 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 monk of the Order of Saint Benedict and director of the Institute for Benedictine Studies at our Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity in New Norse or Western Australia. This is the commentary series on the imitation of Christ written by the great Thomas A. Kempers. Today is Day 12, and we'll be covering Book 3, chapters 39-46. Before we delve into the contents and explore the gems of wisdom offered in these amazing chapters, let's turn to God in prayer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, open our minds to Your wisdom. Inflame our hearts with Your love. Teach us to be meek and humble of heart, just as You were meek and humble of heart. And finally, unite our souls to Your divinity in all its glory. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. So we continue today our exploration of Book 3, out of the four books of the imitation of Christ. And this Book 3 is by far the longest. It contains a great many chapters. These chapters are mostly very short, so we're kind of skimming over some of them, but delving more deeply into others. The first chapter which we encounter today is entitled The Good Government of Ourselves in Outward Things and of having recourse to God in dangers. It begins with Christ speaking to the disciple and he says, you must diligently make it your reign that in every place and in every action or outward employment, you be inwardly free and master of yourself and that all things be under you and not you under them. That you may be the Lord and ruler of your actions and not a slave or bondsman, but rather a free man and a true Hebrew, transwered to the lot and to the liberty of the children of God, who stand above things present and contemplate those that are eternal, who look upon transitory things with the left eye and with the right the things of heaven. Full thoughts here and this is a great call to freedom of soul and freedom is something which perhaps we tend to think of in political terms as, you know, something associated with liberalism and so forth. But in fact, freedom of soul, true freedom, is one of the foundational values of Christianity. And it's a word which we find hardly ever mentioned in the Old Testament, but a multitude of times in the New Testament. And Christ says, if the sun sets you free, then you shall be free indeed. Saint Paul likewise speaks of the liberty of the children of God. And he gives us a kind of direction about how we should achieve this liberty. He says that in whatever action in every outward employment, in other words, in any activity we're doing, we should be inwardly free and master of ourselves and make sure that the things are under us and we're not under them. Now this has nothing to do with whether we're the boss or the worker, whether we're the monk or the abbot, whether we're the wife or husband and so forth. But rather it's an inner freedom, a freedom of spirit, which isn't dependent upon outward things. And how do we achieve this inner freedom? It's by a certain detachment from the outward things that we're doing. He says that we should stand above things present and contemplate those that are eternal. In other words, we should try to rise above all the vicissitudes and trials of this present life, even rise above the good things of this present life, and to keep our hearts and minds fixed on the things of eternity. He gives us a very eloquent metaphor for this when he says, having our left eye on the things of the earth and our right eye on the things of heaven. So this doesn't mean, of course, that our attention is divided, but our left eye is one thing, our right eye is the other. I think in this case, the left eye represents our practical attention, but the right eye represents our real love. We're called to be in the world, but not of the world. And by doing this, by being able to rise above all things, we make ourselves truly free. And I think this is a good exercise to put into practice from time to time, especially when we feel in a difficult situation or afflicted or stressed. Consciously to imagine ourselves rising above that situation. We continue then with our next chapter, 39. And in this, he says, a man must not be over-eager in his affairs, a very pertinent piece of advice and something which it's very useful to call into mind often. It's in the form of a dialogue between Christ and the disciple. And Christ says, son, always commit your course to me. I will dispose well of it in due season. Wait for my disposal and you shall find it will be for your advantage. Lord, I willingly commit all things to you, for my care can profit little. Lord, that I were not too much set upon future events, but offered myself with all readiness to your divine pleasure. And Christ responds, my son, oftentimes a man eagerly sets about a thing which he desires, but when he has obtained it, he begins to be of another mind. For men's inclinations are not want to continue long upon the same thing, but rather pass from one thing to another. It is therefore a thing of no little importance to forsake thyself, even in the least things. A man's true progress consists in denying himself and the man