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sxxxxxxxuxxxxxxxs qualified approbation of every learned and pious ornament of the Church; it darkness,” says the Lord. These are the is still held in as high estimation by words of Christ, by which we are remindpeople of every denomination as it was at any time since it came from the pen ed that we must copy His life and conof Thomas à Kempis.” A century prior, duct if we wish to be truly enlightened French author Fontenelle described it as, “The most excellent production that ever and to be delivered from all blindness yet issued from the hand of man.” of heart. To meditate on the life of Jesus Indeed, through writing pitched in the should therefore be our chief study. highest key of Christian experience, it reveals an exquisite sense of the beauty and wisdom of the Divine will, urging all Thus begins the great work known, loved, believers to humbly—and happily—suband venerated for nearly six centuries mit with their whole being. as The Imitation of Christ (De Imitatione While many assume the Christi), first published in work to have been intended 1418 by the German-Dutch primarily for monastics and monk and scribe, Thomas ascetics, its exhortations Hemerken of Kempen, better derive directly from the very known as Thomas à Kempis bedrock of the Christian life: (1380 – 25 July 1471). “If anyone would come after “The Imitation” became, me, he must deny himself and has remained, after the and take up his cross and Bible, the most widely read follow me” (Matthew 16:24). and translated book in the Here, then, is the dividing world, and certainly the line, the hinge upon which most influential of Christian Thomas à Kempis at all else in the Christian life devotional writings. Widely work in his scriptorium swings, and the core principle praised across centuries and that informs our vision to continents, a preface to an amplify this simple and most fundamen1873 edition of the book reads, “The tal aspect of the Gospel message. Imitation of Christ has received the un-
“He that follows Me shall not walk in
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