 Welcome to The Commentaries, a podcast series from Tan in which you'll learn how to read and understand history's greatest Catholic works from today's greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into our modern darkness. Visit tancommentaries.com to get your copy of the book and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content and exclusive deals for listeners of The Commentaries. Hello and welcome back. I'm Father Robert Nixon, a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity in New North, here in Western Australia. This is the commentary series on the imitation of Christ written by the great Thomas the Kempels. Today is Day 14 of our series of podcasts, and we'll be covering today Book 3, chapters 54 to 59, which brings us to the end of Book 3. Before we get into the content which we're offered in these few chapters, let's begin by praying to God that He lends us His aid in our reflections and thoughts on this day. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen, enlighten Lord our souls and hearts, and to our minds thy grace impart, lead us by thy gentle hand, teaching us to understand the wisdom of thine only Son, the humble, patient, holy One, help us imitate Christ's ways, and live His gospel, or our day. Chapter 54 of Book 3 is a very interesting one, and it begins by talking about the relationship between grace and nature. It's entitled The Different Motions of Nature and Great, and this is something which people who've studied theology will perhaps have thought about quite a lot, but other people may be not so much, so the idea of this contrast with these two fortresses of nature and grace. So we do certain things by nature, it's within who we are, our created being, but we do things also by grace, which is something which comes from God above. Now in talking about nature and grace, it's important not to make too hard a distinction between the two, because in fact our nature comes from God as well, so it actually is a form of grace. So sometimes nature and grace are in opposition, but at the same time we don't want to draw too strongly a dichotomy between them, which is what the Protestant traditions tend to do, making nature and grace in firm opposition, which of course is not the reality because God has given us our nature in order that we may glorify Him. He does though contrast nature and grace. He says that nature labours for her own interests, and considers what game she may reap from another, but grace considers not what may be advantageous and profitable to herself, but rather what may be profitable to many. Nature willingly receives honour and respect, but grace faithfully attributes all honour and glory to God. Nature is afraid of being put to shame and despised, but grace is glad to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. Nature loves leisure and bodily rest, but grace cannot be idle and willingly embraces labour. Nature seeks to have things that are curious and fine, and does not care for things that are cheap and coarse, but grace is pleased with that which is plain and humble, and rejects not coarse things, nor refuses to be clad in old clothes. Nature has regard to temporal things, rejoices at earthly gain, is troubled at losses, and is provoked at every slight injurious word. But grace attends to things eternal, and cleaves not to those which pass with time. Neither is she disturbed at the loss of things, nor exasperated with hard words, for she places her treasure and her joy in heaven where nothing is lost. Well, this is a kind of wonderful contrast or comparison between the effects of nature and grace. As I mentioned before, it's important not to imagine that nature and grace are automatically in opposition, that nature is evil and that grace is good, because nature, of course, was created by God, and the things which we read about nature doing, nature labours for her own interests, nature is afraid of being put to shame and despise, nature loves bodily rest, and so forth. These things are part of our nature, of course, and they're not in themselves bad. I mean, each of us is called to work, to support ourselves, to support our family. We're called to work, to take care of ourselves, to protect our health, to protect our own interests, to a certain extent. But grace allows us to go beyond nature. So it's not like grace is coming then to oppose nature, but rather the grace is taking us beyond nature. And it's by the action of grace that we're able to truly please God, because grace, of course, is a motion which comes from God himself, so in acting on this grace, we are ipso facto doing the will of God. The next chapter then talks about the corruption of nature and the efficacy of divine grace. And this, I think, is very important. I mentioned before that nature in itself, of course, is not evil, that it's a work of God. However, it does have this element of corruption in it. And this corruption of nature goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, this kind of primordial fall of humanity, which affected not only humanity, but the entire created world. While creation is overall very good, as God declares it to be, there is this seed of corruption within it. But that's why we need divine grace, which, of course, is efficacious to overcome all the corruptions of nature. And in this we hear the disciples speaking, O Lord my God, who has created me in your image and likeness, grant me this grace, that you have declared to be so great and so necessary to salvation, that I may overcome my corrupt nature, which draws me to sin and perdition, for I perceive in my flesh the law of sin contradicting the law of my mind, and leading me captive to obey sensuality in many things. Neither can I resist the passions thereof, unless assisted by thy most holy grace, infused copiously into my heart. I stand in need of thy grace and of a great grace to overcome nature, which is always prone to evil from her youth. For the first man, Adam, being corrupted by sin, the punishment of his sin has descended upon all mankind, so that nature itself, which by thee was created good and right, is now put for the vice and infirmity of corrupt nature, because the motion thereof left to itself draws to evil and to things below. For the little strength which remains is but like a spark hidden in the ashes. So I think this is a wonderfully rich theological way of putting it, that nature was created as ruined by God, but corrupted by the sin of Adam. And so that our natural tendencies, which are in themselves good, they're there to ensure our survival. I mean, if we think about things like desire for food, desire for wealth, sexual desires, all of these things are given to us to ensure our survival and the survival of the human race. But because of the element of corruption in them, they become misdirected and instead can lead us towards sin, which is contrary to God's will. But by virtue of the gift of grace, we're able to overcome the flaws of nature, not to disregard nature altogether because we can't do that as long as we're living mortal beings, but at the same time to purify that nature and to overcome its sinful impulses, which are always there, even at the best of times. Moving on to our next chapter. Chapter 56, we want to deny ourselves and imitate Christ by the cross. And this is central, the notion of self-denial and the imitation of Christ, and particularly the imitation of Him in His suffering. Now this, of course, is not to say that we need to seek out suffering, because suffering is a part of life regardless of whether or not we seek it. But it's our attitude and disposition towards it, if we can accept it with reverence