 Welcome back for this next episode on the great spiritual master, blessed Thomas A. Kempis. Father Nixon, thank you for being here again. Thank you, Connor. Our first episode, we did a really in-depth biographical overview of his life and his works and his time, and that was fascinating. And it's impossible to talk about Thomas A. Kempis without talking about imitation of Christ. So we're going to do that today, just so the audience knows what we're doing, but can you begin with a brief prayer to kind of put us in the right spiritual framework to talk about this great work? Oh, Lord, we implore Your grace and Your wisdom. May our hearts be open to the wisdom of Thomas A. Kempis. May we strive to imitate our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we walk in His footsteps, follow Him through suffering, through death, and by Your grace, follow Him also to eternal glory, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Father. Imitation of Christ, the second best-selling book of all time in countless translations, countless editions. We ourselves at Tan, we got three editions of this book, and you actually probably more than that because we have other sets. Actually, I think we have four editions of this world. Well, not to mention audio book and e-book, but so I guess the best opening question is why? What is so important about this book? Why has it sold more copies than anything in the history of the world other than the Bible? Yeah, people absolutely love this book and it exists in innumerable editions. I mean, back in the 19th century, they said there were over 3,000 editions of the work in existence, and today I don't think anyone could count how many there are. Why this work is so accessible is because it speaks directly to the heart. It's a work which is which in some ways is easy to read. It's not an enormous volume, but you can read one page of it or two pages of it or one chapter of it or however much and take this with you. So it's such a rich field of thought for meditation. And I think reading The Imitation of Christ is a little bit like reading 10 or 20 other books because it stays with you. This is the experience of a lot of people. I know I myself certainly read this book when I was a very young child. I found a copy of it on my dad's bookshelf, I think, and I was keen to read it. And it's remained with me ever since. Yeah. So I think when I read it, it's something that I can kind of, maybe this isn't the best thing to do, but I can pick it up and and read kind of any sentence throughout the book. You can just kind of dip in anywhere. And, you know, I don't feel lost. You know, a lot of other books you might feel lost. Yeah. But you can kind of dip in at any point in this. It seems like it's a whole lot of one off beautiful sentences and, you know, insights that you can meditate on. So it's almost a book that you do lexio divina with, you know, it's sort of like you read it and meditate, read it. You don't just pick it up and read it straight through. No, no, no. It is indeed. So every chapter is self-contained and each chapter, most of the chapters are fairly short, are divided into a number of different points. And each of these points is material for meditation. So I think this is an ideal book for almost opening at random and reading a paragraph. And it gives you each time something very rich to reflect upon. So I'm just going to mention the different editions that we have and not to I'm not trying to hawk our books. That's not my point, but we have to kind of show you the versatility of the use of the books, right? So we have this book here by Tan, which is just part of our Catholic classics. It's a typical paperbound book, beautifully laid out, kind of a typical book that you find on your bookshelf. Then we also have a very high-end leather edition that has a zipper, has a nice little zipper leather. And this is like the ultimate gift and people put prayer cards and things inside the zipper. So it's a very kind of high-end because this book is worthy of being a gift. This looks like a sacred text now that you can take into the chapel with you. But then you also have this is actually my favorite version. It's called My Imitation of Christ. And this was a little company that we acquired a number of years ago called The Confraternity of the Precious Blood. And they published these little books like this. And this one, this edition, it just fits right in your pocket and you carry it around. So when I go to Mass, I usually very often will take this because you can just fit it right in your pocket. And also in the back, it has an extensive index and like a table of contents that shows you whatever you're struggling with. There's a reference to it in the book. You can look up your problem and then it'll take you right to a certain part in the book. And it also has these kind of very famous illustrations of this guy who's like wearing a suit and tie. He's like a business executive and he's wearing a suit and tie and he's carrying his cross. This volume was very, very popular back in the day because of these illustrations showing, you know, the idea here was we're showing not just like Old Master's artwork, but we're showing how a guy who is out in the world is supposed to be imitating Christ. So it's an interesting volume. And you know, I love this particular volume. My point is, is The Imitation of Christ, it's applicable for all walks of life, whether you're a stay-at-home mom with little kids, whether you're that business executive or you're a monk in a monastery in the middle of Australia. Yes, it is. It speaks to every Catholic. And you know, it's such a classic. Everyone should have a copy of this book on their bookshelf or by their bed, you know, and make a habit of reading it, read a chapter a day. It takes not very long, five or 10 minutes, if that. And I love the portable edition, which you can slip into your pocket and have with you forever spare moments and so forth. That's the thing is again, like I, you know, Mass, I'm not going to be able to read a big chunk of it, but just one or two lines out of this book are worthy of meditation. That's the beauty of it. One thing I was going to mention is, you know, let's talk, we talked a little bit about, you know, this in