Fr. Jean-Baptiste Chautard
Fr. Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935) was a Trappist Abbot and religious writer. His most famous work, The Soul of the Apostolate, is a best-selling spiritual treatise published by TAN Books and recommended by numerous Popes.
Is the Interior Life Selfish?
Was the interior life of Mary and Joseph selfish and sterile? What blasphemy, and what absurdity! And yet they are credited with not one external work. The mere influence upon the world of an intense inner life, the merits of prayers and sacrifices applied for the spread of the benefits of the Redemption were enough…
Ignorance and Neglect of the Interior Life
St. Gregory the Great, who was as skillful an administrator and as zealous an apostle as he was great in contemplation, sums up in two words, Secum vivebat (He lived with himself), the state of soul of St. Benedict, when, at Subiaco, he was saying the foundation for that Rule which was to become one…
What is the Interior Life (PART II)
EIGHTH TRUTH: My interior life will be no better than my custody of my heart. “Before all things keep a guard over thy heart, for from it springs forth life.” This custody of the heart is simply a HABITUAL or at least frequent anxiety to preserve all my acts, as they arise, from everything that…
What is the Interior Life (PART I)
In this book the words life of prayer, contemplative life will be applied, as they are in the Imitation of Christ to the state of those souls who have dedicated themselves to a Christian life which is at the same time out of the common, and accessible to all, and, in substance, obligatory for all.…
Active Works and The Interior Life: What They Mean
PART ONE 1. GOD WANTS GOOD WORKS AND, THEREFORE, HE WANTS ZEALOUS ACTION Sovereign liberality is inseparable from the divine Nature. God is infinite goodness. Goodness seeks nothing except to give itself and to communicate the riches which it enjoys. The mortal life of Our Lord was nothing else but a continual manifestation of this…