This week we continue with our readings of The Imitation of Christ. Please read meditations 6-10 of Book 3. Within these meditations á Kempis continues to caution us to not put our faith in holy things, religious practices, or spiritual feelings. Rather our faith and the object of our desire should be Christ alone. These other things are good but are merely means to be with Christ, and like love itself, they can be twisted and misdirected. As á Kempis writes in Mediation Six, “The wise lover does not consider so much the lover’s gift as the giver’s love.” Christ gives us the Scriptures, the liturgy, and the ecstatic knowledge of himself, but these are mere gifts given in love and should not be mistaken for the Giver himself.
If you have time, after reading through these mediations, read through the Song of Songs. This poem is a beautiful companion to the meditations this week. Á Kempis points out that spiritual feelings come and go. Everyone experiences those times when we know Christ is present and then he seems to simply disappear. Throughout the poem, the Bride not only experiences the great love of the Bridegroom but also experiences his hiddenness. For within the Song of Songs, he shows himself then disappears causing the Bride to wait longingly and patiently for his return. If you do read through this book, pay attention and mark those places where the Bride searches out her Bridegroom and think through how we sometimes also experience these lost feelings in our relationship with Christ and how we should react to the same.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is lasagna. Discussion about 6:45. Hope to see you here.
For God alone my soul in silence waits *
Psalm 66:6-9
truly, my hope is in him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation, *
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.
In God is my safety and my honor; *
God is my strong rock and my refuge.
Put your trust in him always, O people, *
pour our your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.