Reflecting and Responding
Thomas à Kempis
Imitating Christ
The words of Christ remind us that we must imitate his life and his ways if we are to be truly enlightened and set free from the darkness of our own hearts.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
IT IS PERHAPS THE SIMPLICITY OF THE WRITINGS of Thomas à Kempis (1379-1471) that draw us in. His reflections match our own life experience: “When I had journeyed half of my life’s way, I found myself in a dark wood for I had lost the path.” Every one of us has wandered off the path. Sometimes we have wandered accidentally, sometimes intentionally, but always because we lacked a clear sense of where we needed to go and the cost of not arriving at our destination.
The Imitation of Christ was written in the fifteenth century to help us find our way back onto the path. It was an instant success and came to represent a watershed of fifteenth-century Christian spirituality. By the end of the century it had been translated into multiple languages and spread around the known world. It would be one of two primary texts that guided Ignatius of Loyola back to his life with God. Once it was translated into English, it became and has been a perennial bestseller, along with The Pilgrim’s Progress and the Bible.
It is believed that à Kempis wrote the Imitation while caught up in a great renewal movement sweeping Europe. The simplicity of its message and the accessibility of its ideas make it especially attractive, but it also reveals the turmoil sweeping the continent at the time. How does one become like Christ while facing political and social unrest on a grand scale?
As Europe endured the aftermath of the great schism of the fourteenth century, it was also seeking relief from the bubonic plague that ravished Europe for one hundred years, killing a third of the population initially and then recurring every three to ten years. Furthermore, the continent had to address the growing decay that was undermining the organized church. All that à Kempis believed should happen through God’s power at work in the world had collapsed. The schisms that began long before his birth continued deep into his own century. In a desperate attempt to find a deeper life with God, à Kempis entered a monastery in order to engage in patterns of life and instruction that would strengthen himself and the church.
The Priorities of Faith
The Imitation itself is straightforward: it provides timeless instruction in spiritual direction for those who will in turn give spiritual direction as well. Every one of us who seeks to balance our love for God with our work in the world could be guided by this classic. Its very strategy seeks to answer the question that haunts every honest seeker: how can we change for the better? Because the book was originally written as journal entries, it does not follow any organizational pattern, but it does cluster around eight central priorities.
First, when we cultivate humility we destroy self-centeredness and enter the pathway to God. Then, humility allows us to develop a clear conscience based on the active cultivation of virtue. Next, we discover inner peace. As a result, everything in our life begins to flow out of a spontaneous response to the pure love of God. Then we are prepared to encounter the cross and discover the full impact of Christ. This helps us see that God wants to lead us into the life-changing experience of eternal life. As a result, we strive to become true imitators of Christ. Finally, we become ruled not by nature but by grace.
As we consider each priority in detail, we recognize that the first step to spiritual transformation is to destroy our self-centeredness. The ability to move beyond our ego in order to discover God begins by cultivating a spirit of humility. Humility is based on perceiving reality accurately, including the truth that life does not revolve around our needs and desires. Thomas à Kempis recognizes that all of us believe our natural desire for happiness will cause us to find happiness. But this is simply not the case. The very nature of the spiritual life runs counter to our natural desires. We do not discover happiness naturally. In fact, our self-centeredness is so powerful that we fail to see that we cannot engineer our own happiness but only prepare for it.
The second priority builds on the first and insists on the need to cultivate virtue. Throughout the early part of his book, à Kempis repeatedly reminds us how easy it is to fall prey to temptation. Our vulnerability to temptation is a result of a life that is not fully integrated. We are not stable, we are not patient and we are not kind. Our feelings are easily thrown off by our day-to-day affairs. The cultivation of virtue, on the other hand, gives us an ordered consistency that stabilizes us.
The third priority is to discover inner peace, or eirene, a Greek word that is similar in meaning to the Hebrew shalom. It means much more than the absence of conflict but signifies our discovery of complete well-being. Today there are so many fashionable attempts to discover well-being that we forget the central teaching of our faith: complete well-being can only be accomplished through our relationship with Jesus Christ.
The fourth priority is to live every day as a spontaneous response to the pure love of God. This is understood as agapé love, the love that is free of egocentric desire. The best expression of this love is the fruit of the Spirit. To be able to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit authentically is to be an integrated person full of love and free of evil.
The fifth priority is to encounter the cross in order to understand Christ. Eventually, all of us must die to self and the world in order to enter the fullness of our life in God. No matter where we start, our life with God must pass through the cross. In a day filled with all sorts of spiritual options, it is hard to recognize the enduring testimony of this uniquely Christian approach. The idea of the cross and the sense of sacrifice it entails call us to a path different from every other.
The sixth priority is to experience eternal life, or zoë. This Greek term comes from the New Testament and is different from bios, which means only physical existence. The prevailing mood of our society draws all our energy and attention toward bios, not zoë. Every place we turn emphasizes our biological existence without paying attention to our eternal end. Yet zoë is the experience of eternal life that originates in God alone even while we live. It is a glimpse of the meaning of this life as a foretaste of the life to come.
