Monthly Archives: May 2012

The Twelfth Chapter: Acquiring Patience in the Fight Against Concupiscence

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The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Twelfth Chapter: Acquiring Patience in the Fight Against Concupiscence

The Disciple

PATIENCE, O Lord God, is very necessary for me, I see, because there are many adversities in this life. No matter what plans I make for my own peace, my life cannot be free from struggle and sorrow.

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COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER XII.

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Challoner’s Reflection on The Imitation of Christ1
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSULTATION
CHAPTER XII.: Acquiring Patience in the Fight Against Concupiscence

All flesh has sinned, all flesh must suffer: it is the present law of humanity; the law of justice, for God would not be God if disorder remained unpunished; the law of love, for suffering, accepted and united to the sufferings of the Saviour, heals the soul and establishes it again in its primitive state of innocence. Of what then do you complain when this divine law is exercised in your case? Is it because the divine mercy desires to regenerate you? Is it for being made like to Jesus Christ, who wished, nay, who had to suffer, in order to redeem you? His was the great expiation; but, in order that it may be applied to us, it is necessary that we should render ourselves worthy, by joining ours to it The mystery of salvation is consummated in each one of us on the cross; and the cross is the sole happiness of the earth, for there is no other but perfect submission to order, from which calm of conscience and peace of heart spring. The world dazzles you by its apparent joys; but do you imagine that its votaries, even its most favoured ones, have nothing to suffer? Tormented by their mad desires, which increase by being indulged, did you ever see a single one of them satisfied? New desires torment them unceasingly. And have they not besides, as well as others, even more than others, to bear the evils of life; its cares, its troubles, its inquietudes, and the innumerable host of maladies which are the children of vice and of the secret troubles of the soul?

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  1. Right Rev. R. Challoner, D.D., V.A., Imitation of Christ, Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1873 ↩

COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER XI.

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Challoner’s Reflection on The Imitation of Christ1
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSULTATION
CHAPTER XI.: The Longings of our Hearts Must Be Examined And Moderated

We have to fight a severe battle: against our minds which lead us astray, seduced by false lights and by a lamentable curiosity; against our desires which trouble us; against our senses, the desires of ^which stain the soul and bend it down to the earth. Sad condition of fallen man! But God has not abandoned him; he can conquer if he wishes to do so. Faith represses the sickly inquietude of the mind, and fIXes it in truth. An entire submission to the Divine Will produces peace of heart, by stifling vain desires and those which even deceive piety by an appearance of good. And finally we triumph over the senses by PRAYER. by humility, and by penitence, by chastising the body and bringing it into subjection (1 Corinthians 9:27Open Link in New Window). It is in this war of each moment that the Christian arrives at perfection.

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  1. Right Rev. R. Challoner, D.D., V.A., Imitation of Christ, Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1873 ↩

The Tenth Chapter: To Despise the World and Serve God is Sweet

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The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Tenth Chapter: To Despise the World and Serve God is Sweet

The Disciple

NOW again I will speak, Lord, and will not be silent. I will speak to the hearing of my God, my Lord, and my King Who is in heaven. How great, O Lord, is the multitude of Your mercies which You have stored up for those who love You. But what are You to those who love You? What are You to those who serve You with their whole heart?

Truly beyond the power of words is the sweetness of contemplation You give to those who love You. To me You have shown the sweetness of Your charity, especially in having made me when I did not exist, in having brought me back to serve You when I had gone far astray from You, in having commanded me to love You. Continue reading →

COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER X.

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Challoner’s Reflection on The Imitation of Christ1
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSULTATION
CHAPTER X.: To Despise the World and Serve God is Sweet

The world is so enslaved by the passions, that it can understand nothing of the felicity of the children of God. Sometimes it pities them as the world knows how to pity, casting on them a look of contempt; sometimes it contemplates them with a kind of stupid astonishment. It has no idea of what takes place in the soul united to its Creator; no idea of the consolations and of the delicious calm which it enjoys. Saint Paul crying out: I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation (2 Corinthians, 7:4), is an inexplicable mystery to it; it will never be able to conceive that pure joy, which is justice and peace in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17Open Link in New Window). What then is the lot of the worldly man ? an immense discontent scattered over with a few pleasures; and, when God does not entirely abandon him, remorse. Search into his heart, and that is all you will find. Remorse is his justice, and discontent his peace.