who has renounced himself is much at liberty and very safe. But the old enemy, who opposes all that is good, fails not to tempt, but day and night lays his dangerous plots to draw the unwary into his deceitful stare. Well, this is a very short chapter, but I think very powerful. And Christ reminds us that often we seek very eagerly after things. And then once we've attained them, we find either that we no longer really want them or that we instantly have another goal coming up. And this reflects our human nature, it reflects the reality of the fact that we can never be satisfied with any earthly things. And when we're instructed never to be overly eager about anything. This isn't, of course, saying that we should, you know, be slack about whatever it is we're called upon to do. Of course, we should put our best into it. But this needs to be done with a certain moderation and with a certain emotional detachment. Being overly busy is often a sign that our spiritual lives are not quite in order because we are seeking to find our fulfillment then in the things of the present world. So humility requires that we recognize what our own limits are and then don't allow ourselves to be drawn beyond these limits. I mean, each of us can only do so much. We shouldn't strive to be all things to all people. I know Saint Paul says that, but I believe he says that in a slightly ironic type of sense. It's not something which he's recommending everyone to take up because it's God alone who can be all things to all people. Our next chapter then, and we're up to chapter 40 now. And man has no good of himself and cannot glory in anything. Well, I think this is very self-explanatory, that all the goodness which we are capable of doing is a gift from God. It comes not from ourselves, but from the graces of God. Chapter 41 continues with the contempt of all temporal honor. And this is a recurrent theme. Now, the word temporal, which we encounter quite frequently in this translation, means the same as worldly or earthly. It's related to the word tempos, latin, meaning time. So things which are in the world of time and space and that we should be slightly skeptical of temporal or worldly honor. You know, that's not to say that it's something to be completely disregarded or disparaged. But on the other hand, you know, it's really in the end just a social convention. We shouldn't put too much weight on it. It certainly doesn't bring any lasting peace or happiness. And it begins with a discourse of Christ speaking to the disciple. And he says, my son, take it not to heart if they'll see others honored and advanced and thyself despised and debased. Lift up your heart to me in heaven, and you will not be concerned at being condemned by people upon the earth. And how true that is. And depending upon who we are, often we can feel, you know, a certain pang of jealousy or envy, even when we see other people being honored and ourselves not so much. And we think, you know, surely I'm more deserving. But ultimately, these things don't matter at all. They don't matter in the long term in the context of heaven. And also they don't really matter all that much, even in this present life, if we think about it. So if we lift up our minds to heaven, to the things of heaven and value the esteem of God, we'll find then that human esteem matters very little indeed. Chapter 42, our peace is not to be placed in men. And of course, that can be understood as our peace is not to be placed in men or women or all humanity in general. Of course, the longer we live, the more we realise that this is true, that human things in the end are passing and fragile and in constant. If we want real peace, we need to seek for it elsewhere. We need to seek for it in the things of God, in the supernatural rather than the natural. And we're instructed here or advised. A man draws nearer to God, the father, he withdraws from himself from all earthly comfort. He ascends the higher into God, the lower he descends into himself and the meaner he esteems himself. So there's kind of an inverse relationship. We actually get closer to God the most time by being prepared to step away from ego, from the esteem of others and from the things of this world. And one of the things we find in the writings of Plato is the comparison of the human soul to a chariot drawn by two horses. Now, one of these horses represents our physical being, our kind of earthly and temporal being. And this one is drawing us downwards to the realm of the beasts. The other one represents our spiritual side, which in its nature is divine. And this is taking us upwards to God. So we can't basically let both horses lead the way. It's got to be one or the other. So what we need to do is to let the upward one, the upward force, which is drawing us to the things of heaven, take the lead. And the other one will still be there helping us out, hopefully along the way, not hindering us. But then this is what he's saying when the further we draw away from the things of the earth, the closer we draw to the things of heaven. In Chapter 44, we're dealing with of not drawing to ourselves exterior things. And this is a theme which we've encountered many times here. The