the previous episode about the time in which this book came out, right? So we talked about a little bit more from his biographical, you know, information, that standpoint. But this book came at an interesting point in history, right? So there had been this revival and people were really trying to return to, you know, the concepts of mortification and interior life and not just the rules and regulations of the church and not just theology. So maybe you can mention that again, as we talked about in the last episode, but how this particular work, imitation of Christ and its sentiments and its topics and its flavor and its style really, you know, came out of that time period on purpose. It fits that time period as part of that revival in the church. Yeah, very much so. So he really focuses very strongly on the interior life and the book is divided into four separate main sections, which are called books. The second section on interior things or on interior realities speaks about, you know, this whole interior life. And this is so important that our religion doesn't just consist of external observances and everything, which were probably much bigger in his time than what they are now. But rather this internal conversion, this internal conformity to the model which Christ presents us, looking at the virtues of humility, the love of solitude, at detachment. These things are so important and Thomas brings these very much to the fore. So because this internal life is something which is more or less unchanging from one generation to the next, this book continues to speak to people so powerfully. Yeah, so, you know, there's a great passage and I was trying to find it and I just can't find it, but I remember it so vividly. It's rather early in the book. I was probably in the book one, but he says, whenever I go out amongst men, I return home less of one. You know, the passage. Yes, I do. I did. And that, in fact, is a quote from the Roman philosopher Seneca. Oh, okay. So can I stole it from him? And he really emphasizes the importance of solitude and of the dangers of keeping company. Now, we shouldn't interpret this as meaning, no, you should be a complete loader and avoid people at all costs, but rather the fact that we need to moderate these things and to preserve solitude. And Thomas A. Kempis is a great, one of the reasons that he appeals so strongly is he encourages the very moderate approach. So it's not a kind of excessive asceticism or refusal to deal with the world, but it's keeping it in balance, keeping it in the right perspective, you know, and to recognize the dangers of being in company that, yeah, I think most people can experience that, that you sometimes are in company in a situation and you do something or say something or witness something which you normally wouldn't want to be associated with at all. And as particularly for young people, of course. So yes, this cultivation of solitude, yeah. I tell you what, even as a dad of a bunch of little kids, my kids are great. But I'm telling you what, they go spend that at a friend's house, they go to their grandparents house and get spoiled. They come back 24 hours later and they're resistant to doing their chores and everything. It's like they come back, I have to reprogram them just even after one night away. So it's a little child version of yeah, when we go out in the world, we come back all messed up. So you know, all right, so did this book, do you know, did this book become like an immediate success? Did it take a long time? Well, it actually did more or less become an immediate success. So he wrote this, I guess, in the early 1400s and towards the middle of the 1400s. And it did, it became widely circulated. But the thing is, he didn't put his name to it as the author. So the early editions of it, some are anonymous, some listed certain Benedictine, John Gerson as the author. Really? Was it a pen name? Like, no, no, that was an actual person, a very prominent spiritual writer. Okay. A blessing, in fact. So he was often given as the author. And then Thomas A. Kempas as well. So there was a long, in fact, I've read that there are more than 200 people who have been named as possible authors of the imitation of Christ, including people like St. Bernard of Clairvaux, which is really way off. No, that's 400 years of law. It's not possible. But even in the Roman breivery today, when they have readings from the imitation of Christ, it says just says from the imitation of Christ, it doesn't say by Thomas A. Kempas. But scholars today believe are very confident that he did, in fact, write it. And they can tell this by the manuscript copies that are in existence and where they are, and when they date from. So it clearly is his own work. And if you read his other works, there is such a similarity of style and themes. Well, just mention again, the humility, like, it's probably not, it's not a coincidence that he wrote this book, but he kind of stayed anonymous. I mean, talk about how that is actually very reflective in his own writing. Yeah. So he was an author who actually sought to remain anonymous. And this was actually, it's part of the monastic tradition to write things and to not sign your name to them. Yeah. Some of the best handbooks are actually by a monk of this abbey. It just says that. It doesn't even say the name. You know, I've noticed that a lot, these old works, it's kind of common. So this was part of the tradition that he was writing it, but it did become fairly well known during his life that he wrote it because people flocked to him to receive, to listen to him speaking and also to receive his private spiritual counsel. So yeah, it's separated into four books for parts. And, you know, one of the interesting things, I think it's in book three, he takes a slightly different tactic and he starts having, it's kind of separated into two things. You have the disciple who speaks to Christ, and then he has Christ speak to the disciple. And it's a good tactic as a writer, you know, there's, I guess it's a little risky business to kind of imagine that you can create the words of Christ. But he was on solid ground. He knew what he was doing. But when you read it, I think, I think, you know, in fact, in today's world, Father, there's a lot of very