CRASSET, JEAN. - Jesuit, born at Dieppe on 3 Jan. 1618, died at Paris on 4 Jan. 1692. He was a professor of letters and philosophy, a preacher, and a sought-after spiritual director; but above all a writer on ascetical subjects, with a lucid and penetrating style.
His principal works, reprinted many times and translated into many languages, remain useful reading even today: Méthodes d'oraison avec une nouvelle forme de méditation (2 vols., Paris 1672); the “new form” is initiation into the life of mystical union through the frequent use of ejaculatory prayers (cf. Bremond, op. cit., VIII, p. 297 ff.); Considérations chrétiennes pour tous les jours de l'année (3 vols., Paris 1863); Entretiens de d'option sur le S. Sacrement de l'autel (ibid. 1678); La douce et sainte mort (ibid. 1681). He also wrote: Histoire de l'Église du Japon (2 vols., ibid. 1689), a work of little originality, which reproduces, while revising its style, the similar work by Fr. Francesco Solier, Histoire ecclésiastique des îles et royaume du Japon (ibid. 1627), and continues it from 1624 to 1628.