The seventh priority is to imitate Christ. Although this is à Kempis’s entire theme, when he defines it more specifically, he states that to imitate Christ is to embody in our own life the same spirit with which Jesus lived when he was on earth. He elaborates by showing how Jesus is the way (the path to God), the truth (the ultimate source and foundation of life that makes truth possible) and the life (zoë—the eternal, uncreated life that originates in God alone).
The eighth priority is to be ruled not by nature but by grace. And here we encounter one of the most interesting features of à Kempis’s entire book: his discussion of the difference between those ruled by nature and those ruled by grace.
The Contrast of Nature and Grace
The difference between nature and grace covers several pages but is easily compressed into thirty key contrasts. These ideas played a significant role in how Ignatius would eventually structure his thirty-day retreat. Here is a brief summation of the contrasts, with the caveat that these differences are discernible only by those who are spiritually enlightened.
One of the ways I have found this list helpful is to use it as an interactive guide as I write in my journal. I have focused on one contrast a day for six thirty-day periods and recorded the results in my journal. The effect is staggering. It is natural to see and experience life only as it affects me. To break out of our egocentric posture is nearly impossible, but when we do, we are learning to live not by nature but by grace.
The ultimate priority of the spiritual life is to enjoy the fullness of life by coming to completion in Christ. This completion is possible only through active involvement in the Christian community. à Kempis places a strong emphasis on the role of the sacraments in our life with God. None of us ever knows God in isolation. Rather, our life with God is a series of individual and corporate experiences that guide us over time.
Throughout his text, à Kempis repeatedly asks what attitudes are desirable and what disciplines are necessary if we are to imitate Christ fully. It is only when the totality of who we are expresses the totality of who Jesus is in us that we imitate him. Few of us attain this level of identity with Christ, but the possibility of complete fulfillment in this way provides the most attractive vision of life possible. Although à Kempis articulated this approach it was left to Ignatius to systematize how it could be attained.
REFLECTING AND RESPONDING
For half a millennium, The Imitation of Christ has been the unchallenged devotional masterpiece for Christians everywhere. We have been immensely enriched by this simple book, which distills the insights of a dynamic Christian community in the fifteenth century known as the Brethren of the Common Life. The Imitation is one of the finest expressions of the spiritual movement known as devotio moderna (modern devotion), which swept through the European continent from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It stressed an inner life of devotion and cautioned against an outer life of excessive busyness and preoccupation.
The Imitation has a way of drawing me back to the things I value the most: simple love for Jesus, prayerful devotion, ongoing character formation into the image of Christ and more. A single insight from the Imitation can transport me onto an inner venture of discovery and spiritual growth: “No one speaks securely except the person who willingly keeps silent. No one leads securely except the person who freely serves.” Or it settles me into thoughtful meditation and introspection: “What good is it to live long when we improve so little?” Or it rouses me to strive all the more toward deep character formation: “Fight bravely, for habit overcomes habit.”
Over the years, I have profited immensely from the Imitation. But, frankly, I have always thought of it as a collection of rather random, independent sayings. Hence, what Gayle Beebe has done in ordering the Imitation into general themes is quite unique. And it works. The ordering is not forced and is right on the mark. It opens the Imitation up in a whole new way. For this we can be grateful.
It would be worthwhile to slowly read the Imitation with these eight themes in mind and see where we would place each section. This would give us an entirely new way to approach à Kempis’s teaching. We could consider his insights into humility, for example, by reading at one setting the dozen or so sections that consider that theme.
Further, it is helpful for us to see how one theme drives us into the next. This does not come so much from à Kempis himself, but it certainly is a quality that shines in Gayle Beebe’s ordering of à Kempis. A spirit of humility, for example, is essential before we can even consider the cultivation of virtue, and humility, once acquired, of necessity drives us into the cultivation of virtue. Or consider how inner peace as a settled reality of life is needed before we can live every day as a spontaneous response to the pure love of God, and how both of these are essential for us to endure the sufferings which come with taking up our cross daily.
The summation Gayle Beebe has developed to characterize the theme of being “ruled by grace rather than nature” is brilliant. I have not seen as clear and accurate a summary of à Kempis on this topic anywhere. Gayle’s idea of using these thirty statements one at a time as a daily examen of conscience is excellent—though five or six days may be all some of us can take at one time!
I do hope you will consider making The Imitation of Christ one of those few books you will return to and draw strength from for a lifetime.
A Prayer of Thomas à Kempis
“Grant me most sweet and loving Jesus, to rest in you above every other creature, above all health and beauty, above all glory and honor, above all power and dignity, above all knowledge and precise thought, above all wealth and talent, above all joy and exultation, above all fame and praise, above all sweetness and consolation, above all hope and promise, above all merit and desire, above all gifts and favors you give and shower upon me, above all happiness and joy that the mind can understand and feel, and finally, above all angels and archangels, above all the hosts of heaven, above all things visible and invisible, and above all that is not you, my God. Amen.”