The Sacrament of the Present Moment

This was an abridged edition from the same publisher. Very bummed.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough! The author lived long ago and yet his Christ-centered words ring out beautifully for us modern mortals. I was so moved by his humble approach to God and his deep love and surrender to Christ. A profoundly spiritual and moving experience awaits the reader of this book!

My review is definitely influenced by the other reviews that I read. You can certainly tell those folks who live in their heads from those folks who live in their hearts. If you live in your head, you live in your own will. These folks have points and counterpoints, categories and subcategories, notes of historical interest, arguments and objections. Though they are just the ones who need the message of this book, they are the ones most resistant, the ones to completely miss the point. Our wills are not easily subdued. We identify our being with "our doing," "our opinions," "our judgments." We think that "me" equals "my will," "my way," "my view." These folks line up to inform God just how His Creation should run and, no doubt, they have very good arguments. ...This is not to demean the life of the mind, although it may sound that way. ... As Jean-Pierre de Caussade says, "The use of our reason and other faculties is profitable only when it serves as an instrument of God's activity." All too often the mind wants to serve as the instrument of its own and solely its own activity. So this book is not about fatalism or passivity. It's about TRUST. It's about believing that although all appears to be lost, God is working. It's about HOPE. It's about faith in yourself, though you appear to be a pretty poor instrument of goodness, God is using you---as much as you allow yourself to live in your heart. We fight, we struggle, we lose, or so we think. There are more than enough knocks in the most humdrum life. But everyday we get up, dust our bruised bodies off, and say a small prayer under our breath, "Not my will, But Yours." ...

Some people are called to a life of pure faith where they will only know the darkness of God. Others are called to a life fo pure love where the will often experience God's presence. Caussade says that both paths can be equal before God. The challenge of following Christ is not to replicate another's experience but to allow the Holy Spirit to guide me. I learn to yield to God's divine will in each moment. This book should never be confused with quietism, which suggest I can do nothing but wait before God. Caussade suggests some are called to active lives and some are called to lives of stillness. We are all called to pursue the Lord by yielding to the SPirit in the present moment. I find this book an excellent companion to Martin Buber's I and Thou.

God's omnipresence is taken for granted by all Christians. But it is so easy to assume this applies merely to the physical and material world. If He is omnipresent in a physical sense, then He must also be present in every circumstance we experience our lives, no matter how small. Thus, we can experience God just by yielding to what life brings. DeCaussade, in this beautiful book (I am in my third reading), has introduced me to this "new" way of experiencing God: I now "see" Him everywhere. This view of God brings great comfort and assurance. I find myself struggling less with life, accepting things that I would once have found distasteful, and discovering many new blessings from God. If you long for a more settled life you will gain much from this book.

Of all the self-help books I have read over the last 20 years, this has the most simple, direct approach to the meaning of our lives on this earth. Knowing this book has been around for so many centuries, also tells me of its long-staying value. I've recommended it recently to 5 different people, most of whom have already bought the book. When you read this, you have to be VERY receptive and TOTALLY willing to focus on each sentance, even reading each line 2 or 3 times. You can't have any distractions. Once you "GET IT", you've got it and now I look through it when I need to refresh my memory or to help keepme on track. I always worried about the future, would I have enough money to cover all future bills, whether my business was going to belly-up and I was going to loose my house because of some catastrophy. Now I look at "right now". I make each minute have value. I let go of trying to control the outcome of every happening and everyone. It's the feeling of jumping off a cliff and knowing God WILL catch me, NO MATTER WHAT. I have a feeling of lightness, and freedom, and should I start to slip into my old way of thinking, I quickly pick up the book and open it up ANYWHERE, and I am brought back to reality. I have a rainbow around me now.