The Sacrament of the Present Moment: Trust and the Hidden Life

Caussade on abandonment to divine providence, arranged as a fourteen-day retreat.

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About this edition

Somewhere in the 1730s, an unknown Jesuit told a convent of nuns one of the most freeing things ever said about the spiritual life: that holiness is not somewhere else, in a grander life you were never given, but here, in the present moment, whatever it holds, received from the hand of God.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade called it abandonment to divine providence, and, more beautifully, the sacrament of the present moment: just as God gives Himself under the humble appearance of bread, He gives Himself under the humble appearance of each passing moment.

The Sacrament of the Present Moment walks that teaching over fourteen days, in de Caussade's own words: the Fiat of Our Lady, the duty of the moment, the hidden life of Nazareth, the tide of providence, pure faith in the dark, and the last word of all, In manus tuas, Father, into Thy hands.

This is a guided retreat, not a reprint.

Inside

• Fourteen days in his own words
• His life, and the words to carry
• A treasury of prayers of abandonment
• Full-color plates: seven original Sanctified Souls paintings (the Annunciation, St. Joseph the Worker, Nazareth, the Divine Shepherdess, and more) with masters by Millet, La Tour, and Vermeer
• A journaling section, with pages for your own prayer

All doctrinal content follows the constant teaching of the Church.

Details

• Jean-Pierre de Caussade, translated by Ella McMahon
• French text edited by Fr. Henri Ramière, S.J.
• Scripture from the Douay-Rheims Bible
• Sanctified Souls, The Devotional Series
• Paperback and hardcover, 6 × 9, 100 pages, printed in full color

Stop waiting for a better moment than this one. God is in this one, giving Himself. Receive Him.