duality, the dichotomy between exterior and interior life. Again, just as we have our higher and our lower aspirations, so too, there's the choice of an orientation to the interior life or the exterior life. Now, of course, it's the interior life in which our happiness and peace reside. And we hear Christ speaking. In many things, it behooves you to be ignorant and to bestem yourself as one dead upon earth, as one to whom the whole world is crucified. Many things also must you pass by with a deaf ear and think rather of those things that appertain to your peace. It is more profitable to turn your eyes from such things as displease you and to leave to everyone his own way of thinking than to give way to contentious discourse. If you stand well with God and look at his judgments, you will more easily bear to see yourself overcome. And this is very wise advice that we should pass by certain things with deaf ears, things which don't really concern us, which aren't going to contribute to our peace, but which the impulse of curiosity and judgment of others draws us to listen to. And we should turn our eyes away from certain things rather than entering into contentions. This isn't to say that we shouldn't be courageous in proclaiming the word of God, but on the other hand, we should recognise that each person has their own particular journey to keep our primary focus upon our own purity and innocence of life. And now we draw to chapter 45 that credit is not to be given to all men and that men are prone to offend in words. Another translation of this chapter title could be that we must not believe everyone and that we are prone to fall in our words. Now, not giving credit to everyone, not believing everyone. This doesn't mean that we should be kind of skeptical and, you know, assume people are liars until we hear otherwise. But on the other hand, we shouldn't believe everything which we read and hear. And this is particularly so in this age of the Internet and fake news and so forth where people can say more or less anything. And, you know, it's pretty hard to verify whether it's true or not. And we see often the media, the mass media, manipulated by governments and so forth. And often there is an agenda behind of these things. We've seen it so many times in recent years that it's really hard to know what to believe and what not to believe. You know, you take the case of the COVID virus and there were so many different stories about whether it was a huge disaster, whether it was something which was deliberate conspiracy and so forth, whether the vaccines really worked and whether the restrictions were really necessary. Certainly here in Australia, our government had very extreme restrictions. And this was supported by the mainstream media. And in the end, it seems like most of these things were of no effect at all. But this is just one example that we shouldn't give credit to everything. We need to be quite selective. We need to know and trust our sources. And if we've got no way of assessing the truth of something we hear, we should be content just to pass it by without confirming or denying it one way or the other. And finally, 46th chapter and this is dealing with of having confidence in God when words arise against us. And it begins with Christ speaking, Son, stand firm and trust in me for what are words but words. They fly through the air but hurt not a stone. If you are guilty, think that you will willingly amend yourself. But if your conscience does not accuse you, think that they will willingly suffer this for God's sake. It is a small matter that you should sometimes bear with words if you have not the courage to endure hard stripes. And stripes in that case is a kind of word meaning blows or whips or physical pain. And often we can be overly concerned about the words which we hear, which others say about us. Especially depending upon what our role is, you know. For example, where a priest might be too worried about what people say about our homilies or I mean if you're a journalist you might be too worried about what people say about your writing and so forth. But the fact is that these things don't really matter all that much. In the end words can't hurt us. They can't bring us genuine happiness. They only make us happy or sad according to the extent that we give credit to them. And as we've heard in the previous chapter we, you know, shouldn't give that much credit to human words. So by placing all of our trust in God, by having confidence in His infallible judgment rather than the highly fallible judgment of our human society, we can secure ourselves knowing that as long as our conscience is clear that our relationship with God is right, there's nothing in the world which can touch us that we're absolutely invincible and assured of the promise of this eternal glory. And that brings us to the end now of day 12 in our study of the imitation of Christ. Thank you so much for listening and joining me. Next time in session 13 we'll be discussing book 3 chapters 47 to 53. Until then, may Almighty God bless you abundantly. This has been an episode of The Commentaries, a podcast brought to you by Tan. 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