La Guide des Pecheurs, by Luis de Granada. Paris: Chez Pierre le Petit, 1659.
SpC. 248.482 L953gF1659
A review of the spiritual texts recommended by Vincent de Paul will result in a list of timeless spiritual classics. With the exception of Thomas Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, Vincent’s list is heavily populated by titles that emerged from the spiritual fervor and ferment of the Catholic Reform. Since the Tridentine reform of the French Church had been long delayed, many of the first spiritual classics to influence the French doctrinal, disciplinary and spiritual reforms led by the devots were translations from sixteenth century Spanish, German, and Italian authors. French authors would make their most significant contributions as the seventeenth century unfolded in the famous l’Age d’Or.
One of the most influential of these sixteenth century writers was the Dominican friar Luis de Granada (Luis de Sarria), O.P. (1505-1588). As a young man Granada was a brilliant student and preacher whose reputation for sanctity led him to exercise great influence in Spain, Portugal and the Dominican Order. Granada served at one point as the provincial of the Portuguese province of the Order of Preachers. He turned down several episcopal appointments and the offer of a cardinal’s hat from Sixtus V. As was typical of Spanish church figures of this era, he did not avoid run-ins with the infamous Spanish Inquisition. Luis was a favorite author of his contemporary Teresa of Avila, and friends with Juan de Avila. Francois de Sales once advised a newly-appointed bishop to make Granada’s works his “second breviary.”
Two of the central, even obsessive, theological themes explored and contested during the Protestant and Catholic Reformation’s revolved around the nature and effects of human sinfulness and the nature and workings God’s salvific grace. Within Catholicism, these debates would eventually lead to the great theological schism over Jansenism. Granada’s The Sinners Guide, first published in 1655, is arguably the most significant and influential Catholic text of ascetical theology on these themes to emerge from the Catholic Reformation. Granada’s works were immediately translated into numerous languages and spread throughout the Catholic world, never having gone out of print.
Granada’s popularity was based not just on the content of his more than forty published works but on the purity, clarity, and beauty of his writing style.
Vincent de Paul shared his contemporaries deep appreciation of Granada’s works and his recommendations of them were frequent.
The featured volume is a French translation of The Sinner’s Guide published during Saint Vincent’s lifetime.
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St. Vincent’s Reading List is a recurring blog series exploring texts known to have been read and recommended by Saint Vincent de Paul, those which can be presumed to have been read by him, and works published during his lifetime (1581-1660) illustrating his world. All materials discussed are held by DePaul University’s Special Collections and Archives. The entire series may be viewed here.