The Imitation of Christ

Thomas à Kempis

The ideas

25 ideas. Scroll sideways for the next one.

• You can explain a holy life in fine words and still not live one. The call is to follow the life of Christ. Talk about it does not get you there.

• What looks like treasure does not last. Honour, appetite, a long life with little care for a good one: all of it goes. Love God and serve him only.

• Of a surety, at the Day of Judgment it will be demanded of us, not what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.

• A proud thinker can map the stars and still not know himself. A lowly worker who serves God is better off. Extra knowing only makes the last day heavier if the life is not holy.

• Look for what helps, not for who said it. Men die. The truth they pointed to does not. Read simply, not to be called learned.

• A long chat can feel like rest. You often come home from it with a worse conscience than you left with. Stay quiet more than you expect to.

• You will have peace if you stop picking at other people’s words and deeds. The one who lives in other people’s business has no quiet left for the self inside.

• An old way of living does not break because you wish it would. Say no while the pull is still small. Live the new pattern until it sticks.

• You cannot live here without trial. Running from it often drops you deeper in. Meet it at the door when it first knocks, not after it has a chair inside.

• You want others finished and yourself excused. If you cannot make yourself what you want, you will not shape another person to your liking. Bear what you cannot mend.

• Safer to live under someone than to be the one in charge. Running from place to place will not give you peace. Give up a good opinion for the sake of quiet, and you gain more than you lost.

• You set the day’s plan. The day is not yours to keep. Do the next right act and leave the fruit.

• Order each deed as if you die today. Tomorrow is not a promise. A long life with little change is not a gift.

• Turn your whole heart in, and leave the noisy surface. Rest is not in a new place. It is in being joined to Christ inside you.

• First keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able to be a peacemaker towards others.

• Men can praise you or blame you. Neither one changes the inside. That inside is already known.

• Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His Cross.

• You can change rooms, towns, work. You still arrive as yourself, and the hard thing arrives too. Patience is what you need in every one of those places.

• If you take the hard thing on purpose, it starts to carry you. If you drag it, you only add weight. You will still have to take it.

• Books can give you words. They cannot put fire in the chest. Ask to be spoken to inside, and then do what you hear.

• Love is a great thing, a good above all others, which alone maketh every heavy burden light, and equaliseth every inequality.

• One motion in you always has self at the end of it. The other walks simply and rests in God. They can look alike. Watch which one you feed.

• Without the way thou canst not go, without the truth thou canst not know, without the life thou canst not live.

• People travel far to look at holy places. The gift is already on the table in front of you. Wonder leaks away when a holy thing becomes daily and you stop noticing.

• Do not poke at the mystery until it lies down and makes sense. Faith and a straight life are asked of you, not a high mind. If the works of God were easy to grasp, they would not be wonderful.

The book in short

In plain words

You can say all the right words and still not be them.

Thomas sits in a quiet room with the door shut. He has copied the Bible for years. Now he copies a smaller thing for himself. The first line is not his. It is Jesus saying that the one who follows Him will not walk in the dark. Thomas looks at his own hands. They know how to write holy words. He is not sure they know how to live them.

Fine words, empty hands

A person can talk about God the way some people talk about a sport they never play. The talk can be clever. It can even be true. It does not make the life true.

Thomas would rather feel sorry for a wrong in a way that turns him around than be skilled at explaining that sorrow. Sorrow that turns you is the thing. The explanation is only a name for it.

There is a hunger to know in every person. Knowing is not the same as fearing God, which here means taking God seriously enough to change. A farm worker who serves God is better off than a proud thinker who maps the stars and never looks at himself. Extra knowing only makes the last day heavier if the life stayed small.

On the last day, Thomas says, you will not be asked what you have read, but what you have done. You will not be asked how well you spoke, but how you lived.

Read for what helps, not for who said it. People die. The true thing they pointed to does not. Read simply. Do not read to be called clever.

A plan for the day is yours to make. The day is not yours to keep. You set the work down. God disposes of it. In the morning, decide. In the evening, look back at your words, your deeds, and your thoughts. That is enough for one day.

Shut the door

The quiet room is not a trick to look holy. It is how you hear.

