Here is this week's thought from one of our spiritual fathers or mothers...and the last from The Imitation of Christ. If you have any favourite classics from which you would like to see passages in future, then please let me know in the comments.

This Christian classic was most probably written by the Medieval monk Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth century. It is a devotional book encouraging a holy and prayerful lifestyle. This translation comes from The Cyber Library.

The Imitation of Christ
Book Three - Internal Consolation

From Chapter 15
How One Should Feel and Speak on Every Desirable Thing

THE VOICE OF CHRIST

My child, this is the way you must speak on every occasion: "Lord, if it be pleasing to You, so be it. If it be to Your honor, Lord, be it done in Your name. Lord, if You see that it is expedient and profitable for me, then grant that I may use it to Your honor. But if You know that it will be harmful to me, and of no good benefit to the welfare of my soul, then take this desire away from me."

Not every desire is from the Holy Spirit, even though it may seem right and good. It is difficult to be certain whether it is a good spirit or a bad one that prompts one to this or that, and even to know whether you are being moved by your own spirit. Many who seemed at first to be led by a good spirit have been deceived in the end.

Whatever the mind sees as good, ask and desire in fear of God and humility of heart. Above all, commit the whole matter to Me with true resignation, and say: "Lord, You know what is better for me; let this be done or that be done as You please. Grant what You will, as much as You will, when You will. Do with me as You know best, as will most please You, and will be for Your greater honor. Place me where You will and deal with me freely in all things. I am in Your hand; turn me about whichever way You will. Behold, I am Your servant, ready to obey in all things. Not for myself do I desire to live, but for You -- would that I could do this worthily and perfectly!"

This particular passage reminds me of Ignatius' famous prayer and of the Methodist Covenant Prayer, both of which I have written about here. Both are beautiful and very challenging prayers. Members of the Methodist Church pray the Covenant Prayer at their Covenant Service each New Year. If you have never attended a Methodist Covenant Service you are missing something very special.

This is the fifth in a Sunday series from The Imitation of Christ.
Here are the others:
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 1
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 4
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 6
The Imitation of Christ - Book 2 Chapter 8

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Here is this week's thought from one of our spiritual fathers or mothers...and I am continuing for two more weeks with The Imitation of Christ. If you have any favourite classics from which you would like to see passages in future, then please let me know in the comments.

This Christian classic was most probably written by the Medieval monk Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth century. It is a devotional book encouraging a holy and prayerful lifestyle. This translation comes from The Cyber Library.

The Imitation of Christ
Book Two - The Interior Life

Chapter 8 - The intimate friendship of Jesus

When Jesus is near, all is well and nothing seems difficult. When He is absent, all is hard. When Jesus does not speak within, all other comfort is empty, but if He says only a word, it brings great consolation.

Did not Mary Magdalen rise at once from her weeping when Martha said to her: "The Master is come, and calleth for thee"?[John 11:28] Happy is the hour when Jesus calls one from tears to joy of spirit.

How dry and hard you are without Jesus! How foolish and vain if you desire anything but Him! Is it not a greater loss than losing the whole world? For what, without Jesus, can the world give you? Life without Him is a relentless hell, but living with Him is a sweet paradise. If Jesus be with you, no enemy can harm you.

He who finds Jesus finds a rare treasure, indeed, a good above every good, whereas he who loses Him loses more than the whole world. The man who lives without Jesus is the poorest of the poor, whereas no one is so rich as the man who lives in His grace.

It is a great art to know how to converse with Jesus, and great wisdom to know how to keep Him. Be humble and peaceful, and Jesus will be with you. Be devout and calm, and He will remain with you. You may quickly drive Him away and lose His grace, if you turn back to the outside world. And, if you drive Him away and lose Him, to whom will you go and whom will you then seek as a friend? You cannot live well without a friend, and if Jesus be not your friend above all else, you will be very sad and desolate. Thus, you are acting foolishly if you trust or rejoice in any other. Choose the opposition of the whole world rather than offend Jesus. Of all those who are dear to you, let Him be your special love. Let all things be loved for the sake of Jesus, but Jesus for His own sake.

Jesus Christ must be loved alone with a special love for He alone, of all friends, is good and faithful. For Him and in Him you must love friends and foes alike, and pray to Him that all may know and love Him.

Never desire special praise or love, for that belongs to God alone Who has no equal. Never wish that anyone's affection be centered in you, nor let yourself be taken up with the love of anyone, but let Jesus be in you and in every good man. Be pure and free within, unentangled with any creature.

You must bring to God a clean and open heart if you wish to attend and see how sweet the Lord is. Truly you will never attain this happiness unless His grace prepares you and draws you on so that you may forsake all things to be united with Him alone.

When the grace of God comes to a man he can do all things, but when it leaves him he becomes poor and weak, abandoned, as it were, to affliction. Yet, in this condition he should not become dejected or despair. On the contrary, he should calmly await the will of God and bear whatever befalls him in praise of Jesus Christ, for after winter comes summer, after night, the day, and after the storm, a great calm.