ASPIRATION.

Grant me thy grace, O my God, and if my affections, my desires, my love, and my fidelity, can never be worthy of Thee, may they all at least be devoted to thy service. Amen.

  1. Right Rev. R. Challoner, D.D., V.A., Imitation of Christ, Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1873 ↩

The Ninth Chapter: All Things should be Referred to God as their Last End

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The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Ninth Chapter: All Things should be Referred to God as their Last End

The Voice of Christ

MY CHILD, I must be your supreme and last end, if you truly desire to be blessed. With this intention your affections, which are too often perversely inclined to self and to creatures, will be purified. For if you seek yourself in anything, you immediately fail interiorly and become dry of heart.

Refer all things principally to Me, therefore, for it is I Who have given them all. Consider each thing as flowing from the highest good, and therefore to Me, as to their highest source, must all things be brought back. Continue reading →

COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER IX.

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Challoner’s Reflection on The Imitation of Christ1
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSULTATION
CHAPTER IX.: All Things should be Referred to God as their Last End

All that is good flows from God, who is the supreme good, and all that He does is good, because He draws it from himself. There is not in the world any real evil but sin; for the punishment of sin is not an evil, because, supported with patience, it expiates it, and because it always re-establishes the order which sin had disturbed. Thus we hold from God life, intelligence, love, which should ascend again perpetually towards their source; and of ourselves we can do nothing, not even say: My Father! (Romans 8:15Open Link in New Window). For we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings (Romans 8:26Open Link in New Window). The only thing which belongs to us is sin; it is the fruit of our free will, and its wages is Death (Romans 6:23Open Link in New Window).

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  1. Right Rev. R. Challoner, D.D., V.A., Imitation of Christ, Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1873 ↩

The Eighth Chapter: Self-Abasement in the Sight of God

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The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Eighth Chapter: Self-Abasement in the Sight of God

The Disciple

I WILL speak to my Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. If I consider myself anything more than this, behold You stand against me, and my sins bear witness to the truth which I cannot contradict. If I abase myself, however, if I humble myself to nothingness, if I shrink from all self-esteem and account myself as the dust which I am, Your grace will favor me, Your light will enshroud my heart, and all self-esteem, no matter how little, will sink in the depths of my nothingness to perish forever.

It is there You show me to myself–what I am, what I have been, and what I am coming to; for I am nothing and I did not know it. Left to myself, I am nothing but total weakness. But if You look upon me for an instant, I am at once made strong and filled with new joy. Great wonder it is that I, who of my own weight always sink to the depths, am so suddenly lifted up, and so graciously embraced by You. Continue reading →

COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER VIII.

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Challoner’s Reflection on The Imitation of Christ1
BOOK THREE: INTERNAL CONSULTATION
CHAPTER VIII.: Self-Abasement in the Sight of God

God shows Himself, in the Scriptures, full of immense compassion for faults purely human, if it may be so expressed; but he is without pity for pride, the beginning of all sin (Ecclesiastes x. 15); for pride, which is the special crime of the rebellious angel, and which directly attacks the Sovereign Being. He has said: I, the Lord, this is my name; I will not give my glory to another (Isaias, x. 15). Now all pride tends, in its essence, to make itself equal to God, to make itself God: a disorder than which a greater one cannot alone be conceived, but which we would hesitate to believe possible, if it were not continually before our eyes, and if we did not feel the germs of it in ourselves. Therefore see how God blasts it; first by that irony which freezes the soul with a supernatural terror: Behold Adam is become as one of us (Genesis 3:22Open Link in New Window); Adam cast naked, with his sin, on accursed earth! Adam, who had just heard these words: Thou shall die the death (Genesis 2:17Open Link in New Window)! Then read in the Gospel the fearful maledictions pronounced on the proud Pharisees, whilst he who humbles himself is at once justified. A woman weeps at the feet of Jesus; she humiliates herself on account of her sins; she scarcely ventures to ask pardon for them; her silence alone supplicates. The Saviour moved by her tears, consoles her, and many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much (Luke, 7:47).

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  1. Right Rev. R. Challoner, D.D., V.A., Imitation of Christ, Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1873 ↩