Talk feels like rest. After a long chat you often come home worse than you left. You spoke about people, and news, and yourself. The conscience is a little dirtier. Stay quiet more than you expect to.

You will have peace if you stop picking at other people’s words and deeds. The person who lives in everyone else’s business has no quiet left for the self inside.

Keep peace in yourself first. Then you can bring peace to someone else. A calm person does more good than a well-taught one. It is easy to live at peace with people who are already kind. The hard grace is to live at peace with people who push you.

You want other people finished. You want yourself excused. If you cannot make yourself what you want, you will not shape another person to your liking. Bear what you cannot mend. Everyone has a fault. Everyone needs someone to carry a bit of it.

Safer to live under someone than to be the one in charge. Running to a new house, a new town, a new rule, will not give you peace. Sometimes you give up a good opinion so the room can stay quiet. You lose the argument. You gain the peace.

You bring you with you

Shut the door again. The hard thing is still in the room. It came in with you.

You can change rooms, towns, work. You still arrive as yourself. The hard thing arrives too. Patience is what you need in every one of those places.

Order each deed as if you die today. Tomorrow is not a promise. A long life with little change is not a gift. When it is morning, remember you may not see the evening. When it is evening, do not boast about tomorrow.

People think a new place will make a new self. Fancies about places have fooled many. The cross, which here means the hard thing you did not pick and still have to carry, waits in every room. Turn up, turn down, turn outside, turn in. It is there. You need patience everywhere if you want peace inside.

An old way of living does not break because you wish it would. Say no while the pull is still small. Live a new pattern until it sticks. If you cannot win the small fight, you will not win the big one.

You cannot live here without trial. Running from it often drops you deeper in. Meet it at the door when it first knocks. Do not wait until it has a chair.

The road that hurts

Many people love the prize. Few take the road that hurts.

Jesus has many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, Thomas says, and few bearers of His cross. Many want the comfort. Few want the trouble. Many will sit at the table. Few will go without. They love Him while things go well. If He hides for a little while, they complain, or they fall in.

Love that is only for the gift is not yet love of the Giver. Comfort from God is a gift, not a wage. When it comes, say thank you, and stay small. It will pass. When it goes, wait. Do not decide that God is gone because the sweet feeling is gone.

If you take the hard thing on purpose, it starts to carry you. If you drag it, you only add weight. You will still have to take it. Throw one away and another shows up, sometimes heavier.

This is not because pain is good in itself. It is because the way Christ walked was this way. If there had been a better way, He would have shown it. The whole mortal life is set round with hard things. The higher a person climbs inside, the heavier the hard things often feel, because love makes the distance from God more sharp.

You cannot do this by looking at yourself. Looking at yourself, you will run. Trust is what makes a person able to stay.

The voice in the room

The door is still shut. Thomas stops talking. He listens.

Until now Thomas has been speaking to himself. Now another voice answers: Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. Books can hand you words. They cannot put fire in the chest. Ask to be spoken to inside. Then do what you hear.

Love is a great thing. It makes a heavy load light. It makes bitter things less bitter. The person who loves runs. The person who loves does not sit down and count the cost until the cost looks impossible. Wherever you start seeking only your own, you have already stepped out of love.

There are two pulls in the same chair.

One pull always ends at you. It wants ease, and praise, and the pretty thing rather than the rough one. A small loss makes it sad. A small hard word stings it. It loves friends who are like itself. Call that Nature, not trees and rivers. The self-seeking motion in you.

The other pull walks simply and rests in God. It can work, and be small, and give. It can love a person who is not like you, and it puts treasure where it cannot rot. Call that Grace. The motion that does not have you as its last stop.

They can look alike. Both can wear a good face. Watch which one you feed.

What is it to you what another person is, or says, or does? You do not have to answer for them. You have to answer for you. Follow Him.

Bread on the table

The quiet room has a table in it.

People travel a long way to look at holy places, walk around tombs, and stare at beautiful buildings. They come home with a story and little change. Thomas says the gift is already here. Bread. A cup. God coming close, not as an idea, as a Guest.