famous texts out there, especially even in the Protestant world, where they've taken this tactic of words imagining what Christ would say to us in our circumstance. And it's very soothing. It's very consoling to have words of Christ that are not in the Gospels, right? But it's just him talking to us. But that's become a popular thing today. A campus was doing it in 1400. So, you know, I find it extremely therapeutic, I guess, is the word, comforting to have to see the words of Christ that are not from Scripture, but relate very much to my everyday life. And I just, I think he was one of the early people to do that. You know, I think you're right, Conor, I'm just thinking, we do have other dialogues where words are sometimes put into the mouth of other people, but not into the words, into the mouth of Christ himself. Now, when I say, this is the words he gives to Christ are really fuller explanations of what we find in the Gospel. So, he's not like making up his own thing and when Christ says this. And of course, we know what we have in the Gospel is the essence of what Christ said. But of course, he said much, much more than what the Gospels record for us. Yeah, definitely. Part four of the book is on the blessed sacrament. And I find that, you know, a little interesting, because I don't exactly, I mean, I know that the church has always believed in the true presence of the Eucharist. But I think that was, it was something that was maybe a little unique at the time. At the time. Yeah, it was, it was. And in fact, the imitation of Christ in a lot of the Protestant editions of it, amid this fourth book on the real presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament. In fact, it had become a topic during the time of Thomas the Kempus, because as we spoke about before, this was a time when Protestant thought was starting to emerge. And I think he was very keen to correct some of these new streams of thought that people were speculating, is the Eucharist just a symbol and so forth. So he very emphatically affirms the true presence. Yeah, so if you love the Eucharist and you like devotional works on the Eucharist, I mean, I think the imitation of Christ is one of the originals. And to go back and I mean, you can, you can even go straight to part four and start reading that in your meditations, particularly in adoration. Yeah, you can. In fact, four kind of stands alone. It seems scholars believe that part four was written kind of as an independent work and then appended later added to the That's awesome. Maybe we'll publish it as a separate work to kind of just, because again, it's like a book and if you're working through it, a lot of times you don't get to it, because you fall off the wagon halfway through the book, you never get to it. So I might think about taking that and publishing that as a separate book so that you get to it. That's a very good idea. And interestingly, you mentioned, if you have the practice of opening the book and reading it at random, unfortunately, I don't know, myself, I find I tend to open either at the beginning or the middle, not so much at the end. So I think there are probably a lot of people who who've never actually made it through before. So, you know, the influence of this book is it's remarkable. It's sort of it's sort of like, you know, in our culture here, I mean, this is a silly thing in America, but we have this thing called the Kevin Bacon game, right? And so he's a famous actor and kind of every every actor throughout all of movie history can be connected back to Kevin Bacon. And like five or six steps, you know, because he's just in so many movies with so many other influential. Yeah, so you can kind of so people play this silly game. My point that's kind of a maybe a very unrefined way to describe the imitation of Christ, but you can take like all the other great works after the imitation of Christ and in one or two or three steps, you can, you know, connect it back to it. So, you know, introduction to devout life by St. Francis de Sales, one of my favorite, you know, he says that this was one of the books that influenced him more than any other book. So this was really one of the very first, like spiritual handbooks for Catholics, which was not, I mean, there were books, but they were written either specifically for monks or nuns or priests. This is one which is universal. So it kind of provides the original paradigm of this type of spiritual writing, which other writers have taken up as well over the course of the centuries. But this is the original and the classic. Yeah, so the big saints that, you know, that I've found right away, just a quick research is Thomas Moore, you know, he was heavily influenced by this book. And I don't know if he had this something in my mind saying that he may have had this book when he was in prison. It was like his, the book that he meditated with in prison, which is amazing. But what's interesting is also Ignatius of Leola, right, who founded the Jesuits. Absolutely. I mean, he loved this work. Yeah, he loved this work. And then, of course, Therese of Lisieux, you know, she talks about in the story of his soul how this was essentially her favorite book. Yeah, yeah. So you're influencing every, you know, Thomas Moore, Ignatius of Leola, Saint Francis de Sales and Therese of Lisieux, right? I mean, these are very different saints. You know, it covers everybody. Indeed. So this is a book which has shaped the church. In fact, it's shaped history, you know, because there's also a lot of, you know, politicians, public leaders and so forth throughout history who have deeply loved and revered this work. Yeah. Well, in our next episode, we're going to be talking about his other work, Humility and the Elevation of the Mind to God. But any last thoughts for our listeners on this great work, Imitation of Christ, the second best-selling book of all time? Yes, gotta. I'd say if you don't have a copy, get one. And if you haven't read it for a while, revisit it. I mean, there's people who've read it when they were young and then maybe haven't visited it again. Read it. And particularly Book Four, you know, it's a great treasure there, which is often overlooked. Yeah. Well, thank you. And we'll be talking to you very soon. Thanks, Connor.