Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
The Sacrament of the Present Moment
To receive whatever the present moment brings — the duty, the interruption, the difficulty, the ordinary task — as the very place where God’s will meets you, and to consent to it rather than resist, worry, or wish it otherwise.
In 5 lines: Ask, “What does this moment ask of me?” — usually the small task or person right in front of you. Receive that circumstance as the place God is meeting you now, not as an interruption. Stop arguing with reality; consent to it. Do the next thing faithfully, then let go of the outcome. Renew this surrender moment by moment — and remember the present duty may be to act.
What it is
Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s teaching turns on a single, repeatable inner act: accept the present moment as God’s will for you, and surrender to it. He calls the present moment a “sacrament” — an ordinary outward thing (this duty, this delay, this person in front of you, this difficulty) through which divine grace is actually being given, if you will receive it.
The corresponding practice is self-abandonment (abandon): ceasing to fight, manage, or anxiously second-guess what is, and instead consenting to “the duty of the present moment” as the place where God is meeting you now.
Caussade’s striking image is that God’s will arrives disguised in the very circumstances we’d rather change; “everything that happens to us in the present moment” can become “the sacrament of the present moment.” This is surrender as a moment-by-moment disposition rather than a one-time decision (The Inner Creates the Outer read inwardly: attention is released from the imagined past/future onto the God-given now).
The Method
Caussade left no numbered drill; the following distills the disposition his letters repeatedly counsel (faithfully described, not reproduced):
- Find the duty of the present moment. Ask simply: what does this moment actually ask of me? Usually it is small and concrete — the task at hand, the person before you, the difficulty just landed. That is your assignment from God now.
- Receive it as God’s will, not an obstacle to it. Treat the circumstance itself — however ordinary or unwelcome — as the disguise under which God’s providence comes to you, rather than as an interruption of “real” spiritual life.
- Consent; stop resisting. Drop the inner argument with reality (the wishing-it-were-otherwise, the anxious managing, the grasping at control). Caussade’s whole counsel is peaceful receptivity to God’s hidden action.
- Do the next thing faithfully and let go of outcomes. Carry out the present duty as well as you can, then surrender the result — trusting providence rather than steering and worrying. “Simplicity in prayer; confidence in providence.”
- Detach from self-will. Notice and release the demand that things go your way; abandonment is precisely the loosening of that grip, repeated as often as it returns.
- Renew it continually. This is not done once. Each new moment is a fresh sacrament to be received; abandonment is re-made breath by breath, through the whole day.
Source & Lineage
Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751) was a French Jesuit priest and spiritual director. The teaching reached the world through a posthumous classic, Abandonment to Divine Providence, drawn largely from his letters and conferences to the Visitation nuns of Nancy.
It stands in the French school of interior prayer and self-abandonment (close in spirit to the surrender stream of Guyon and Fénelon, though more careful doctrinally), and it has shaped Christian spirituality on “the present moment” ever since — Thomas Merton, Richard Foster, and others draw on it.
Common refinements
Fatalism / passivity toward harm. Abandonment is not resignation to abuse, danger, or injustice; the “duty of the present moment” often is to act, protect, or change the situation. Acceptance is of reality as the starting point, not approval of wrong.
- Spiritual bypassing. Using “it’s God’s will” to avoid feeling grief or anger, or to skip responsibility, is a counterfeit. Receive the moment with its real feelings.
- Making it a one-time decision. Surrender lapses constantly; the practice is to renew it, gently, each moment, without self-reproach.
- Grasping for peace. Striving to feel abandoned and serene reintroduces self-will. The move is to consent and let go, not to manufacture a state.