Kristuksen seuraamisesta (1418)

PB-8

The text is divided into four books, which provide detailed spiritual instructions: "Helpful Counsels of the Spiritual Life", "Directives for the Interior Life", "On Interior Consolation" and "On the Blessed Sacrament". The approach taken in the Imitation is characterized by its emphasis on the interior life and withdrawal from the world, as opposed to an active imitation of Christ by other friars.[1] The book places a high level of emphasis on the devotion to the Eucharist as key element of spiritual life

One of my parents' closest friends, who has remained one of my close friends even after watching me grow up (she's a saint), has recently started posting memes on facebook of the "religion is what you have when you fear the world; spirituality is what you have when you love life" variety. Now, there is something to be said for skepticism about organized religion. But this book accidentally makes an argument for skepticism about disorganized religion.

The Imitatio has been very influential, so I thought I'd give it a read, more or less for its historical interest. I have no idea how this might work as actual spiritual food, but I do know what it looks like intellectually: massive, disturbing, self-righteous selfishness. The focus of the books' authors (there are four books in here, and I'm pretty sure they're by different people, just due to the shifts in tone and form) is on *you*, dear reader, and how *you* can get through the veil of tears and enter the kingdom of heaven. A large part of doing so, it turns out, is ignoring everyone else and looking into yourself. There is literally *nothing* in here about helping others. No doubt the authors didn't intend to make such a statement--my second suspicion is that the book really was meant to be more like 'tips for how to get along in a religious community' than 'groundwork for spiritual practices.' But whether they intended it or not, the Imitatio mainly counsels a rejection of all other human beings, since they are just stumbling blocks in your way to paradise.

This edition is very well done; it reads clearly, the notes are exhaustive and even if you know literally nothing about the middle ages, bible or Christianity you will rarely be lost.

But I think I'd rather read an Imitation of St. Martin. ( )

At the very beginning are a few pieces of sound advice, but the text quickly turns into a treatise whose argument is based on some of the more obnoxious notions in the Christian faith, such as that of the original sin, the axiom that whatever is done by God is intrinsically good and whatever is done by Man intrinsically bad, the principle that the more one suffers in this life the better for him, and so on. ( )

In his Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton tells how a friend advised him to read this work, when Merton was contemplating becoming a Catholic priest, and since I had the book in my library (dated 1903 and inherited from my maternal grandfather), I decided to read it.

The book was written in Latin in 1470 and translated to English in 1677; this accounts for the old-fashioned language in which it is penned.

It tells us how we should imitate Christ if we are to be enlightened:

“’He that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness’, saith the Lord. The author states that learning is not to be blamed, it being good in itself, and ordained by God, “but a good conscience and a virtuous life is always to be preferred before it”.

“Truly, at the day of judgment we shall not be examined what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how religiously we have lived.”

The book is filled with wisdom. There are edifying chapters on the profit of adversity, resisting temptation, bearing with the defects of others, the examples of the holy Fathers, spiritual exercises, the love of solitude and silence, meditation on death, etc, etc.

We learn:

“He that seeketh anything else but merely God, and the salvation of his soul, shall find nothing but tribulation and sorrow. … Thou camest to serve, not to rule (good to remember). Know that thou wast called to suffer and to labour, not to be idle, or to spend thy time in talk.”

Regarding death, “To-day the man is here, tomorrow he is gone. And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind. … Think on nothing but the salvation of thy soul, care for nothing but the things of God.”

However, I have no wish to become a Catholic priest, like Thomas Merton did, and I did not feel I got enough out of the book to read it in its entirety, though it is indeed a classic. Though perfectly comprehensible, it is also slightly hard reading. ( )