.’

Yet naturally Caussade has to say: c No doubt those who are honoured with the most important offices are not in consequence excluded of necessity from the state of abandonment; still less is this state incompatible with the brilliant virtue of that sanctity which imposes itself on universal veneration,’ but he hastens to add, ‘ But how much more numerous are the souls elevated to this sublime state, whose virtue is known to God alone ? ’ Indeed, it is interesting to note how Caussade insists on the existence of hid den s aints, or rather that sanctity Js usually^ hidden, and only occasionally brought to light by Providence for our imitation. He teaches, for example, after Fenelon, that it is a great grace to conquer <tn one’s faults in a little and miserable and humiliating grand style. All progress is progress in humility.

These very inadequate citations and appreciations may lead some to find help in Pere de Caussade. Of course, many pious people have not reached anything like the level he assumes in the cloistered nuns to whom he imparts the spirit of their Father S. Francis. Such good people will find de Caussade not merely dull, but

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at once obvious and misleading. Many others will have advanced beyond his advice, which will seem to them true but trite. Others will be more * mystical, 5 with more sense of God and more definite ‘ graces 5 than Caussade presupposes, and they may have to go by^a higher road. But yet his general teaching of 1 abandonment 5 must be true for all, though possibly in a different dress for each.

How interesting it would be to know what this holy man taught to persons in the world, or to the young religious at Toulouse ! There are many foods and medicines. S. Ignatius gave rules for * discernment of spirits 5 for his first week which would be useless and harmful in the second week; and conversely, those for the second week would never do for the first week. One is sure that he would have had yet another set of rules for, say, enclosed nuns, or professed Jesuits. Caussade would teach everyone that God’s Will is the one rule of perfection, and that the abandonment of absolute confidence can never be out of place. But it is practised in various degrees, with more or less frequency, and becomes more and more a habit; and a few attain to the close union which Caussade sometimes assumes in his treatise on abandon. In his letters, and in these Dialogues, he shows how by t he strip ping and darkness undergone in the Night of the Spirit the soul can be purified by Goff Himself, and fashioned into an instrument which works, with prodigious energy, in harmony with the Divine Will, so that its activity is united with God’s preventing and co-operating grace in such wise that the human subject appears to be a passive agent (so to speak) in the Hand of God. Thus the human is merged in the Divine influx, and the resistance and stiffness of natural egoism is carried away. But the process is long and painful as described.

These casual remarks on Pere de Caussade’s teaching have been given here for the sake of those who have not yet studied his Treatise on Abandon and his letters. The

XXxii INTRODUCTION dialogues on Prayer are explicit and clear; but they gain considerably when they are brought into relation with the whole ascetical doctrine of their author. Those who find these dialogues useful should not omit to read his other works for the sake of the light they shed on the present book, which will then give still greater help in the evolution of simplicity out of multiplicity and in the elimination of selfishness, the universal sin, that God’s Will may be done as it is in Heaven.

H. John Chapman.

Footnotes

1. 1 take the facts from SommervogeTs great work. But his account of Caussade’s works and editions has been usefully- supplemented by a careful article in the Revue d ’ Ascdtique et de Mystique, January, 1930, Vol. II, No. 41, pp. 63-71. ‘ Notes sur les Editions du P. de Caussade,’ by Pere Dudon, S.J. Some general remarks on Caussade’s life are found in different editions of his books. well as in their teaching, and he carries us away by impetuous outbursts. The Spiritual letters were grouped by Pere Ramiere, when he published them in 1861, into seven books, con- cerned successively with esteem and love of Abandon- ment to God, the exercise of the virtue of Abandonment, obstacles thereto, first trials and sufferings, further trials, fear of the loss of God, mystical agony and death. This may not sound an encouraging list of subjects. But it is more consoling in fact than in name. Caussade’s doctrine is the precise opposite of a very common view that aridity is a sign of lukewarmness and thatinabjjity to fix the attention, loss of all feeling of faith, fears of ↩

