 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 here of The Order of Saint Benedict. I'm Director of the Institute for Benedictine Studies at the Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity in New Norse, Western Australia. If you're ever in this part of the world, you're almost welcome to pay us a visit here. This is The Commentary series on The Imitation of Christ, a great masterpiece in our spiritual tradition written by Thomas the Kempers. Today is day one and we'll be covering Book 3, chapters 23 to 31 of the 10 edition of the book. We're covering quite a number of chapters here with immense richness of material. But before we do that, let's pray to God that He may open our hearts to His wisdom. So we pray 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. Well, chapter 23 of Book 3 of The Imitation of Christ contains a very intriguing title. Four things which bring much peace. And if you're like me, you'll probably wonder straight away, what are these wonderful four things which bring peace? Well, let's delve into the chapter and find out. So it's written in the form of a dialogue between Christ and the disciple. And Christ begins, Son, I will teach thee now the way of peace and true liberty. The disciple then says, do, Lord, as you say, for this is delightful for me to hear. And the four things. Endeavour rather to do the will of another than your own. The second thing. Ever choose rather to have less than more. The third thing. Always seek the lowest place and to be inferior to everyone. And the fourth. Please wish and pray that the will of God may be entirely fulfilled in you. Fascinating things here. And many of them are quite counter-cultural for us today. Let's think about each of these separately. Firstly, doing the will of another rather than your own. Ultimately, we're all called to unite our own will to that of God. And in uniting our will to God, it means that our own will in union with God will be perfectly fulfilled. However, this uniting our will to that of God is an advanced step. Before we can reach that stage, we first need to learn to submit our own will to that of God. And we often find that our own personal will, our preference might seem to be in conflict with God or of other people. And in those cases, we can consciously step back from our own will and preference and think instead about the example of Christ, the one who was absolutely obedient. And to try to copy that obedience, copy something of the emptying of our self-will. If we think about it, so much of the misery and trouble of life comes from people being excessively attached to their own will. And the fulfillment of this selfish will often doesn't lead to any actual happiness or peace. It's just as if a matter of principle, people want to follow their own will and not give way to others. But we can give way to others and that doesn't mean losing our strength. If we think about something like water, it's fluid, it's flexible, but it's also very strong. In fact, it's unbreakable. You can try to break a body of water, but it simply won't break because it's flexible, it gives way and then comes together again. I think we can emulate some of that in our own life, in our own attitude towards life. Now, of course, this doesn't mean being ready to compromise the divine law. What we know is the difference between right and wrong. That's one thing. In fact, that's doing the will of God, that's not doing our own will. But being ready to step back from our own will to consciously make an effort to submit to the will of others. Remembering that the legitimate structures which we have in the church and in society as a whole are in fact ordained by God in some way or the other. The second point is choose rather to have less than more. And again, this is highly counter-cultural because our society works on the premise of people wanting to accumulate more and more for themselves. If you think about a lot of the miseries in human life, they come from this desire, from people to acquire more. And often it's more than they actually need. It's more than they even really want. It's just a compulsion, a kind of social imperative. A lot of the crimes which are committed stem from this desire or this frustrated desire for people to have more. But if we can step back and follow this advice, seek to have less rather than more. In having few things, there's actually a tremendous freedom. We think about the example of Christ himself. He deliberately chose this type of almost vagabond life when he wasn't burdened down by responsibilities and property and so forth. And many other saints as well, our own patron saint, St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi of course. The third point, always seek the lowest place and to be inferior to everyone. Now this might sound a bit troubling, like when it says inferior doesn't mean we should try to be worse or less meritorious or less able than other people. That's not what it means in this context. Inferior means occupying a lower place in any given scale. And all of us, you know, whether it's in family or work or in religious life, we're part of hierarchy. Certainly in Benedictine life, very much so, where every monastery has a strict order of seniority. But the fact is, being higher in this scale doesn't actually make us any happier or any closer to God. In the letter of St. James, he warns us that we shouldn't seek to have a high position because then we'll be subject to a stricter judgment and how true this is. And the stricter judgment, by the way, isn't only when we reach the kingdom of heaven, but it's even during this life. We all know that people who are in positions of leadership and authority are subject to more criticism and more analysis than people with lower positions. So it's to our own peace if we can kind of develop this inverse ambition, a contentment to take the lowest place, unless we're called upon or there's a grave responsibility that asks us to do otherwise. If we think about most of the great hopes in history, the greatest ones typically have been the ones who've been very reluctant to accept the high office, which is placed upon them and to which they've been called. And the final point then, always wish and pray that the will of God may be entirely fulfilled in thee. And this is a wonderful point. And if we think about it, we know that the will of God ultimately is always fulfilled. So this is a prayer which is kind of guaranteed to get a positive answer. But we can help this will taking place by our own flexibility and openness, kind of going back to the first of the four points. This willingness to submit our own will to that of another and in doing that, ultimately submitting it to the will of God. And this submission leads to a union of our will with the will of God, which of course is a state of the attitude and blessedness. Moving on to our next chapter, chapter 24, we should refrain from curious inquiry into the lives of others. Now, this I think is a tremendously wise council. All of us have this tendency to want to know what other people are doing to one extent or another. But it's not really a profitable or useful thing to do. In fact, it can be damaging both to the reputation of other people and also to our own life and character. And we read in this chapter, firstly, we read