SURIN (SEURIN), JEAN-JOSEPH. - Jesuit spiritual writer, b. 29 Feb. 1600 at Bordeaux, d. there 22 Apr. 1665. Of a well-to-do family, he was most religiously educated; his sister was a Carmelite and his mother herself, after her widowhood, followed her daughter into the convent.
After completing his studies with the Jesuits, S. entered their Order in 1616, completing his philosophy and theology at the College of La Flèche and his third year of probation at Rouen under the guidance of Fr. Lallemant (v.), whose influence he always felt, becoming in his turn a great spiritual author. During his pastoral activity at Marennes near La Rochelle, where he was minister, consultor and preacher (1630-34), he was charged, at the desire of Card. Richelieu, with exorcising (1634) Mother Jeanne of the Angels, superior of the Ursuline convent at Loudun (v.). S., already worn out by his studies and subject to neurosis, went there and on that occasion suffered severe psychic disturbances. Having, full of generous piety, offered himself to God to suffer the pains of diabolical possession in place of the poor religious, he believed from then on that he was under the influence of evil spirits. For twenty years S. suffered this trial, which caused him numerous humiliations and indescribable sufferings, though he retained enough lucidity to write various works and to preach with fruit. In the last 8 years of his life he regained peace and calm of spirit, and had an abundance of mystical gifts. Boudin published an enthusiastic biography of him (Chartres 1683).
S.'s importance lies in his Ignatian spirituality with a particular mystical emphasis, expressed above all in his works: Catéchisme spirituel (Paris 1657); Les fondements de la vie spirituelle (ibid. 1674). The first, initially circulated in manuscript sheets, was then, un-
without the author's knowledge, printed by Prince Armand de Bourbon, then a Calvinist, under another name. The book had enormous success and numerous reprintings (1659, 1663, 1665, 1669, 1673; the last edited by M. Bouix, 1882) and was also translated into various languages. There are not a few manipulations by an alien hand. It was also placed on the Index, under pressure from the Jansenists (decree of 20 July 1695), but not so the revised and corrected editions (e.g., that of Fellow, 1730, and of Bouix, 1882). He also wrote: Dialogues spirituels (ibid. 1695); Sur l'amour de Dieu (edited by Pottier-Mariès, ibid. 1930); Triomphe de l'amour sur les puissances de l'Enfer (ibid. 1929); Lettres spirituelles (1695-96), critical ed. by L. Michel - F. Cavallera (2 vols., ibid. 1926-28).
S. was a man of strong intellect, with a clear and attractive style. His psychological concreteness, ease and variety of observations and images, his imaginative power make him as a writer superior to Lallemant. His defects, on the other hand, were his many repetitions. As a spiritual master S. reaffirms the following principles. Through the total gift of self to God by the dismissal of all useless things, that is, of every inordinate attachment to things and personal satisfactions, including those of the religious world and of the mystical life, the soul must strive to act always from a supernatural principle of Grace, and to go directly to God with an intention as actual and intense in charity as possible. Docility to the Holy Spirit must lead the soul to a personal, intimate and enthusiastic love toward Jesus, up to a life of identification, in which Jesus becomes as it were the soul of the loving soul. The goal is mystical union. Although contemplation is considered by S. an absolutely gratuitous gift depending exclusively on the good pleasure of God, for which the soul can prepare itself negatively, that is, by the purification of the affections, God does not cease to grant it, so that de facto it is offered to all souls that are humble, simple, pure, generous, entirely detached from the satisfactions of earth, lovers of the Cross and of the glory of Jesus, wholly intent on serving him and pleasing him. S. is of the opinion, however, that, since the above-mentioned dispositions are ordinarily lacking, few attain mystical contemplation.
Modern scholars tend to judge that S. was subjected to psychic disturbance, whose phenomena can be explained as the fruit of a neurosis and of a consequent interpretative delirium. It is not excluded, however, that he might also have been subject to a demonic action. The psychic disturbances did not, however, deprive S. of the free exercise of his intellectual and moral faculties (a cyclothymic type of patient), so that he could raise himself to high degrees of spirituality and virtue. Among his writings, those somewhat marked by this state of disturbance are the autobiographical ones, such as Le triomphe de l'amour divin, La science expérimentale des choses de l'autre vie acquise en la possession des Ursulines de Loudun, and some of his Lettres spirituelles.
Bibliography5 works
Arnaldo M. Lanz