Hello, my name is Finn, and I'm going to help you understand this book.
Here it is, explained like you are 10:
A quiet monk wrote this book six hundred years ago to help his brothers live a good life, and it became one of the most read books on Earth. It gives short, plain advice: be humble, be patient, expect hardship, do not chase praise, and follow Christ's example a day at a time. There is no showing off in it. It is a wise friend speaking softly, and people have kept it beside their beds for centuries.
Thomas à Kempis spent nearly seventy years in the Dutch religious house of Mount St. Agnes, copying manuscripts (he copied the whole Bible at least once), training novices, and writing, among many works, the four books gathered here around 1418 to 1427. The Imitation belongs to the Devotio Moderna, the movement that wanted ordinary Christians, not just monks, to practice an interior life.
Its four books climb: admonitions for the spiritual life (humility, obedience, patience, contempt of vanity), admonitions to the inner life, the long third book of inward consolation, a dialogue between Christ and the disciple, and the book on the sacrament, ending in counsel against curious searching. The sentences are hammered short, made to be memorized, and thousands of them have become proverbs in a dozen languages.
It is the most translated and reprinted devotional book in Christian history after the Bible, claimed by Catholics and Protestants alike, and our labels cite each chapter by book and chapter with its title from the edition's contents, so you can find, say, 3.XII again when you need it.
For six hundred years this has been the most read devotional book in the world after the Bible. Thomas à Kempis, a quiet Dutch monk, wrote it in the early 1400s as a guide for monks: four books of short chapters on humility, inward peace, patience in suffering, and the sacrament. Its advice is unsentimental and practical, and Christians of every kind have kept it by their beds.
The first chapter
Of the imitation of Christ, and of contempt of the world and all its vanities
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,(1) saith the Lord. These are the words of Christ; and they teach us how far we must imitate His life and character, if we seek true illumination, and deliverance from all blindness of heart. Let it be our most earnest study, therefore, to dwell upon the life of Jesus Christ.
2. His teaching surpasseth all teaching of holy men, and such as have His Spirit find therein the hidden manna.(2) But there are many who, though they frequently hear the Gospel, yet feel but little longing after it, because they have not the mind of Christ. He, therefore, that will fully and with true wisdom understand the words of Christ, let him strive to conform his whole life to that mind of Christ.
3. What doth it profit thee to enter into deep discussion concerning the Holy Trinity, if thou lack humility, and be thus displeasing to the Trinity? For verily it is not deep words that make a man holy and upright; it is a good life which maketh a man dear to God. I had rather feel contrition than be skilful in the definition thereof. If thou knewest the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what should all this profit thee without the love and grace of God? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, save to love God, and Him only to serve. That is the highest wisdom, to cast the world behind us, and to reach forward to the heavenly kingdom.
4. It is vanity then to seek after, and to trust in, the riches that shall perish. It is vanity, too, to covet honours, and to lift up ourselves on high. It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh and be led by them, for this shall bring misery at the last. It is vanity to desire a long life, and to have little care for a good life. It is vanity to take thought only for the life which now is, and not to look forward to the things which shall be hereafter. It is vanity to love that which quickly passeth away, and not to hasten where eternal joy abideth.
5. Be ofttimes mindful of the saying,(3) The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. Strive, therefore, to turn away thy heart from the love of the things that are seen, and to set it upon the things that are not seen. For they who follow after their own fleshly lusts, defile the conscience, and destroy the grace of God.
(1) John viii. 12. (2) Revelations ii. 17. (3) Ecclesiastes i. 8.
Source: Project Gutenberg. Author died 1471. Public domain worldwide. Share this book: WhatsApp
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