 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 and director of the Institute for Benedictine Studies at the Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity in New Norcia in Western Australia. And this is The Commentaries series on The Imitation of Christ by the great Thomas A. Kempis, a true masterpiece in Catholic spiritual literature and one of the most widely beloved and best-selling books of all time. Today is day eight of our series of podcasts, and we'll be covering book three, chapters seven through to twelve of the ten edition of this great book. But before we get into the details of this work, let's begin by calling upon God to assist us and to guide our hearts and minds in the path of His truth. We pray 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 all our days. Amen. So, as I mentioned, we're continuing with book three, chapters seven to twelve. And book three, by the way, is by far the longest of the four books which together make up the volume of The Imitation of Christ. And we encounter some fascinating spiritual material in these few chapters. I should mention, by the way, as we go through it, that you possibly have noticed that several of the chapters present almost the same material, but in different words and different formats. He does this deliberately because the book is intended to be the kind of thing which you can read each day. So sometimes we'll get the same kind of meditations presented in different form. If you sit down and read the book from cover to cover, you might be struck by a certain amount of apparent repetition. But I think this is actually part of the author's plan. Chapter seven tells us, or is entitled, that grace is to be hid under the guardianship of humility. In this chapter, he talks about the value of not advertising whatever graces or blessings we've received from God in our spiritual life, but rather to treat them as private gifts, never to boast about them, never to make a show of them. Because as he says, the best way we can protect them is by keeping them to ourselves. And I'll read a little bit for you. So this is Christ speaking, giving us this advice. My son, it is more profitable and more safe for the to hide the grace of devotion and not to be elevated with it, not to speak much of it, not to consider it much, but rather to despise thyselves more and to be afraid of it, as given to one unworthy. You must not depend too much on this affection, which may be quickly changed into the contrary. When you have received grace, think that you are miserable and poor, and how so you much were without it. Nor does the progress of a spiritual life consist so much in having the grace of consolation as in bearing the lack of it with humility, resignation and patience. So this is so important. When we feel, and I'm sure we do feel from time to time, this great warmth, this kind of fiery devotion burning within us, he's advising us, you know, don't make a big show of it, don't make too much of it, because for all you know, tomorrow these feelings of consolation may be taken away. And the purpose of our faith is ultimate salvation. It's not just to get, you know, nice, warm, pleasant feelings out of prayer and spiritual life. Sure, we'll have these sometimes and that's great, but they're not the ultimate goal. And so many people find that the joy or the devotion they once felt during religious practice seems to go away. And the response then is critical. We don't just turn away from God then, but we stick to it. And this is the time of true purification and testing. And he says that there are those who would rather follow their own judgment than believe others who have more experience. And their future is full of danger if they continue to refuse to lay down their own conceits. They that are wise in their own eyes seldom humbly suffer themselves to be ruled by others. It is better to have little knowledge with humility and a weak understanding than greater treasures of learning with self-conceit. It is better for thee to have less than much, which may puff thee up with pride. So sometimes God seems not to give us so much as we might hope for, but then to remember that we're here by God's grace, not by our own merits. And on the other hand, we shouldn't rejoice too much at the things which God seems to have given us, because God himself is our ultimate reward, not any of his gifts. Chapter eight continues then with acknowledging our unworthiness in the sight of God, and this is so important. It springs only not from looking at ourselves and finding ourselves unworthy, but rather from looking at the infinite greatness of God and realizing that in comparison to this infinite greatness, we're very small indeed. Chapter nine reminds us that all things are to be referred to God as our last end. And this term last end or ultimate cause, as it sometimes translated, it means our ultimate purpose. What have we really created for and created for nothing less than God himself? So everything else which we do and care about and pursue needs to be done only in the context of this ultimate goal of God and to keep our eyes fixed on this eternal goal of the glory of heaven, of the love of God, of union with Christ. And these, in fact, although we use different terms for them, are really the same one and the same thing. So Christ speaks to the disciple, saying, my son, I must be thy chief and last end, if thou desire to be truly happy. But this intention of yours shall be purified, which too often is irregularly