Chapter Two: God’s Great Goodness and Love Is Shown to Man in This Sacrament
Chapter Three: It Is Profitable to Receive Communion Often
Chapter Four: Many Blessings Are Given to Those Who Receive Communion Worthily
Chapter Five: The Dignity of the Sacrament and of the Priesthood
Chapter Six: An Inquiry on the Proper Thing to Do before Communion
Chapter Seven: The Examination of Conscience and the Resolution to Amend
Chapter Eight: The Offering of Christ on the Cross and Our Offering
Chapter Nine: We Should Offer Ourselves and All That We Have to God, Praying for All
Chapter Ten: Do Not Lightly Forgo Holy Communion
Chapter Eleven: The Body of Christ and Sacred Scripture Are Most Necessary to a Faithful Soul
Chapter Twelve: The Communicant Should Prepare Himself for Christ with Great Care
Chapter Thirteen: The Devout Soul Should Desire Union with Christ in the Sacrament with All Her Heart
Chapter Fourteen: The Ardent Longing of the Devout for the Body of Christ
Chapter Fifteen: The Grace of Devotion Is Acquired through Humility and Self-Denial
Chapter Sixteen: We Should Show Our Needs to Christ and Ask for His Grace
Chapter Seventeen: The Burning Love and Strong Desire to Receive Christ
Chapter Eighteen: One Should Not Scrutinize This Sacrament in Curiosity, but Humbly Imitate Christ and Submit Reason to Holy Faith
Preface
Thomas à Kempis
By Michael R. Heinlein
Referring to the Gospel of John 14:6, The Imitation of Christ summarizes the principal directive on which Christians must base their life: “Without the Way, there is no going. Without the Truth, there is no knowing. Without the Life, there is no living.”
Said to have been written between 1418 and 1427, The Imitation’s entire project is helping the reader pattern his or her life on Jesus Christ, pure and simple. That might seem like a “no-brainer” to us, but at the time it was regarded as a bit radical. Many in the Church had lost their way, choosing the easier ways of hedonism and sin rather than the arduous path of holiness. This was particularly true among the clergy. Their spirituality was sorely lacking, and their moral life was, too. From the clergy to the laity, the Church suffered from a widespread lack of spiritual depth.
Sadly, the worst of such behavior was typified at the highest level of the Church — namely, the papacy. The Church today has become a bit spoiled, with six of the eight pontiffs of the twentieth century either canonized or with active causes promoting their canonization. This was not always the case. Consider just two examples, both of which would have been in the memory of the author and the first readers of The Imitation.
In the mid-eleventh century, Pope Benedict IX held the office of the papacy on three separate occasions. After two expulsions, he decided he wanted to marry, so he finally left the papacy after selling his office to his godfather. He was described by Saint Peter Damian (1007–1072) as “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest.”
Then there was the Western Schism, during which three different men claimed to be pope simultaneously between the years 1378 and 1417. The consequences of this schism divided not only the Church, but all of Europe. Rooted in corruption and greed, it was a source of great scandal that provided a fertile field for sowing the seeds of the Protestant Reformation.
Unfortunately, though, it got even worse before it got better. The reign of Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), regarded by many as perhaps the most corrupt and morally bankrupt of papacies, followed the publication of The Imitation. He is known not only for harboring mistresses in the papal apartments and fathering children with them, but also for hosting orgies in papal residences.
Many in the Church during these times knew that something was wrong. Many longed for a more pious practice of the Faith, a simpler spirituality where one could root life completely and solely in Jesus Christ — “the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
This was the aim of Gerard Groote when he founded the Brothers of the Common Life in the fourteenth century. The community’s undogmatic style and desire for a simple, pious Christian life quickly became popular through preaching and the establishment of schools throughout Germany and the Netherlands. Initially open to all as a lay community, it eventually became ordered to clerical life. The Brotherhood, therefore, functioned as a reform movement intended to foster a greater sense of spirituality among clergy and religious in an effort to stem the tide of corruption and lax morality known in such quarters. The Brotherhood largely died out following the Protestant reformation, although its last member — by way of the Augustinian canons — died in 1865. Its appeal, however, spread far and wide to clergy and laity alike, and the basic principles that inspired the movement remain relevant in our own day.
The Brotherhood’s unique brand of spirituality, known as the devotio moderna, consisted of deepening one’s interior life through contemplation and reflection on one’s own relationship with God, and the retrieval of simple, pious ways of showing him love, particularly through devotion. The Imitation, originally written for clergy and religious, became a neat summary of the Brotherhood’s spirituality of putting Christ, and imitation of his life, at the center of one’s spirituality.
Authorship of The Imitation traditionally has been attributed to the medieval scholar Thomas à Kempis, who was a member of the Brotherhood of Christians and a prominent figure in the devotio moderna movement. He was a protégé of Florentius Radewyn, successor to the community’s founder Gerard Groote. He was born around 1380, the son of a blacksmith and a schoolmistress, and the name à Kempis, which would come to be his most common identifier, came from his western German hometown of Kempen. He became a student of the Brothers of the Common Life by the age of twelve at Deventer in the Netherlands. His education within the community was steeped in its deeply Pietistic tradition. This education would prove to be a foundation for the rest of his life and career.
À Kempis would spend the remaining seventy years of his life at the Augustinian monastery of Mount St. Agnes at Zwolle, Netherlands. He entered around 1403, when his own blood brother was serving as prior. By about 1413, à Kempis was ordained to the priesthood.
What is remembered of his career is his composition of spiritual texts in the form of sermons, prayers, hymns, and the like. He is known for having published works on the lives of the Brotherhood’s founders, Groote and Radewyn. Additionally, he is remembered as a copyist — that is, one who copied the Bible in handwritten form, a task that took years to complete. This was commonly work conducted in scholarly monasteries before the invention of the printing press. À Kempis was known to have completed at least four copies in his life. Because of his involvement in this work, and his related knowledge of Scripture, his writings are saturated with scriptural references, particularly from the New Testament.
À Kempis died in 1471, and his relics remain enshrined in Zwolle today. While many of the great spiritual masters have been beatified or canonized, no such recognition has been afforded to à Kempis. Despite evidence from those who lived with him attesting to his holy life, as well