You do not have to understand how. Come hungry. Come often, because without this food you faint on the way. If you could easily explain the works of God, they would not be wonderful. Faith is asked of you, and a straight life. Not a high mind. Not a deep trick with questions. Poke at the mystery until it lies down, and you often lose the devotion you came with.

God walks with the simple. He hides from the proud and the curious. Human reason is weak. It can be fooled. Come with a plain trust. Leave what you cannot grasp in His hands.

If you mean those words about not walking in the dark, this is what they cost. Copy the life. Keep the door shut long enough to hear. Take the hard road on purpose. Let the bread on the table be enough.

The works of God are past finding out. That is not a problem to fix. That is why they are wonderful.

The long read

A man sits at a desk in a house of canons, copying. He has already spent years on the Bible. The first line he sets down now is not his own. “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,” saith the Lord. The rest is what those words cost if you mean them.

Imitation here is not play-acting. It is conforming a whole life to the mind of Christ, until the Gospel is no longer a text you hear and leave. Many hear it often and feel little longing, because they have not that mind. Deep talk about the Trinity does not make a person dear to God if humility is missing. “I had rather feel contrition than be skilful in the definition thereof.” Contrition, here, is sorrow for sin that actually turns the will. Definition is the skill of talking about that sorrow. Trade the skill for the thing.

If you knew the whole Bible and all the philosophers, what would it profit without the love and grace of God? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, save to love God and Him only to serve. Vanity here is emptiness, not conceit. Riches that perish. Honours stacked on a self. A long life with little care for a good one. The eye is not satisfied with seeing. The heart that chases what is seen defiles the conscience and spends the grace it was given.

There is a desire to know in every person. Knowledge without the fear of God does not save it. A lowly peasant who serves God is better than a proud philosopher who watches the stars and never learns himself. The one who knows himself well is small in his own sight and does not live on praise. The more complete your knowledge, the more severe the judgment unless the life is holy. Love to be unknown, and counted for nothing. Even if you see a neighbour sin openly, do not reckon yourself better. You do not know how long you will keep your own integrity. Hold no one more frail than yourself.

A lowly knowledge of yourself is a surer way to God than the deep searching of man’s learning. Learning is not blamed. A good conscience and a holy life are better than all of it. People go astray because they seek knowledge rather than good living. “Of a surety, at the Day of Judgment it will be demanded of us, not what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.” He only is truly great who has great charity. The truly learned person is the one who does the will of God and forsakes his own.

Read Scripture for truth, not for cunning of words. Read it in the spirit in which it was written. Ask not who said this or that. Look to what he says. Men pass away. The truth of the Lord endures. Curiosity often hinders reading: you stop to discuss where you should pass simply on. Read humbly, simply, honestly, not to win a name for learning.

True peace of heart is found in resisting passion, not in yielding to it. Desire a thing above measure and you become restless at once. The proud and the greedy are never at rest. The poor and lowly of heart abide in peace. Trust not every word, nor every feeling inside yourself. It is easier to believe and speak evil of others than good. Haste is unwise, and so is stubbornness in your own opinions. Keep some of what you hear. Take counsel with a person who is wise and fears God.

It is a great thing to live in obedience, under authority, not at your own disposal. Far safer to live in subjection than in a place of authority. Fancies about places, and changing them, have deceived many. You will not find peace by running. Sometimes you must yield a good opinion for the sake of peace. It is safer to receive counsel than to give it. Refuse to hear others when reason requires it, and that is pride.

Avoid the tumult of talk as far as you can. Worldly conversation, even when innocent, captures quickly. Many a time the writer wishes he had held his peace and not gone among people. You talk because you hope for comfort and variety. You resume silence with some hurt to the conscience more often than not. If you must speak, speak what builds. Devout talk among kindred minds is one of the few exceptions that actually help.

You may enjoy abundance of peace if you stop busying yourself with other people’s sayings and doings. How can a person stay in peace who lives in other people’s matters and pays little heed to the self within? If each year saw one fault rooted out, you would go quickly on to perfection. Instead people often feel they were better at the beginning of conversion than after many years. It is hard to break a habit, harder still to go against your own will. If you cannot overcome slight obstacles, you will not overcome greater ones. Custom is overcome by custom. Meet the small no at the start.