Christ talking to the disciple. And he says, Son, be not curious and give not way to useless cares. What is this or that to thee? But do thou follow me? For what is it to you whether this man be such or such or that man do or say this or the other? For you are not to answer for others, but must give an account for yourself. Why, therefore, do you meddle with them? Now, this is so important on the great day of judgment. It's our own selves that we're going to be given an account for. But often we focus less on what we're doing ourselves on the rights and wrongs of our actions and also of our hidden motivations. And we look at other people and we're ready to criticize them. Maybe we should be less ready to criticize others and more ready to criticize ourselves. I think this is something we should consciously do. Next time we find ourselves judging someone else, you know, think what purpose is this act of judgment really serving? And think, you know, am I at fault here in any way? He says also, be not solicitous for the shadow of a great name. Neither seek to be familiarly acquainted with many, nor to be particularly loved by men. For these things beget distractions and great darkness in the heart. A very good point there, you know, not to worry so much about our reputation, what other people are saying about us that we're held in high esteem. Because, in fact, having all of those things doesn't really bring peace. He says, on the contrary, that often these things beget distractions and darkness of heart and how true that is. In chapter 25, in what firm peace of heart and true progress consists? And to summarize this, this is submitting one's whole will to the will of God, as we've heard once before. In chapter 26, we move on to the eminence of a free mind which humble prayer produces better than reading. So this idea of a free mind, which is a recurring one in the imitation of Christ, this free mind springs up from a state of detachment, from the things which bind us, from worldly things and passing things. And this chapter begins with the question asked by the disciple, Lord, this is the work of a perfect man, never to let one's mind slacken from attending to heavenly things, to pass through many cares as it were without care, not like one torpered, but by a certain prerogative of a free mind, which does not cleave by an inordinate affection to anything created. In all of this, I beseech you, let your hand govern and direct me that I may in no way exceed. Exceed in this context means go astray from what he's stated. Now, he talks about passing through many cares as it were without care, not like one torpered, but by a certain prerogative of a free mind. This seems like a paradox, how we can handle cares, responsibilities and so forth, as if we don't have cares and responsibilities. And I mean, most of us have probably met at least one or two people during our lives who have a lot of cares and responsibilities and worries and seem to be completely free of these same cares and responsibilities and worries. And often these people take care of things very well and end up doing a very good job. It's just that somehow they don't attach themselves emotionally, as he says, without inordinate affection. So this emotional detachment, I think, is a very good principle for ensuring that the freedom of our heart isn't constrained, that we can handle cares as if we don't have cares. You know, and I actually believe that this emotional detachment can lead us to do our job, our responsibility, our vocation better than it would if we were fully involved. And you know, I think of the example, one of my things I do is I'm a musician. That if a musician is being recorded or is playing in a competition or really feels the pressure to play their absolute best, they generally will end up playing not so well, making mistakes. On the other hand, if they're completely relaxed, they think no one's listening, they're just playing for themselves, then they end up giving often their very best performance. And I think that's because of this element of detachment. And I think we should take a similar approach to everything we do in life. Yeah, do our best, but not putting our whole heart in it, as if our eternal salvation depended on upon it. Because our eternal salvation depends upon God alone. Chapter 27 tells us that self-love chiefly keeps a person back from a sovereign good. The sovereign good, of course, is God and heavenly salvation. And self-love is love for something which is much, much less than God. This self, and not even the self in an authentic sense, but rather the kind of false self, the ego self. Chapter 28 speaks against the tongue of the tractors. This is a very important thing. And it's related to what we heard before about refraining from curious inquiry into the lives of other people. Because that's often related to detraction. Detraction is actually a sin. It's where we speak in such a way that damages another person's reputation. And it doesn't actually matter whether what we're saying is factually true or not. It's still an act of harming someone else's reputation. So, you know, unless there's a compelling motive, we should be really careful about saying negative things about another person. Of course, in some circumstances we're obliged to speak the truth or to give our opinion or our judgment. But these circumstances are relatively rare and certainly not in our casual day-to-day conversation. In chapter 29, how God is to be invoked and blessed in the time of tribulation. This is so important that we should not only give thanks to God when things are going well, but also when we face adversity. Because, you know, both of them come equally from God's supreme wisdom and His love as well. He sends us adversities for reasons which we can't possibly understand, but yet we need to trust that He knows what He's doing. In chapter 30, of asking the divine assistance and of confidence of recovering grace. Now, this is very important. We constantly need to ask for this divine assistance. And finally, chapter 31 of disregarding all things created that we may find the Creator. And how important this is. Everything which has been talking about so far, self-love, attachment to one's own will, curious inquiry into others, judgment of others, excessive care for one's reputation. All of these things are merely created things. They're things of this passing world. You know, they last for a set period of time, a few years, maybe even less. And yet we put all our attention into these things. And wouldn't it make a lot more sense if we turned away from these created things, which are good in themselves, but they're only there to serve us. And that we turn towards the Creator, who is the supreme goal of our lives. I think this is a very good point at which to end this session. So this brings us to the end of day 10, in our study of the imitation of Christ. Thank you so much for listening and for joining me on this great journey into the timeless wisdom of Thomas A. Kempis. Next time we'll be discussing book 3, chapters 32 to 37. And there's lots of wonderful material. So I look forward to being with you again in the very near future. Until then, may God bless you all. 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. 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