You
can find Post 1 on this read, here,
You
can find Post 2 here.
From
Book 3, “Internal Consolation”:
Comment1:
Madeleine
highlighted this prayer from Book 3, chapter 3:
"Lord,
teach me to do Thy will, teach me to walk humbly and uprightly before Thee, for
Thou art my wisdom, who knowest me in truth, and knowest me before the world
was made and before I was born into the world."
My
response to Madelieine: That is a beautiful prayer. Given that pride is one of
my biggest obstacles, I do on occasion ask Jesus, "Jesus, may my heart be
as humble as Yours when you call."
Comment
2:
I
have to tell a funny story about chapter 24. There's a Catholic blog I
sometimes visit, Virginia Lieto's "Evangelizing Through the Catholic
Arts." She is a Goodreads author here and one day I noticed her Goodreads
page. I commented on her blog to a post where she was reviewing a book she had
just read and I told her I was a moderator to this blog at Goodreads. I invited
her to join and told her we were shortly starting The Imitation of Christ.
She
replied that both her and her husband had read The Imitation of Christ together
and that they had an inside joke. Whenever her husband looked out the window
seeing what their neighbors were up to, she would just say, "Book 3,
Chapter 24." And that would stop him from snooping. It became a running joke
in their marriage. Now you'll have to go and see what chapter 24 is about.
You
can see that exchange and check out her blog here.
Comment
3:
Kerstin
wrote: "I'm still in the beginning of the chapter. I find I can't just
"power through" the pages if I want to get anything out of
them."
My
response to Kerstin: I know what you mean. Chapter 3 is quite enjoyable to me.
I don't seem to have any criticism. You know, there are multiple authors all
absorbed under Thomas à Kempis. We have no indication who wrote what. I wonder
if a different author wrote a different chapter. The three chapters so far seem
to be different from each other. I don't know if it's because the focus is
different or if the author's perspectives are different.
Comment
4:
Some
of these passages should be highlighted. Take this from the opening chapter of
Book 3. It’s the second paragraph but I’m going to separate the sentences out
so you can notice the emphasis.
Blessed is the soul who
hears the Lord speaking within her, who receives the word of consolation from
His lips.
Blessed are the ears that
catch the accents of divine whispering, and pay no heed to the murmurings of
this world.
Blessed indeed are the
ears that listen, not to the voice which sounds without, but to the truth which
teaches within.
Blessed are the eyes
which are closed to exterior things and are fixed upon those which are
interior.
Blessed are they who
penetrate inwardly, who try daily to prepare themselves more and more to
understand mysteries.
Blessed are they who long
to give their time to God, and who cut themselves off from the hindrances of
the world.
As
you can see this is modeled on the beatitudes. Notice how everything is inward.
Everything in the book seems to deal with the isolation of the self. Compare
this with Christ’s beatitudes:
“Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for
they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who
hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
or they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of
heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are
persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they
insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely]
because of me.” (Matt 5:3-11)
Notice
the difference. Those in à Kempis are all interiorizing virtues. It’s almost as
if the outside world doesn’t exist. Look at his very next paragraph:
Consider these things, my
soul, and close the door of your senses, so that you can hear what the Lord
your God speaks within you. "I am your salvation," says your Beloved.
"I am your peace and your life. Remain with Me and you will find peace.
Dismiss all passing things and seek the eternal. What are all temporal things
but snares? And what help will all creatures be able to give you if you are
deserted by the Creator?" Leave all these things, therefore, and make
yourself pleasing and faithful to your Creator so that you may attain to true
happiness.
The
theme there is to “close the door of your senses,” which in effect is to close
the door to the outside world. Now Christ’s beatitudes isn’t rejecting the
interior. He talks of mourning and clean of heart, which are interior virtues,
but He also talks of meekness, righteousness, mercifulness. These virtues are
concerned with interacting with the outside world, the outside world being your
neighbor. It calls to mind Christ’s two commandments: love God with all your
heart and love your neighbor as yourself.
This
book is called The Imitation of Christ. So if it ignores half of Christ’s
commandment—and I say ignore, not reject, for there’s nothing I can see that
rejects Christ’s second commandment—is the exhortation really being in
imitation of Christ?
Comment
5:
Kerstin
says in response to my comment: “The title of Book III is On Interior
Consolation and the title of the Chapter 1, Christ Speaks Interiorly to the
Faithful Soul. This says to me that the focus is interior. I see this whole
section more in light of detachment.
Does
your edition give you the Scripture quotes? In mine, which is the same as the
book icon for this discussion, they are set in italics with an endnote number.”
My
response to Kerstin: My edition cites the allusion but doesn't supply the text.
I didn't follow up on it. The citation for me is Psalm 84:9. When I read psalms
35 and 84, they both seem very exterior to me. I really don't see the interior.
"Brandish lance and battle-ax against my pursuers," that sounds
exterior to me. Read the entire psalm and see if it feels interior or exterior.
Maybe my perception is wrong.
Comment
6:
Here
is a fine article I found this morning on how gnosticism - the heresy of the
bodily as seen as evil - has infiltrated contemporary Christianity.
Read
at least the first several paragraphs. To create a dichotomy of spiritual being
good and corporeal being bad is not really in line with the core of
Christianity. I'm not saying à Kempis and the other writers of this book are
gnostic heretics, but they do drift into a semi-gnostic view of Christianity.
Here
is a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas that I think says what I've been trying to
say:
"We
ought to cherish the body. Our body's substance is not from evil principle but
from God and therefore we ought to cherish the body by a friendship of
love."
Comment
7:
Kerstin
says: “On the authorship of The Imitation of Christ. I re-read the intro in my
copy, and it goes into it to some detail. I will give you the gist:
That
Kempis is not the sole author has been asserted for some time, and there are
among others three primary persons who are named in conjunction to be possible
co-authors. Yet when taking a closer look the likelihood seems less certain
given background, location, local language variants, etc. Kempis didn't write
the 'Imitation' in one setting. Book III and VI are later compositions…”
My
response to Kerstin: Thanks Kerstin. That is interesting. I guess I'll just
refer to the writer as Kempis.
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