2. enmity of God,’ and desponde ncy as to ultimate salvation are bad_signs, which show that the soul is in a dangerous state. They are indeed partly errors, and might be bad signs in the c purgative way 5; but in advanced souls they are, according to S. John of the Gross, a part of the Night of the Spirit, and are caused by the blinding rays of that Night. The value of Caussade’s teaching is better seen when we contrast it with the cruel teaching of the Stoical school. For ex- ample, there is an attractive little book recently edited by a nun of Stanbrook, The Kingdom of God in the Soul, by Father John Evangelist of Bois-le-duc (‘ Balduke ’). This pious Capuchin (whose work was published in English in 1657 by Dorn Peter Salvin, O.S.B., of S. Gregory s) conceives that holy souls will regularly obtain internal illumination if they walk in the right \ way, and teaches that it is their own fault when they are in darkness. c No man can be without fault who does not find God present in his soul; for if he believed himself to blame for this privation he would set himself to search out the cause thereof, and soon finding it, he would amend it by God’s grace’ (p. 97). He even states: ‘When the soul exercises herself thus interiorly, according to our admonitions, no desolation or aridity can befall her, such as is common to all other experi- Xviii INTRODUCTION cnees’ (p. 180). This is indeed sanguine. If true, such a panacea is worth a guinea a box. All that Father John Evangelist demands from the soul is perfect abnegation, perfect resignation, pure love, and naked faith—nothing more difficult than this ! He appears to hold that any soul can attain these super- human (or anti-human) qualities by its own efforts (with grace, of course), and he is sure that thus will be removed all impediments to the enjoyment of Divine Union. He entirely disregards the tpac hings_of the Saints, that perfect abnegation is worked in man by God, through internal as well as external trials and sufferings, and not principal^jDy~ 4 iur own.feeble penances and self-denials. Nor does he remember that suffering—internal suffering—is a condition of the highest love in this world, and that \ desolation 5 may be perfecting when there is nojtieed o f pu rifying. He does not mention the example of Christ: he forgets the Agony in the Garden, and the darkness at Calvary. His ideal is the StQvcJjraOiCa which Evagrius Ponticus and other hermits mistakenly aimed at attaining. Our Lord has contrariwise shown us that ‘ My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ’ may be the very ^culmination of suffering love. The devout Capuchin’s doctrine, which teaches an infallible method for ridding ourselves of all interior suffering and torment jof conscience, would Se more consoling could it be verified. But I imagine that it is in most cases (I do not venture to say in all) as contrary to experience as it is to Christian teaching; and in consequence it is disappointing in practice, and cruel. Pere de Caussade does not teach, like Father John Evangelist, that the soul is to aim at Divine Union in this life and intense joy and peace by renunciation of creatures and by naked faith—this is a magnificent ideal—but recommends something very much ^simpler, more obvious, less dangerous. I quote a passage almost at random: ↩

3. 1 can always kno w what I h ave to do this instant, but I cannot always know now, this instant, what I am Tcf do in the future, or even in the next instant. For if it is God’s Will that I should be in doubt in this present instant, this is as far as I can see, and is quite eaerng h. But it is clearly God’s Will that when by his Will I am in doubt, I should also have confidence that I shall have sufficient guidance at the moment when I have to act. This confidence in God’s guidance is not an 4 illumination.’ On the contrary, Caussade supposes an advanced person will bo hab itually in obscuri ty. We have not to aim at a theoretical perfection or at an~ideal sanctity, nor have we to expect our actions to end in success rather than in failure, nor have we to suppose that God will inspire us to follow the course which is best, most prudent, or most lucky. But we are sure that he will enabl e us to follow our cons cienc e (which may be ill-informed) and thus to act as is most pleasing to hi imself. Why not walk in darkness and doubt and worry, yet at t he same time have (atThe top of our soul) perfect peace and light that'ft'is "God’s W ill that we should. h>R iti _dfl, r knpg« n,nr| rirm ht and worry ? It sounds a paradox, as common sense so often does. But it is really plain sense. And it is the opposite of 4 illuminism.* It is quite easy to find apparent 4 illuminism ’ in Caussade. Illuminism means, ‘ I have prayed, and God will inspire me to do the wisest thing or speak the right words, with infallible. results.’ Caussade, however, would say, ‘ I have prayed and have the right intuition: therefore God will be satisfied with the stupid / things I do or say, as He knows I cannot do better.’ But our author most reasonably adds that these imperfect acts and words, in the long rp n tur n out most cur iously effecti ve and successful as though by accident, while the doer or speaker feels foolish and incompetent and humbled. (This is surely not illuminism.) It would be odd if God’s Providence did not arrange things thus —His, who chooses the weak and the foolish to confound the strong and the wise 4 that no flesh may glory before God.’ XX111 ↩

4. We are a long way from Father John of Balduke here. ↩