Jean-Joseph Surin

Surin was born on 9 February 1600 in Bordeaux. His father, Jean de Seurin, seigneur de Labatut, was a lawyer and a council member of the Bordeaux Parliament. of Medoc and Catherine de Mansencal. Surin's paternal grandfather was André Seurin, a silk merchant of Toulouse. Surin's maternal uncle Gabriel d’Arrerac was trésorier général of Guyenne and was married to a niece of Michel de Montaigne. Out of the five children born to the couple, Surin was the eldest and only surviving son. He also had two younger sisters, Jeanne, ==Demonic possession at Loudun==

Background In the early 1630s, a convent of Ursuline nuns said they had been visited and possessed by demons. Suspicion soon fell upon Urbain Grandier, parish priest of Saint-Pierre-du-Marché in the town of Loudun, as the cause of the possessions. Grandier was already a controversial figure in the town because of a longstanding quarrel with the local church authorities. In the following weeks, numerous nuns were supposedly attacked and possessed by evil spirits: the Loudun possessions. This reached a point that exorcism rituals were organized by the local clergy. It was during these rites that the nuns accused Grandier of being in league with the devil and initiating their demonic possession. His prayer was granted, and for more than twenty years he was harassed by evil spirits, experiencing hallucinations, seizures and temporary paralysis, and he slowly lost his power of speech. While he was entering this state, Jeanne des Anges was slowly recovering. "During my ministry, the devil passed from the body of the possessed person and entered into mine" he wrote to a friend, the Jesuit father Achille Doni d'Attichy. Surin believed that the devil particularly hated Carmelites and that a relic of St. Teresa that he had used at Loudun had miraculously expelled one of the demons. Surin's continuing possession In 1645 Surin attempted suicide by jumping out of a second-story window, but he survived. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: At no time, however, did this state of obsession prevent his devoting himself to preaching. It is true he was unable to prepare himself for this by any reading or study, but on entering the pulpit and making the sign of the cross a wonderful transformation was manifest. His vigorous mind instantly gained the ascendancy; his powerful voice and facile oratory won universal attention and admiration. His physician declared it miraculous. Even in writing or dictating his works he seemed gifted with Divine inspiration. He was healed eight years before his death and was thenceforth absorbed in the abundance of Divine communications. == Connections with the Condés ==

Surin's cousin Jean de Belhade, chevalier de Thodias was a loyal supporter and military commander of the Grand Condé during The Fronde which saw him rewarded with governing the duchy of Fronsac on behalf of the Grand Condé and then he was made mayor (French: jurat) of Bordeaux. Its possibly through this connection that Surin became acquaintanced with the Grand Condé and his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti. Conti when young had studied theology in Bourges. He was also a Jansenist and was interested in Jesuit mysticism and would take great interest in Surin and his work, and even helped publish his book Catéchisme Spirituel in 1656. The two maintained a friendship until Surin's death. ==Evaluation==

Surin enjoyed great celebrity for his virtues, his trials, and his talents as a spiritual director. Bossuet declared him "consumed with spirituality". At the suggestion of the fathers of the Province of Aquitaine, assembled in provincial congregation (1755), the father general ordered his name inscribed in the "Ménologe de l'assistance de France". Père Surin, whom I myself knew for twenty years or more, led so deranged and shameful a life that one hardly dares speak of it. In the end it reached the point where the most wise attributed it all, quite correctly I believe, to madness …I have often seen [him] blaspheme the name of God and walk about naked in the College, soiled with excrement – I would then take him by the hand into the infirmary. I have seen him lashing out with his fists and for years perform a hundred other insanities, even to the point of trying to trample on the Sacrament of the Eucharist – I did not see this myself but learnt it the next day from witnesses. He lived like this for several years. For the rest of his life, he never fulfilled any function within the Society. When he recovered self-control, he wrote books and letters, visited his neighbor and spoke very well about God, but he never said his prayers, or read his Breviary, said Mass rarely and to his dying day mumped about and gesticulated in a ridiculous and absurd fashion. == Surin in popular culture ==

In 1952 Aldous Huxley published his nonfiction book on the exorcisms, titled The Devils of Loudun. Playwright John Whiting adapted Huxley's book as the play The Devils (1960). Ken Russell directed a feature film adaptation of Huxley's book and Whiting's play, The Devils (1971), starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed. Surin is not depicted in the film although he is mentioned in the narration of the film's UK theatrical trailer. Surin is depicted by Mieczysław Voit as "Father Józef Suryn" in the 1961 Polish film Mother Joan of the Angels (Matka Joanna od Aniołów) Krzysztof Penderecki wrote an opera, The Devils of Loudun (Die Teufel von Loudun) in 1969. ==Works==

Surin's French prose was widely admired and his hundreds of letters, copied and recopied by the faithful, circulated throughout France. His principal published works include: • (Triumph of Divine Love over the Powers of Hell) (1636) • (1654), published by the Prince de Conti, anonymously • (1655) • (1657) • (1663) • (Paris, 1667) • (Paris, 1695). • , published in 1966 by Michel de Certeau • The Foundations of the Spiritual Life (London, 1844) • His was placed on the Index in 1695 for its seeming affinity with the non-discursive prayer of the Quietists. ==References==