Apr 17, 2025

Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751) was a simple man. He was driven by one compelling ambition: to love God and surrender to him completely. If we abandon ourselves to God, there is only one rule for us to follow: the duty of the present moment. This eighteenth century French priest, college teacher and monastic spiritual director offers wise counsel in the book Abandonment to Divine Providence, “Leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to his good Providence and give the present wholly to his love by being faithful to his grace.” He’s the one who coined the phrase, “The sacrament of the present moment.” Jean-Pierre had little use for futile regrets about the past or endless wrangling about the future. He said, “All will be well if we abandon ourselves to God in the present moment.”

Some of us dwell on the past while others of us obsess about the future. God wants us to enter more fully into today. I still remember something a high school student said years ago in her senior sermon, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift from God. That’s why they call it the present.” If the past is over and the future is yet to be, why not utilize Jean-Pierre’s prayer and open yourself to God’s will in this present moment:

O unknown love, we are inclined to think that your marvels are over, and that all we can do is to copy the ancient scriptures and quote your words from the past. We fail to see that your inexhaustible action is the source of new thoughts, new sufferings, new actions, new leaders, new prophets, new saints, who have no need to copy each other’s lives and writings but live in perpetual self-abandonment to your operations. We hear perpetually of the ‘early centuries’ and the ‘times of the saints.’ What a way to talk! Are not all times and all events the successive results of your grace, pouring itself forth on all instants of time, filling them and sanctifying them? Your divine actions will continue until the world ends to shed its glory on those souls who abandon themselves to your providence without reserve.

Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.