Adversity is not an interruption of the spiritual life. It is often the thing that teaches you that you are a stranger here and cannot rest on the world. Unfair judgment, when you meant good, shields you from vainglory and sends you looking for God’s witness instead of people’s. In the world there is no perfect security or fullness of peace.

So long as you live you cannot be without trial. Temptations turn to profit when they humble, purify, and instruct. Flight alone does not overcome them. Endurance and true humility do. The root of temptation is inside, in concupiscence (the pull of desire that is already in you). Watch especially at the beginning. First comes a simple suggestion, then a strong imagination, then pleasure, then consent. The longer you delay resistance, the weaker you grow. As fire tests iron, temptation shows what you are.

Do not judge others. In judging them a person labours in vain and falls into sin. In examining yourself you always labour to good purpose. If God were the sole object of desire, you would be less troubled by the errors of your own fancy. You want others strictly corrected and yourself left free. You want rules for them and none for you. If you cannot make yourself what you wish, how will you fashion another to your liking? Bear what you cannot amend, in yourself or in others, until God ordains otherwise. None is without defect, none sufficient of himself. It is given to you to bear one another’s burdens.

The clothing of a religious life is of small account. Change of character is the thing. You are called to endure and to labour, not to ease and trifling talk. Hold yourself as an exile and a pilgrim. You will have to be counted a fool for Christ if you will lead this life.

For man proposeth, but God disposeth. Make your resolves in the morning. In the evening inquire how you sped in word, deed, and thought. Be never without something to do: reading, writing, praying, meditating, or some use to the community. Do the common duties first, faithfully. Secret extra devotion is not a licence to neglect what you were actually given to do.

Seek a suitable time for meditation. Leave curious questions. Study what brings sorrow for sin rather than amusement. It is easier to be altogether silent than not to exceed in word. You do not go abroad safely unless you love to rest at home. Safe speech belongs to the person who loves to hold his peace. Safe rule belongs to the person who loves to be subject. Remain with Jesus in your chamber. You will not find so great peace elsewhere. A merry going-forth often brings a sorrowful return.

Very quickly there will be an end of you here. Order yourself in every deed and thought as if you were to die this day. Tomorrow is an uncertain day. If today you are not ready, how will you be ready tomorrow? Long life does not always amend. It often increases guilt. When it is morning, reflect that you may not see the evening. At eventide do not boast of the morrow. Learn now to die to the world, and you begin to live with Christ. Keep yourself as a stranger and a pilgrim, for here you have no continuing city.

Remember the end, and the strict judge from whom nothing is hid, who is not bribed with gifts. Each person will bear his own burden. Better to purify the soul now than to cling to sins that must be purged later. You cannot have two Paradises: fill of delight here, and the reign with Christ after. All is vanity, save to love God and serve Him only.

A man once cast himself down in prayer, tossed between hope and fear, and said: if I only knew that I should persevere. A voice answered: if you did know it, what would you do? Do now what you would do then, and you shall be secure. He stopped searching the future and studied the will of God for the next good work. You profit most where you most overcome yourself. Guard also the faults that most displease you in others. They are often yours.

The kingdom of God is within you. Turn with all your heart, forsake the miserable world, and you will find rest. Learn to despise outward things and give yourself to things inward, and you will see that kingdom come within. Christ’s glory and beauty is from within, and there it pleases Him to dwell. He often visits the inward person and holds sweet discourse there. When you have Christ, you are rich enough. Men change like the wind. Christ remains.

Here you have no continuing city. You are a stranger and a pilgrim wherever you are, and you will not have rest unless you are closely united to Christ within. If you cannot yet behold high things, rest in the passion of Christ and dwell in His wounds. Christ was despised and left in His necessity. If you are unwilling to suffer any adversity, how will you be His friend? If you had once entered into the mind of Jesus and tasted even a little of His love, you would care nothing for your own convenience, and would rather rejoice at trouble.

Reckon not yourself to have profited unless you feel yourself inferior to all. “First keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able to be a peacemaker towards others.” A peaceable person does more good than a well-learned one. A passionate person turns even good into evil. It is no great thing to live at peace with the good and the meek. To live peaceably with the hard, the perverse, and those who oppose you: that is a great grace. All our peace in this sad life lies in humble suffering rather than in not feeling adversities. He who best knows how to suffer possesses the most peace.

