Centuries Ago Speak Today Part 6

This is my last installment of my notes from the Imitation of Christ. I hope you benefited, grown closer to God, and have a renewed zeal for grappling with your sinful nature. May God's grace abound in you.

But blessed is that man who for Your sake, Lord, gives up all earthly things, and, forcibly overcoming his natural inclinations, which an ardent will crucifies fleshly desires, in order that with serene conscience my may offer pure prayer to You.

In these and many such ways the Lord's faithful servant is tested as to how far he can deny himself.

You know what is good for my spiritual progress, and how much suffering I need to wipe away the rust of sin from my soul.

For, as St. Francis said, a person is only worth as much as he is in Your eyes, no more, no less.

My child, you cannot always burn with zeal for virtue, nor remain constantly in a higher stage of spiritual contemplation; because of original sin you must sometimes descend to the less, and to bear with sorrow the burdens of this corruptible life, even if it is against your will. So long as you wear a mortal body, you will suffer weariness and heaviness of heart. While you are still in the flesh, you will often bemoan the burden of the flesh, which hinders you from continual spiritual exercises and divine contemplation.

Seek a secluded place; love to dwell alone with yourself. Avoid talking with others as much as possible; instead pour forth devout prayer to God that you may preserve a humble mind and a clean conscience.

O what great confidence he shall have at death, who is not attached to anything in this world! But a man sick in soul is not able to keep his heart free of worldly entanglements, nor does the natural man know the liberty of the spiritual man. Yet, when a man truly wishes to be spiritual, he must renounce friends as well as strangers, and must beware of himself most of all. If you completely conquer self, you will more easily master everything else. To triumph over self is the perfect victory. For he who holds himself in such subjection that his passions obey reason and his reason obeys Me in all matters, is truly his own master, and lord of the world.

He who desires to walk with Me in true freedom must mortify his irregular and undisciplined desires, and must not hold on, with selfish love or desire to anything created.

Nature is unwilling to be mortified, checked, overcome, obedient, or willingly subject. Grace, on the contrary, strives for self-mortification.

The more, therefore, that nature is controlled and overcome, the richer is the grace given, while man is daily renewed by fresh visitations after the likeness of God.

I know the way of perfection and clearly know what I should do, but being weighed down by my own corruption I do not rise to the more perfect.

My child, the more you leave yourself the more you will be able to enter into Me. And as the absence of craving for material things brings peace, so the forsaking of self interiorly unites you to God. I want to learn perfect renunciation to My will, without contradiction or complaint.

When have I ever fared well without You?

But who am I, Lord, that I should presume to approach You? Behold, heaven cannot contain You, and yet You say to me: "Come!"

(On preparing himself to partake in holy communion)
How, then, can I prepare myself in one short hour to receive with reverence the Maker of the world?