The Imitation of Christ
Selected readings from ‘The Imitation of Christ‘
It was written by a Brother and compiled by Canons, intended for the Religious Life.The work is a manual of devotion intended to assist the soul with its pursuit of holiness and communion with God. Its sentences are statements, not arguments, and are pitched in the highest key of Christian experience. Behind and within all its reflections runs the counsel of self-renunciation.
The Imitation of Christ (or De imitatione Christi), by Thomas à Kempis, is a widely read Christian spiritual book. It was first published anonymously, in Latin, ca. 1418; several other authors have been proposed, but Kempis’ authorship is now generally accepted.is a writing of the mysticist German-Dutch school of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and is widely considered one of the greatest manuals of devotion in Christianity. Protestants and Roman Catholics alike join in giving it praise. The Jesuits give it an official place among their “exercises”. John Wesley and John Newton listed it among the works that influenced them at their conversion. General Gordon carried it with him to the battlefield. It is said Pope John Paul I was reading a copy when he died. And I always keep a copy by in my cell where I sleep. God bless you all.
