This meditation on the spiritual life that has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul I.  Only the Bible has been more influential as a source of Christian devotional reading than The Imitation of Christ. Written by the Augustinian monk Thomas à Kempis between 1420 and 1427, it contains clear instructions for renouncing wordly vanities and locating eternal truths.  No book has more explicitly and movingly described the Christian ideal: "My son, to the degree that you can leave yourself behind, to that degree will you be able to enter into Me." With a new Preface by Sally Cunneen, author of In Search of Mary: The Woman and the Symbol. "God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land.  The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides—may we follow their directions home." —Archbishop Desmond Tutu The Thomas à Kempis fan club includes St. Ignatius, Thomas Merton, Thomas More, and even Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. (She reads a chapter of The Imitation of Christ every night before sleep.) Imitation has exerted immense influence on Christian worship, ethics, and church structure, because it gives specific yet broad-minded guidance about the central task of Christian life--learning to live like Jesus. Better to read this book a little here and there, now and then, than to try gobbling it cover to cover. Imitation is no triumph of orderly thinking, but it's a great monument and incentive to deep living. --Michael Joseph Gross Only the Bible has been more influential as a source of Christian devotional reading than The Imitation of Christ . This meditation on the spiritual life has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul I. Written by the Augustinian monk Thomas à Kempis between 1420 and 1427, it contains clear instructions for renouncing wordly vanities and locating eternal truths.  No book has more explicitly and movingly described the Christian ideal: "My son, to the degree that you can leave yourself behind, to that degree will you be able to enter into Me." With a new Preface by Sally Cunneen, author of In Search of Mary: The Woman and the Symbol . "God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land.  The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--may we follow their directions home." --Archbishop Desmond Tutu Only the Bible has been more influential as a source of Christian devotional reading than The Imitation of Christ. This meditation on the spiritual life has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul I. Written by the Augustinian monk Thomas a Kempis between 1420 and 1427, it contains clear instructions for renouncing wordly vanities and locating eternal truths. No book has more explicitly and movingly described the Christian ideal: "My son, to the degree that you can leave yourself behind, to that degree will you be able to enter into Me." With a new Preface by Sally Cunneen, author of In Search of Mary: The Woman and the Symbol. "God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land. The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--may we follow their directions home." --Archbishop Desmond Tutu THOMAS À KEMPIS (ca. 1380-1471) was an Augustinian monk in the Netherlands during the pre-Reformation period. CARL ANDERSON is the Supreme Knight and chief executive officer of the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization with more than 1.7 million members. He is the author of Called to Love, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the New York Times bestseller A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World . Chapter 1 THE IMITATION OF CHRIST AND CONTEMPT FOR THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD "Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness," says the Lord. These are Christ's own words by which He exhorts us to imitate His life and His ways, if we truly desire to be enlightened and free of all blindness of heart. Let it then be our main concern to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ. 2. Christ's teaching surpasses that of all the saints, and whoever has His spirit will find in His teaching hidden manna. But it happens that many are little affected, even after a frequent hearing of His Gospel. This is because they do not have the spirit of Christ. If you want to understand Christ's words and relish them fully, you must strive to conform your entire life to His. 3. What good does it do you to be able to give a learned discourse on the Trinity, while you are without humility and, thus, are displeasing to the Trinity? Esoteric words neither make us holy nor righteous; only a virtuous life makes us beloved of God. I would rather experience repentance in my soul than know how to define it. If you knew the entire Bible inside out and all the maxims of the philosophers, what good would it