Product Description

The spiritual classic by à Kempis, the second most widely read spiritual book after the Bible, has had an astonishing impact on the spiritual lives of countless saints, peasants, and popes for centuries. Even today, the soul-searching words of the fifteenth-century cleric Thomas à Kempis continue to resonate, unbounded by time or geography. Drawing on the Bible, the Fathers of the early Church and medieval mysticism, his four-part treatise shrugs off the allure of the material world, blending beauty and bluntness in a supremely spiritual call-to-arms. This beautiful translation by Ronald Knox and Michael Oakley is considered by many teachers, writers, and readers to be the best English translation ever, and one that greatly enhances the life-changing insights of Thomas à Kempis. Illustrated.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56930 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 265 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780898708721
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

Listening with the Heart
"Want to know the best advice I ever heard?" asked Larry King, in an interview published today in Canada's National Post newspaper: "I never learned ANYTHING while I was talking." 50 years experience at the interviewer's microphone and Larry's best advice comes down to one word. "Listen!"

Coincidentally (or maybe not!) I picked up this just-received book, sent to me by a dear friend who recalled my reviewing an earlier published edition of this same "Ronald Knox translation." And it literally it fell open to these words,

"By all means ask questions, but LISTEN to what holy writers have to tell you . . . often enough, (when we hear) Holy Scripture, we are distracted by mere curiosity; we want to seize upon some point and argue about it, when we ought to (listen) and move on."

I flipped open "The Imitation" just now and my eyes (lately fixated on my newest pride and joy were these: (p 32 under the heading, "ABOUT SELF-CONFIDENCE, AND HOW TO GET RID OF SELF-CONCEIT")

"It is nonsense to depend for your happiness on created things (and) why all this self-importance? Do not boast of riches, if you happen to possess them . . . nor about the important friends you have; boast rather of God's friendship.

"Do not give yourself airs, if you have physical strength or beauty; it only takes a spell of illness to waste the one, or mar the other. Do not be self-satisfied about your own skill or cleverness; God is hard to satisfy, and it is from him that they come, all these gifts of nature.

"He reads our thoughts, and will only think the worse of you, if you think yourself better than other people. Even your good actions must not be a source of pride to you: If you have any good qualities to show for yourself, credit your neighbor with even better qualities: that is the way to be humble.

"To be humble is to enjoy undisturbed peace of mind, while the proud heart is swept with gusts of envy and resentment."

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Seven years ago (on my birthday actually) I wrote my very first review for Amazon.com -- for an earlier re-print of this same translation. This latest version, from Ignatius Press of San Francisco, is far-and-away the most beautiful and features cover art by Andrea Solario (1480-1540) from the "Galleria Borghese, Rome" -- painted about a century after Thomas a Kempis produced his "Imitation." Inside artwork includes some marvelous, same-period woodcuts by Albrecht Durer.

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In his (2005) FOREWARD to this new edition, psychologist and priest Benedict Groeschel (seen by millions on his "Sunday Night Live" TV show on EWTN) recalls stealing his first copy of the "Imitation" from the public library in his Caldwell NJ hometown - slipping it into his schoolbag intending to return it "to its rightful place on the shelf, in two weeks time, the ordinary period for a book loan in those days."

"The title suggested to my 12-year-old mind that this must be a story about someone who pretended to be Jesus. I went and sat by a window . . . the spring sun (shining) on the oak table, I can still see my blue-sweatered arm around the book as I began to read:

"'Vanity of Vanities - all is vanity except to love God and serve him alone.' At that moment I was electrified, and I sat there reading page after page . . . . for two hours, mesmerized by the book!"

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As for the translation? Is it really the best-ever? I stand by my thoughts of seven years ago:

"I have several translations of the Imitation but I keep coming back to this one. I believe many readers will find this translation 'flows' better than the others, written as it is in a warm, gentle and accessible style by a master translator and communicator, Monsignor Ronald Knox. A convert to Catholicism who produced an acclaimed Latin-to-English translation of the Bible, Knox completed the first 30 or so chapters of the Imitation before his death in 1957. He wrote to Michael Oakley, two months before his passing: "If I die without finishing my translation, please tell my executors that you are to finish it." The younger Latin scholar did a splendid, seamless job of completing Knox's superb translation of what was--until this century--the second most widely read book in the world. What a delight that this version is once again available, [50 years] after its first publication. If you purchase only one copy of the Imitation in your lifetime, make it this one."

how to be at rest
This book is one of my most treasured possessions. I have three different editions of the Imitation, but this one is my favorite. The language is simple and yet filled with timeless reverence. Some of its counsels may appear to be difficult, but the teachings contained within its pages yield peace of heart. It shows us how to live a holy life, and thus how to be at rest even in the midst of hardships; it reminds us that earthly sorrows are passing and cannot be compared with the joy of communion with Christ. The passages I treasure the most have to do with humility, the virtue that shields us from all manners of suffering. "Watch your own step; be slow to criticize the doings of other people." Serenity is within our grasp, if only we remember that the Lord is above all things. The Imitation is definitely a book that calls for absolute surrender: a radical proposition nowadays. However, absolute surrender bestows absolute freedom, fearlessness and serenity.

~Logospilgrim, author of 'Just a thistle'

And now for something different....
Going into the details of questions of authorship (did Thomas a Kempis actually write this, or did he translate it, et cetera) is not quite as important to me as the import of the message and how it is phrased.

The Imitation of Christ is essentially a minor treatise, but a better and more helpful description might be personal record and observance, on how to realize the Christ within. It has the conversational style, rendered in lovely prose by Knox (and for the sections left uncompleted after his death, Oakley), which can successfully draw the reader into a conversation with the author about his own spiritual and personal development.

It is not like reading the Beattitudes or the Ten Commandments, where instructions or broad pronouncements are supposed to be self-evidently obvious to the reader, who is assumed to be earnest in his quest for understanding. Instead, it is like discussing one's personal life, one's very serious doubts and concerns about one's conduct and inner life with an ardent, energetic and thoughtful monk.

It is a book to ponder over and indeed, non-Christians and Christians, the areligious and religious, alike can benefit from actively thinking about some of the arguments Kempis makes about, say, criticizing others when so much work still needs to be done on oneself (nothing less than a pithy expatiation on casting the first stone!). Indeed, the first great modern proponent of Vedanta, Yoga, and Hinduism, Swami Vivekananda, said that while he loved and read many different works from all sorts of cultures, the two he always carried with him were the Bhagavad Gita and The Imitation of Christ. Quite an endorsement, considering that Protestants and Catholics alike have gained so much from it from all these centuries.