The Christian Meditation Series
The Imitation of Christ is an old book, but the actual practice of imitating Christ is even older. Since the advent of Christ himself, people have been striving to live up to the example he set. Not only have the Christians been explicitly tasked with this process as the word Christian assigned to the disciples at Antioch originally meant “little Christ,” but many others who looked upon the faith with favorable eyes have also looked to the Divine Palestinian carpenter for direction and guidance.
This book, The Imitation of Christ, has been on the bookshelves and at bedside tables for many diverse groups of people throughout time. It has given many a chance to meditate on virtue and dissolve their vice. It is practical and humane. Although its tenets are challenging to carry out and the road it asks you to walk is narrow and lonely. You will no doubt be all the better for having read this little book.
Whenever you manage to get yourself a copy, I don’t recommend reading straight through it. It’s not that kind of book. Instead, I found the best practice is to find the chapter headings that most stick out to you and read straight through them. They are short and serve as a mantra. You can meditate on the words throughout the day or until you fall asleep. I often read passages out loud before bed. Of course, you don’t have to purchase the book or read it for yourself because that is what I will be doing throughout this series. I will be offering some of my own insights into the passage, but you can always skip through those and get straight to the meat.
I will begin the series in the most logical place, chapter one. I will be going through the first half of the book, which contains all of the meditations, and then possibly through the book’s second section, which has a different feel to it, as it contains more of a liturgical observe and report style between a disciple and Christ. So without further ado, here is the first chapter of the Imitation of Christ.
The First Chapter Imitating Christ & Despising All Vanities On Earth
He who follows Me, walks not in darkness,” says the Lord. 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. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.
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.
Often recall the proverb: “The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing.” Try, moreover, to turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their consciences and lose the grace of God.
-Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ 1418–1427
Reflections
There is a dualistic approach to the idea of understanding and implementation. It is more important to act virtuously than to have the knowledge of virtue and not act. I think this is relatively easy to agree with, and you find similar sentiments peppered throughout the new testament.
For example, in first Corinthians 13 verses 1- 3, Paul writes the following 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing.
The best practice is operational. I don’t think that you must devote yourself to reading books all day to learn how to be virtuous or loving. The best way to learn is by doing. In some sense, I think this is why the monks were so ritualistic. They built the practice of loving into their lives as a habit. Of course, just because the hand move in a loving way does not mean that they are inherently loving. The one doing loving things could be doing so for any number of motivations and many of them bad. So, it is important to find your heart in the right place through self-contemplation and reflection whilst never giving up the habit of doing good.
The next thing that I am drawn to in the passage is the insistence on avoiding temporal satisfaction. It is essential that the author couples the idea of vanity with that of the practice of virtue over the understanding of virtue. I think it is especially relevant to our modern age. We now live in a time where information is power. The ratio is almost on a one to one scale. Of course, it matters what you know, as some information is more potent than other types of information, but the point still stands nonetheless.
There is a great deal of vanity in knowing how to act virtuously without ever so much as opening a door for another person. If you understand the right action, you know the types of behaviors that can net the results you want. The knowledge of virtue, while it can help you attain the highest good, it can also help you reach the lowest evil. For the better the thing is, the more awful is perversion will be.
So, ascribe to virtue, not for any earthly gain but rather do good despite whatever may happen to you materially. As the author says, do not focus on that which you can see. Anyone can be virtuous if there is an obvious reward involved. Strive to do good because of the things which are not visible. If you behave for earthly gain, you will be corrupted and unsatisfied.
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You seem to have wisdom beyond your years, and learning as a young man to imitate Christ will serve you well however long or short Father gives you to live in this world. Blessings on you, my brother. c.a.
Thank you! I appreciate your kind words!
Lovely. Just lovely. All that you say is true here . It is not enough simply to be an expert in “doing the right thing“ if we don’t take the littlest steps and just do it. If we just start doing it, acting in love, and then continually ask the Holy Spirit to help us be better, it’s a beautiful combination of events that follows. Thank you for saying this
Thank you so much for the kind words! You’re exactly right the road to heaven is one that is traveled one step at a time.