Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
The Two Duties
To stop treating every situation the same way — by sorting each moment into what is mine to DO (the active duty of my state) and what is mine to ACCEPT (the passive part God sends), then doing the first faithfully and consenting to the second peacefully.
In 5 lines: For whatever is in front of you, ask one question — is this mine to DO, or mine to ACCEPT? If to do: carry out the plain duty of your state faithfully, then release the result. If to accept: stop trying to manage it; consent with an inner “let it be.” Don’t confuse the two — and remember harm and injustice are almost always the do column. Re-sort each moment.
What it is
Caussade reduces the whole of holiness to one practice — fidelity to the duty of the present moment — and then shows it has two halves you must tell apart. There is an active part (the things God asks you to do: the ordinary tasks and responsibilities of your state in life) and a passive part (the things God asks you to accept: whatever befalls you that you did not choose — the illness, the interruption, the loss).
His instruction is to handle each correctly: do the active duty faithfully, and receive the passive part with loving consent — never confusing the two by trying to do what can only be accepted, or passively drifting past what is yours to do.
As he puts it, “sanctity can be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties appointed by God.” Where the broader “sacrament of the present moment” teaching is the general disposition of receiving the now (see cross-links), this practice is the concrete sorting move that operationalizes it.
The Method
Caussade left no numbered drill; this distills the active/passive distinction his text repeatedly draws (faithfully described, short quotes only):
- Name the present moment. Pause and look at what is actually in front of you right now — the task, the person, the circumstance.
- Sort it into the two duties. Ask: Is this something I am called to DO, or something I am called to ACCEPT? - Active duty = “the duties which devolve upon us,” whether from “the general laws of God and of the Church, or by the particular state that we may have embraced.” Caussade insists these ordinary state-duties are “the most clear manifestation of the will of God” — clearer than dramatic inspirations. - Passive part = “the loving acceptance of all that God sends us at each moment” — what arrives unbidden and outside your control.
- Do the active duty faithfully, and only it. Carry out the task of your state as well as you can. Caussade warns against neglecting the plain duty in favour of self-chosen “spiritual” projects: only attend to inspirations that “do not withdraw it from the duties of its state.”
- Consent to the passive part — don’t try to do it. For what you cannot change, the work is acceptance, not effort or management. Pronounce the inner “fiat” (“let it be”) to it.
- Don’t blur the line. The two errors: (a) anxiously trying to act on what is only yours to accept (control-anxiety), and (b) passively enduring what is actually yours to act on (sloth disguised as surrender). Re-sort whenever you slip.
- Renew through the day. Each moment presents a fresh active duty and/or a fresh thing to accept; the sorting is re-done continually. (Sourcing note: the active/passive structure and the quoted phrases — “fidelity to the duties appointed by God,” “the duties which devolve upon us,” “the most clear manifestation of the will of God,” “loving acceptance of all that God sends” — are from Abandonment to Divine Providence, Book I. Step phrasing is faithful paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751), French Jesuit priest and spiritual director, taught this through Abandonment to Divine Providence, compiled posthumously from his letters and conferences to the Visitation nuns of Nancy.
The active/passive division of fidelity is the structural backbone of Book I. It belongs to the French school of self-abandonment (Francis de Sales’ Salesian simplicity, the surrender stream of Guyon and Fénelon).
The Traditions' versions
The Serenity Prayer (Niebuhr) — “change what you can, accept what you can’t, know the difference”: the same active/passive sort in three lines.
- Stoic dichotomy of control (Epictetus) — act on what is “up to us,” accept what is not. Structurally near-identical.
- Karma yoga (Gita) — do your prescribed duty (svadharma) wholeheartedly, surrender the fruits. → Gita entries.
- Problem-focused vs. acceptance coping (psychology) — match the strategy to whether the stressor is controllable.
- Sacrament of the present moment (Caussade) — the general disposition this practice operationalizes.
Common refinements
Mislabeling controllable as “to accept.” Calling sloth or avoidance “abandonment.” If you can act faithfully, that’s the active duty — do it.
- Mislabeling uncontrollable as “to do.” Anxiously managing what is not yours to control. That’s the passive part — consent and release it.
- Chasing dramatic “callings” over the plain duty. Caussade is emphatic: the duty of your state outranks self-chosen spiritual projects. Do the dishes, the job, the care-work in front of you.
- Doing the active duty anxiously. Fidelity is wholehearted but unhurried; once done, the result moves to the passive column — let it go.
- One-time sorting. Re-sort each moment; situations shift columns as they unfold.