By two wings a person is lifted above earthly things: simplicity and purity. Simplicity belongs to the intention. Purity belongs to the affection. If you seek nothing but the will of God and the good of your neighbour, you will enjoy inward liberty. If the heart were right, every creature would be a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. Such as each one is inwardly, so he judges outwardly.

We cannot place too little confidence in ourselves. Little light is in us, and we lose it by negligence. Ill is done, then excused. Passion gets named zeal. Small faults in others get blamed, and great ones in ourselves get passed over. What we bear from others is felt at once. How much others bear from us is not. Where are you when you are not present to yourself? Let nothing be great, nothing high, nothing acceptable to you, save God Himself or the things of God.

A good conscience can bear much, and is joyful in the midst of adversities. An evil conscience is ever fearful. You are none the holier if you are praised, nor the viler if you are reproached. You are what you are. Man looks on the outward appearance. The Lord looks on the heart. People judge the deed. God considers the intent. To walk inwardly with God, and not be held by outer affections, is the state of a spiritual person.

Love Jesus and hold Him for your friend. He will not forsake you when all depart. He will suffer no rival, but will sit as a king on His own throne. If you seek Jesus in all things you will find Jesus. If you seek yourself you will find yourself, to your own hurt. When Jesus is present all is well and nothing seems hard. When He is not present, everything is hard. To be without Jesus is the nethermost hell. To be with Him is sweet paradise. Let Jesus be specially loved, and all others loved for His sake. Never desire to be specially praised or loved. That belongs to God alone.

It is no hard thing to despise human comfort when divine comfort is present. It is a great thing to bear the loss of both, and to seek yourself in nothing. When spiritual comfort is given, receive it with thanks. It is a gift, not your desert. That hour will pass, and temptation will follow. When comfort is taken, do not despair. Wait. God is able to give back greater favour. No one is so religious that he never feels a withdrawal of divine favour. Temptation is often the sign of the comfort that will follow. Divine comfort is given so that you may be stronger to bear adversities. Temptation follows, lest you be lifted up because of the gift.

Prepare yourself for patience more than for comforts, and for bearing the cross more than for joy. No one can always enjoy divine comforts at will. Grace becomes the portion of the grateful, and is taken from the proud. Be thankful for the least benefit and you will be worthy to receive greater. If He gave punishment and stripes, still give thanks, because He does it for your profit.

“Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His Cross.” Many seekers of comfort, few of tribulation. Many companions of His table, few of His fasting. All desire to rejoice with Him. Few are willing to undergo anything for His sake. Many love Jesus so long as no adversities happen. If He hide Himself a little, they fall into complaining or dejection. They who love Jesus for Jesus’ sake, and not for consolation of their own, bless Him in all tribulation. Should He never give them consolation, they would still praise Him. Rarely is anyone found so spiritual as to be stripped of all selfish thoughts. Having done all that is commanded, say: we are unprofitable servants.

That seems a hard saying: if any will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his Cross. It will be harder to hear “Depart from me” at the end. In the Cross is health, life, protection, sweetness, strength, joy, the height of virtue, perfection of holiness. There is no health of the soul, no hope of eternal life, save in the Cross. Behold, everything depends upon the Cross, and everything lies in dying. There is no other way to life and true inward peace except the way of the Holy Cross and of daily mortification.

Go where you will, seek whatsoever you will. You will find no higher way above nor safer way below. Dispose all things according to your own will, and you will still find something to suffer. The Cross is always ready, and everywhere waits. You cannot flee it. Whithersoever you come, you bear yourself with you, and shall ever find yourself. Turn above, below, without, within: in them all you find the Cross. You need patience everywhere if you will have inward peace.

If you willingly bear the Cross, it will bear you, and bring you to the end you seek, though that end is not here. If you bear it unwillingly, you make a burden for yourself and increase your load, and you must still bear it. Cast away one cross, and you will find another, perhaps heavier. Which of the saints was without it? Not even Christ was one hour without the anguish of His Passion, so long as He lived. The whole life of Christ was a cross and martyrdom. Do you seek rest and joy for yourself?

