Of The Imitation Of The Lord.

 

Admonition 6.     Let us all, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd who to save His sheep bore the suffering of the Cross.   (“’HE WHO follows Me, walks not in darkness,’ says the Lord 1  By these words of Christ we are advised to imitate His life and habits, if we wish to be truly enlightened and free from all blindness of heart. Let our chief effort, therefore, be to study the life of Jesus Christ.” Thomas à Kempis)       The sheep of the Lord followed Him in tribulation and persecution and shame, in hunger and thirst, in infirmity and temptations and in all other ways;2 and for these things they have received everlasting life from the Lord.             Wherefore it is a great shame for us, the servants of God, that, whereas the Saints have practised works, we should expect to receive honor and glory for reading and preaching the same.

Whenever I read this Admonition I think of Thomas à Kempis, (1380-1471) and his Imitation of Christ.(see beside)         Francis came before him ( Yet it was Thomas who first inspired me, he came first for me) and may have inspired him in some way.   Francis, in a similar manner to our reading of Thomas, exhorts his brothers to follow Christ in every way, everywhere, whereby receiving from Him, everlasting Life.     Francis details this and records that imitating Christ involves all manner of deprivation and suffering.   When have we been in dire straits in one way or another and have not offered it for the glory of God and his Christ?       And I always find it amusing here, where Francis says that it is a great shame for us to expect ‘glory’ just by reading of and preaching about their deeds. Mayhap a little like myself who attempts to preach Christ via the words of the Saints rather than from my own experience and from the Scriptures.

1 John 8:12 & Book 1, The first chapter: Imitating Christ and despising all vanities on earth. 2. See John 10:11, Heb. 12: 2, John 10:4, Rom. 8:35