This is the fourth in a Sunday series. Here are the others:
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 1
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 4
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 6

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Here is this week's thought from one of our spiritual fathers or mothers...

This Christian classic was most probably written by the Medieval monk Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth century. It is a devotional book encouraging a holy and prayerful lifestyle. This translation comes from The Cyber Library.

The Imitation of Christ
Book One - Thoughts Helpful in the Life of the Soul

Chapter 6 - Unbridled Affections

When a man desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease. A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. An unmortified man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils; his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires. Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of conscience overwhelms him because he followed his passions and they did not lead to the peace he sought.

True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. There is no peace in the carnal man, in the man given to vain attractions, but there is peace in the fervent and spiritual man.

This is the third in a Sunday series. Here are the others:
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 1
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 4

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Here is this week's thought from one of our spiritual fathers or mothers...

This Christian classic was most probably written by the Medieval monk Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth century. It is a devotional book encouraging a holy and prayerful lifestyle. This translation comes from The Cyber Library.

The Imitation of Christ
Book One - Thoughts Helpful in the Life of the Soul

Chapter 4 - Prudence in Action

Do not yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things carefully and patiently in the light of God's will. For very often, sad to say, we are so weak that we believe and speak evil of others rather than good. Perfect men, however, do not readily believe every talebearer, because they know that human frailty is prone to evil and is likely to appear in speech.

Not to act rashly or to cling obstinately to one's opinion, not to believe everything people say or to spread abroad the gossip one has heard, is great wisdom.

Take counsel with a wise and conscientious man. Seek the advice of your betters in preference to following your own inclinations.

A good life makes a man wise according to God and gives him experience in many things, for the more humble he is and the more subject to God, the wiser and the more at peace he will be in all things.

This is the second in a Sunday series. Here is the first:
The Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Chapter 1

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Each Sunday I hope to publish an extract from one of the Christian Classics. The Imitation of Christ is one of my favourites and so it will be my starting point for the next few weeks - I hope it might become a favourite of yours, too!

This Christian classic was most probably written by the Medieval monk Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth century. Originally written in Latin, it was first translated into French and German, before being translated into English in 1502. It is a devotional book, written for a monastic audience and encouraging a holy and prayerful lifestyle. Some parts feel strange to our twenty-first century ears, but it has remained a favourite of Christians of all traditions through the centuries.

I hope that you will enjoy meditating on this spiritual gem. This translation comes from The Cyber Library but I have taken the liberty of inserting the Biblical references into the text to make it a smoother read.

The Imitation of Christ
Book One - Thoughts Helpful in the Life of the Soul

From Chapter 1 - Imitating Christ and Despising All Vanities on Earth

He who follows Me, walks not in darkness," says the Lord.[John 8:12] By these words of Christ we are advised to imitate His life and habits, if we wish to be truly enlightened and free from all blindness of heart. Let our chief effort, therefore, be to study the life of Jesus Christ.

The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often but care little for it because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ.

What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God.
...

This is the greatest wisdom - to seek the kingdom of heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.

Wise words never date, do they?

Which part spoke most clearly to your heart?

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I wonder if you have ever tried to read any of the Christian Classics - books written by the early Church Fathers and by later Christians that have been handed down through the centuries as worthy of our time and effort.

If not, one you might like to try, as one of your first, 'The Practice of the Presence of God' by Brother Lawrence. Or if that seems daunting, you could start with a simple, modern presentation of his teaching in thirty daily meditations: 'Living in the Presence of God'.

Brother Lawrence was born Nicolas Herman in 1614 and brought up in a small village in Lorraine, Eastern France. He fought in the Thirty Years War, worked as a valet, and in his mid-twenties entered the Discalced Carmelite religious order in Paris as a lay brother - not having the 'right' background to actually take clerical orders. He spent most of his life working in the monastery kitchens and later, as he was getting older, mending sandals.

Brother Lawrence learned and taught about acknowledging and experiencing the presence of God even in the most mundane of everyday tasks - and he certainly had plenty of experience of those! He became known as a man of wisdom and was sought out for his spiritual guidance.

Here are a few of Brother Lawrence's quotes from Living in the Presence of God:

You can turn to God with absolute confidence, bringing to him all your failures and sorrows. Your God is infinitely generous.

He alone can make himself known as he really is. But we go on searching in philosophy and science, preferring, it seems, a poor copy to the original that God himself paints in the depths of our souls.

Your holiness does not depend on doing 'other' things, but in doing for God's sake what you would otherwise normally do for your own sake.

The grace of Brother Lawrence and the simplicity and depth of his spirituality have remained attractive throughout the centuries. In his Maxims he writes:

Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.

Practising the presence of God transformed Brother Lawrence and it can transform each of us today.

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