It is not in the nature of man to bear the cross, love the cross, keep the body under, fly honours, bear reproaches, despise self. If you look to yourself, you can do none of this. If you trust in the Lord, endurance is given from heaven. When tribulation is sweet to you for Christ’s sake, you have found paradise on earth. So long as it is hard and you desire to escape, tribulations will follow you everywhere. If there had been anything better and more profitable than to suffer, Christ would have shown it by word and example. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Then the voice turns. The first two movements were a person speaking to himself. What follows is a conversation: the disciple and the inward voice of Christ. Blessed is the soul which hears the Lord speaking within it. Blessed are the ears that turn from the whisperings of this world. Speak, Lord, for your servant hears. Let not Moses speak, nor any prophet, if You will not speak. They can utter words. They cannot give the spirit. Scripture arrives through them. You make known the sense. They show the way. You give strength for the journey. They water. You give the increase.

The world promises things small and temporal, and is served with great eagerness. God promises things great and eternal, and the hearts of mortals are slow to stir. For a little reward people make a long journey. For eternal life many will scarce lift a foot. Write the words in your heart. You will need them in temptation. What you do not understand when you read, you will know in the time of visitation. The Lord is wont to visit His elect in two ways: by temptation and by comfort.

“Love is a great thing, a good above all others, which alone maketh every heavy burden light, and equaliseth every inequality.” It bears the burden and makes it no burden. It makes every bitter thing sweet. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing loftier, nothing broader, nothing pleasanter, nothing fuller or better in heaven or on earth, for love was born of God and cannot rest save in God. He who loves flies, runs, and is glad. Love often knows no measure. It feels no burden, reckons not labours, pleads not impossibility. Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, gentle, strong, patient, faithful, and never seeking her own. Wherever a person seeks his own, there he falls from love. He who is not ready to suffer all things, and to conform to the will of the Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover.

You are not yet strong and prudent in love if a little opposition knocks you off, or if you seek consolation too eagerly. The strong lover stands fast in temptations. The prudent lover considers not the gift of the lover so much as the love of the giver. He sets all gifts lower than the Beloved. The good and sweet affection you sometimes feel is present grace, a foretaste. Do not depend on it too much. It goes and comes. To strive against evil motions of the mind is a token of virtue.

He must be your supreme and final end if you want to be truly happy. If you seek yourself in any matter, you will fail within yourself and grow barren. Refer everything to God first. He gave it. From Him the humble and the great draw water as from a living fountain. He who glories apart from God, or is delighted with any good that lies in himself, shall not be established in true joy.

What is it to you whether a person be this or that, or say or do thus or thus? You have no need to answer for others. You must give an answer for yourself. Follow Him.

Pay diligent heed to the motions of Nature and of Grace. They move in a contrary and subtle manner, and are hardly distinguished except by a person enlightened within. All people seek good, and make pretence of good in all they say. Under that appearance many are deceived.

Nature, here, is not trees and rivers. It is the self-seeking motion in you. Grace is the motion that rests in God. Nature is deceitful and always has self for her end. Grace walks in simplicity and does all for the sake of God. Nature is very unwilling to die, to be pressed down, to bear the yoke. Grace studies self-mortification, wants to be subdued, is ready to be subject. Nature labours for her own advantage. Grace considers what may profit many. Nature loves ease. Grace cannot be unemployed. Nature looks at things temporal, is sad at loss, vexed by a little injurious word. Grace reaches after things eternal and has placed her treasure in heaven, where nothing perishes. Nature is covetous. Grace believes it is more blessed to give than to receive. Nature loves friends who are like herself. Grace loves even her enemies and favours the poor more than the rich. Nature quickly complains. Grace bears want. Nature refers all things to herself. Grace brings all things back to God.

So far as Nature is pressed down and overcome, so far is greater Grace bestowed, and the inner person is daily created anew. Without grace you can do nothing. The little power that remains in fallen nature is as a spark hid in the ashes: a discernment of good and evil that cannot fulfil all it approves. To will the good is present. How to perform it is not, unless grace helps.