and in obedience to the will of God. And we hear the disciples speaking, Lord Jesus, for as much as thy way is narrow and despised by the world, grant that I may follow thee and be despised by the world. For the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither is the disciple above his master. Let thy servant meditate on my life, for there is my salvation and true holiness. Whatever I read or hear besides, does not recreate nor fully delight me. And this I think is wonderful that we should reflect and meditate on the life and particularly the sufferings of Christ very often and thinking, well, he went through all of that. We're called to go through our own fair share, but that is something which His grace will help us to tolerate, to sustain, and that it's serving ultimately for our own redemption, because it unites us to Christ in His suffering, in His obedience, in His patience, and consequently will unite us to Him in His glory. And this involves a denial of self, because in striving to be united with Christ, we need to put aside the falseness of self, of the ego, and so forth, which tells us that we can do it all on our own, which is simply not the case. 57, a man should not be too much dejected when he falls into some defects. And this is an encouraging chapter. It begins with Christ talking, son, patience, and humility in adversity are more pleasing to me than much consolation and devotion in prosperity. Why art thou disturbed that a little thing set against thee? If it had been more, thou ought not to have been moved. But now let it pass. It is not the first or anything new, nor will it be the last if you live long. Thou art valiant enough so long as no adversity or opposition comes in thy way. Thou can also give good advice and encourage others with thy words. But when any unexpected trouble comes to knock at thy door, then thy counsel and thy courage fail thee. Well, I think this last insight is psychologically so perspicacious and astute that we can give good advice and encourage others when they're in trouble, but when we're in trouble, do we actually give ourselves the same advice that would give other people? Do we follow that advice? And as a priest, I'm often speaking with people who are encountering troubles or temptations of one kind or another. And I know that giving them sound advice in the context of the great spiritual tradition of the church is something which, you know, which is not all that difficult to do in a lot of cases because we've got people like Thomas the Camper, Saint Augustine, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux who've written volumes and volumes dealing with these issues. We only need to refer to those. But then sometimes if we find ourself in a difficult situation, it can be hard to follow that same advice. And you know, then I sometimes say to people, if your friend told you about this, what advice would you give them? And then follow that advice. So that's basically what Thomas the Camper says saying here. We now move on to our 58th chapter. And this chapter is entitled of not searching into high matters nor into the secret judgment of God. And it begins with Christ speaking. Son, seeing that you do not dispute of high matters nor of the hidden judgments of God, why one man is left thus and another is raised up to so great a grace, why this person is so much afflicted and that another is so highly exalted. For these things are above the reach of man, neither can any reason or discourse penetrate into the judgments of God. Therefore, when the enemy suggests to these such things as these, or you hear curious people inquiring into them, answer with the prophet, you are just, O Lord, and your judgment is right. Well, I think this is a wonderful advice. Often we can be led to try to explain or to understand mysteries which are completely beyond us. And in doing that, we're falling away from humility because humility calls us above all to recognize the transcendence of God that his ways and his thoughts are as far beyond ours as the heavens are beyond the earth. And sometimes people seem to feel called to have an opinion on every possible theological question. For Catholics, we need to defer our own personal judgment to the judgment of the tradition of the church. To give an example of this, if someone might be troubled, is the body and blood of Christ present under the species of just the bread and the wine or do we need to receive both the bread and the wine to receive fully the body and blood of Christ? Well, in such cases, all we need to do is look at what is the actual teaching and tradition of the church as expressed by people like Thomas Aquinas to answer the question. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. And that's, I think, where Catholics above all are greatly privileged that we have this wonderful magisterium of the church and this magisterium, which is a 2,000 year old tradition of continual refinement and so forth. And then with other things, which are not so much theological questions, but practical questions, moral questions and so forth, why things happen the way they do, why are there pandemics, hurricanes, earthquakes, so forth, we need to respond in a position of humility to recognize that we actually don't know the answer, but we trust in God's judgment. And our final chapter for today, and this is the final chapter of book three, is telling us that all hope and confidence is to be fixed in God alone. And this relates to what I just said, our humility in the presence of God, who is all just, all powerful, and all wise. And it begins with the disciple speaking, Lord, what is my confidence, which I have in this life? Or what is my greatest comfort amongst all things that appear under heaven? Is it not thou, my Lord, my God, whose mercies are without number? Where was I ever well without thee? Or where could things go ill with me when thou was present? I had rather be poor for you than rich without you. I choose rather to sojourn upon earth with you than to possess heaven without you. Wherever you are, there is heaven. And there is death and hell wherever you are not. After you, I have a longing desire and therefore must need sigh after you and cry and pray. In fine, I cannot fully trust to anyone to bring me seasonable help in my necessities, but only to you, my God. You are my hope. You are my confidence. You are my comforter and most faithful above all. And here we have some beautiful words expressing the fullness of blessing and consolation, all of our hope, which is to be placed and all of our trust, which is to be placed in God alone. To him be glory forever and ever. And that brings us to the end of book three of the four books of the imitation of Christ and to the end of session 14 in this series of podcasts. Thank you so much for listening and for joining me on this journey into the mysteries of the spiritual life. Next time, we'll be beginning on book four, chapters one through seven. And I will look forward very much to discussing this wonderful section of the book, which deals with the blessed sacrament and the true and substantial presence of Christ with us in that wonderful sacrament of our salvation. Until then, may Almighty God bless you with every blessing. This has been an episode of The Commentaries, a podcast brought to you by Tan. To follow the show, study more of the greatest Catholic classics and to support the commentaries and other great free content from Tan, visit tancommentaries.com to subscribe and use coupon code COM25 to get 25% off your next order, including the imitation of Christ and countless more spiritual works to deepen your interior life and guide you to heaven.