bent upon thyself and created things. For if in anything you seek yourself, you presently faint away from yourself and grow dry. Refer therefore all things principally to me, for it is I who have given thee all. Consider everything is flowing from the supreme good, and therefore they must all be returned to me as to their origin. Very profound there, and God is the supreme good. If we think about why we love or desire anything in this world, it's because we sense within it some element or some form of goodness. And of course, this can't be denied. But this goodness is only a reflection or a participation in the ultimate goodness of God. And what our hearts truly desire is this ultimate goodness itself. So to redirect our focus upon this, to see the goodness in other things merely as being reminders or reflections of the insurpassable goodness of God. In chapter 10, we are told that it is sweet to serve God, despising this world and how true that is. Now, despising is a word which we probably don't use so often in our contemporary spiritual discourse. It's got a negative context, because when we say despising another person, it almost sounds like worse than hating them. But its original meaning was kind of being detached from, literally to look down upon something, to view it in its proper perspective. And so that's what it means when it talks about despising the world. You know, to keep everything in proper context and proportion. And we're reminded of this. He says, And this is truly inspiring that this dedication to the service of God is the source of our ultimate joy and freedom. Because in dedicating ourselves to serving God, we're making our will his own. We're making his will our will. And by that union of will, we come to participate in his own perfect omnipotence, in his own eternity and so forth, to share the very life of God. In Chapter 11, we're told that the desires of our hearts are to be examined and moderated. And this is a theme which we've seen several times so far. We need to look into our hearts and see what it is which we're desiring at the moment, either in a general sense or in terms of our practical everyday goals which we might be working for. And then we need to ask ourselves, you know, why are we working for these? Is it in the context of the glory of God or our proper duties in relation to God? And this doesn't mean that things like work and family are to be disregarded. No, because these things, if properly ordered, are done for the glory of God. But we need to undertake this self-examination on a regular basis. And we begin this chapter with Christ saying, Son, which of course can be understood as daughter as well, thou hast many things still to learn, which you have not yet learnt well. And then the disciple asks, what are these things, O Lord? And Christ answers, that thou can form all things to my desires, to my will, and that thou be not a lover of thyself, but earnestly zealous that my will be done. Desires often inflame thee and violently hurry thee on, but consider whether it is for my honour or for your own interest that you are so moved. If you have no other view but me, you will be well contented with whatever I shall ordain, but if there lurks in the anything of self-seeking, behold, this is that which hinders thee and troubles thee. This is so important, this contrast between seeking of the self and seeking of God, and a term which we find a lot these days, which wasn't a term back in the time of Thomas the Kempus, was the false self. And that's what he's talking about when he's talking about seeking the self, because ultimately God desires our own good, he desires our happiness. And at an authentic level, we also desire our own good and our own happiness. That is for our true self, the true self which is in the image of God. But then there's also this false self, which is a servant of the world, of the vanities of the world, which works for things which don't really lead to true happiness. So this is the self which we need to be careful of, to be alert of. We're told that all our desires should be regulated by the will of God, moderated by the influence of his grace, and referred to his glory. True mortification of the heart consists in repressing the ardour of our desires, in turning their earnestness against the false self, and directing them all to their proper object, which is God. So this is all about fighting against the evils of the false self, to turn instead to what is true and everlasting. And I think this is a wonderful lesson which we can benefit from every day. Chapter 12 deals with learning patience and the fight against concupiscence. Concupiscence, again, is a word which we don't often hear outside of moral theology. But it's talking about disordered desires, or desires which are purely fleshly or material. And everyone battles against these because we're, you know, we're in a body made of flesh. But learning patience of making the Spirit the true leader, and in the Spirit we're united to the ultimate truth, united to God, and it's in the Spirit that we find true joy and true peace. So this brings us to the end of our session today. And this has been session 8 of our study of the imitation of Christ. Thank you so much for listening and for joining me upon this wonderful journey to deeper growth in the spiritual life. Next time we'll be continuing with Book 3, discussing Book 3 Chapters 13 through 12. Until then, may Almighty God bless you. 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