Today’s meditation comes from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, a classic work that represents one of the most widely read books on Christian devotion in church history. Read this post if you desire to shine light in the corners of your heart and see the kinds of sins that hinder our lives from reflecting God’s goodness (generosity). Perhaps read it a couple times and sit with the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to show you what sins beset you and resolve to lay them aside so that you may “advance in goodness” (cf. Hebrews 12:1-2).
“Lament and grieve because you are still so worldly, so carnal, so passionate and unmortified, so full of roving lust, so careless in guarding the external senses, so often occupied in many vain fancies, so inclined to exterior things and so heedless of what lies within, so prone to laughter and dissipation and so indisposed to sorrow and tears, so inclined to ease and the pleasures of the flesh and so cool to austerity and zeal, so curious to hear what is new and to see the beautiful and so slow to embrace humiliation and dejection, so covetous of abundance, so niggardly in giving and so tenacious in keeping, so inconsiderate in speech, so reluctant in silence, so undisciplined in character, so disordered in action, so greedy at meals, so deaf to the Word of God, so prompt to rest and so slow to labor, so awake to empty conversation, so sleepy in keeping sacred vigils and so eager to end them, so wandering in your attention, so careless in saying the office, so lukewarm in celebrating, so heartless in receiving, so quickly distracted, so seldom fully recollected, so quickly moved to anger, so apt to take offense at others, so prone to judge, so severe in condemning, so happy in prosperity and so weak in adversity, so often making good resolutions and carrying so few of them into action.
When you have confessed and deplored these and other faults with sorrow and great displeasure because of your weakness, be firmly determined to amend your life day by day and to advance in goodness. Then, with complete resignation and with your entire will offer yourself upon the altar of your heart as an everlasting sacrifice…”
Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) in The Imitation of Christ, excerpt from chapter seven, “The Examination of Conscience and the Resolution to Amend.”