“Without the way thou canst not go, without the truth thou canst not know, without the life thou canst not live.” He is the Way to follow, the Truth to believe, the Life to hope for. If you will be His disciple, deny yourself. If you will reign with Him, bear the cross with Him. Only the servants of the cross find the way of blessedness. Come, go forward together. Jesus shall be with you. He will be the helper, who was the Captain and Forerunner. Do not fly from the cross.

Patience and humility in adversities please Him more than much comfort in prosperity. You are brave enough so long as no adversity meets you. You know how to strengthen others with words. When tribulation knocks at your own door, counsel and strength fail. You are man, not God. You are flesh, not an angel. How should you remain always in the same state of virtue, when an angel in heaven fell, and the first man in paradise? Bear patiently, if you cannot yet bear joyfully. Soon the storm shall be stilled.

The fourth book turns to the table. Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. The bread that I will give is My flesh. Take, eat: this is My Body. He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood dwells in Me and I in him. The Sacrament of the Altar, here, is not a metaphor. It is Christ present, God and man, offering Himself in bread and wine.

The disciple is terrified by his own sins and drawn by the sweetness of the invitation. Angels stand in awe, and still He says Come. Noah laboured a hundred years on the ark. Moses made an ark of gold for the tables of the law. Solomon was seven years building the temple. And you, in one hour, would receive the Maker of the world. People run to distant shrines to look at the memorials of departed saints, and often bring home curiosity and little amendment. Here, in the Sacrament, Thou art present altogether. Not an angel, but the Lord of the angels, as Guest.

So often as you call this mystery to mind and receive the body of Christ, so often you celebrate the work of your redemption. The charity of Christ never grows less. The greatness of His propitiation is never exhausted. Draw near often. Without this food you faint by the way. Holy Communion draws back from evil and strengthens for good. Give Him yourself, and it suffices. Without Him you cannot be.

Do not be a curious searcher of this Sacrament. A searcher of Majesty shall be oppressed by the glory of it. God is able to do more than man can understand. Blessed is the simplicity which leaves the difficult paths of questionings and follows the plain steps of the commandments. Many have lost devotion while they sought to search into deeper things. Faith is required of you, and a sincere life, not loftiness of intellect, nor deepness in the mysteries of God. If you do not understand the things beneath you, how will you comprehend those above you?

Go forward with simple and undoubting faith. Whatsoever you cannot understand, commit without anxiety to God. God does not deceive you. He is deceived who believes too much in himself. God walks with the simple, reveals Himself to the humble, gives understanding to babes, opens the sense to pure minds, and hides grace from the curious and proud. Human reason is weak and may be deceived. True faith cannot be deceived. All reason and natural investigation ought to follow faith, not to precede it, nor to break it. Faith and love take the highest place here, and work in hidden ways.

God who is eternal and incomprehensible does great and inscrutable things in heaven and in earth. His wonderful works are past finding out. If the works of God were of such sort that they might easily be comprehended by human reason, they should no longer be called wonderful or unspeakable.

One real line. “I had rather feel contrition than be skilful in the definition thereof.” — Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ.

What didn’t hold. Traditional attribution is Thomas à Kempis of Mount St Agnes (d. 1471). An older case for John Gersen, Abbot of Vercelli, goes back to Benedictine claims of the early 1600s; it convinced Benham and is printed in his preface. It is no longer the scholarly majority. That is a dispute about the speaker, not about the teaching. Dean Milman charged that love of neighbour, public duty, and a life spent going about doing good are left out. The charge names a real emphasis: the centre is the isolated soul before God. It overstates the omission. Charity is taught, and so is bearing others’ faults, and the good of the many over your own. A public social gospel is not taught, and later readers who want one will not find it by squeezing. Nature and Grace is a theological contrast (self-seeking versus resting in God), not a modern psychology of fast and slow thought. Book I.8’s counsel to avoid familiarity with women is a fifteenth-century monastic enclosure rule, not a portable ethic. Book IV assumes the Catholic real presence in the Eucharist. Protestant and secular readers can still take the hunger, the fear of curiosity, and the warning that daily holy things go stale. They cannot honestly flatten the altar into a symbol the writer did not mean.

For the little ones

This book as stories to read aloud, each with a note for the grown-up.