The fire of divine love - Jean Pierre de Caussade

Jean-Pierre de Caussade is known throughout the world as the author of "Self-abandonment to Divine Providence". Born in 1675, he joined the Jesuit novitiate at 18 and was ordained priest at 30. The letters and conferences that make up "self-abandonment" were written mainly when he was spiritual director to the Visitation Sisters at Nancy during the period 1730-42. Very little else is known about his life. He became blind shortly after 1742, and died at the age of 76.;If there are few biographical details, his personality comes across in his letters. Writing as he did in the aftermath of the Quietist controversy, his writings contain phrases and illustrations that might seem to indicate this tendency, but any comprehensive reading shows that there is a balance in his writings that places his orthodoxy beyond doubt. His spiritual masters are St Francis de Sales and St John of the Cross. Abbot John Chapman saw his great contribution to ascetic literature as being his insistence on faithfulness to the duty of the present moment. His teaching might be summarized in two sentences: "Remember our two great principles: (1) That there is nothing so small or so apparently indifferent which God does not ordain or permit, even to the fall of a leaf. (2) That God is sufficiently wise, and good and powerful and merciful to turn even the most, apparently, disastrous events to the advantage and profit of those who humbly adore and accept his will in all that he permits."