The Imitation of Christ with a
Commentary and Audio Files
by Father Thomas à Kempis
of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes
(1380 - 1471)
A STUDY
The following pages are dedicated
to the Little Hearts entrusted by God
to Cloistered Poor Clare Colettine Nuns
CHAPTER 6
UNBRIDLED
AFFECTIONS
"WHEN a man
desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease.
A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is
poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. An unmortified
man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils;
his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to
sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires.
Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger
if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of
conscience overwhelms him because he followed his passions
and they did not lead to the peace he sought.
True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions,
not in satisfying them. There is no peace in the carnal
man, in the man given to vain attractions, but there is
peace in the fervent and spiritual man." |
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Desire. Think
of it. What essentially is desire? Before we look at this more closely,
we would do well to bear in mind the counsel of Holy Mother the Church
who always admonishes us to avoid “the occasions of sin”. What does
she mean? She is telling us to avoid "the people, the places, or the
things which lead us into sin", which is to say, those things before
which we know we are weak and prone to sin. In her holy wisdom, Mother
Church teaches us to know ourselves, invites us to clearly and candidly
assess our weaknesses, for only in recognizing them and acknowledging
our weakness before these occasions of sin, can we begin to prepare
ourselves to lead holy lives, which is nothing less than lives free
from sin.
We gravitate toward what we desire; our desire motivates us to precisely
the people, places and things in which we had formerly found illicit
enjoyment and through which we had subsequently sinned. We are like
moths hovering in a centripetal circle around a dangerous flame, moving
ever closer with each orbit, telling ourselves that we will not sin
“this time” … but we still desire something, something perversely vicarious
through bringing ourselves in proximity to what we know, to what we
had already learned is not good for us, still attracted by the fatal
beauty and lurid warmth of the flame and fixated on its lithe and lissome
dance, we circle imperceptibly closer. “Just a bit more”, we urge ourselves,
even as we feel our resolve gradually diminishing, until the flame licks
our wings and seduces us into the sultry magma of our own passion. And
we sin. Again. We thought ourselves strong enough to resist what had
seduced us into sin again and again, trusting to our own strength instead
of the Wisdom of God and the wise counsel of our Holy Mother the Church
who tells us that even with the gift of Actual Grace we stand in peril
before the occasion of sin that has trapped us again and again. Better
to flee the fire than test your strength against it. It will wither
every time. But you do not have wisdom yet, and in your insolence you
think yourself stronger than others, and wiser … You are a fool.
So what are we to say about the nature of desire, apart from the danger
posed by the occasion of sin? Essentially, desire is a longing for what
we do not possess, or if we do legitimately possess it, it is the absence
of the fulfillment, and the accompanying anticipation of it. A man may
desire his wife, or a wife her husband, and anticipating fulfillment,
longs for it. There is no sin in this. Desire itself, then, is not evil,
and consequently is not intrinsically sinful. It is disordered
desire that is sinful; the desire for that which is not legitimately
ours, but belongs to another. It is theft awaiting the opportunity …
the occasion. It is the illegitimate possession of something or someone
that belongs to another. This is disordered desire; it is desire
not ordered toward an authentic and enduring good — but brings evil
out of another’s legitimate good, and as such is a perversion of
the good. It is an act of debasing what is intrinsically noble, of vitiating
what was created good, to evil and selfish ends. And all selfish ends
are evil.
Disordered desire is ever restless, ever seeking satisfaction,
gratification, satiation. No sooner is the desire fulfilled than another
evil desire arises to replace it and when that, in turn, is fulfilled,
the former desire is replenished and awakens. It is unremitting restlessness
ordered only to the satisfaction of the self which, in justice, remains
perpetually unsatisfied.
Father Thomas succinctly reminds us of this. Hence, he tells us that
peace is found not in gratifying the incessant and ultimately insatiable
promptings of the passions, but in resisting them — as one who has acquired
wisdom and knowing the evil to inevitably ensue, assiduously avoids
it, taking refuge in God instead Who alone can fulfill the deepest longings
of the heart.
Hence the wise man is humble, for he knows that there is little of
virtue in him, and even less of strength … and nothing of holiness.
In this humility man turns toward God. With the holy Apostle Peter,
we should ever say, again and again,
“Lord … to
Whom else can we go?”
for nothing in this world can satisfy the longing in my soul. Only
Thee, Lord. Only Thee."
Your Little Sisters in
Christ
with our co-worker, Joseph Mary
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