Am I reading this right?

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Hi, I’m new here. I don’t have an English speaking Catholic community where I live so I’m counting on you guys. My old man gave me a copy of Thomas a Kempis’ “My Imitation of Christ” when I moved to a new country, and I’ve been reading it bit by bit since then. However, while I find most of it to be extremely edifying, I can’t help but think that some of it is absurd.

For example, Chapter 8, “Undue Familiarity.” I agree that one should be careful about who you associate with and that you shouldn’t try to ingratiate yourself to various groups to flatter your pride and show off. However, some of the things this chapter says make me go, “huh?” For instance, “Keep not much company with young people and strangers.” Huh? you got to be kidding me. I should avoid being friends with people my own age and avoid making new friends? Even worse, I’m a journalist and an English teacher, by the very nature of my job I keep the company of LOTS of strangers and young people. Aren’t we supposed to reach out and get to know people? Jesus himself had at least 12 friends and he spent his whole ministry reaching out to people, many of them strangers and young, and got to know them.

Another example, “be not familiar with any woman.” If this meant sexually familiar I could understand but regarding friendship – ie: don’t be friends with any women – I don’t get it. It suggests that men and women are incapable of just “being friends,” and that is simply not true. In fact, I find that when I get to know woman as friends, I’m actually less likely to be tempted to lust after them. And again, Jesus was friends with Martha and Mary.

Or how about, “Desire to be familiar only with God and His angels and fly the acquaintance of men… familiarity is not expedient.” Is not God present in all men and in Catholics even more so because of holy communion? Also, in my experience, one of the best way of being a witness of Christ and bringing others to the Church is by befriending them. And is Jesus not the friend of all people? I’ve added a number of people to my acquaintance since moving abroad. And two of them, one a Protestant and the other a fallen away Catholic, after meeting me have asked about going to mass with me.

My father once told me that only God can live alone and man only by special grace. Not everyone is called to be a hermit. To exist in this world without friends, without people that you are “familiar” with, is a sad, painful existence. Certainly, it would be ideal if those who become your close friends were devout Christians as well. However, as a self-righteous, phariseetic teenage version of myself discovered, if you’re too picky about your friends you won’t have any. And, as I already mentioned, if you avoid making acquaintances you, a witness of God, hide your lamp under a basket, if you will.

This book isn’t a Catholic classic for no reason, though. I can only guess that I must be missing the forest for the trees.
 
If my doddering memory serves, the author was writing for men in community–priests and monks. . .not to lay persons. Of course the overall focus and Christian advice holds for either but since the community for lay people is somewhat larger (the world as opposed to a monastery) one needs to temper the ideal with the practical. I mean, I’m a woman and so some of the advice which is geared toward men doesn’t QUITE fit for me, but I still love the book and find it useful.
 
Thomas Haemerkken’s The Imitation of Christ is meant for Monastics and Aesthetics, not for a common man.

It is a good read nonetheless.
 
You are going huh because you find the advice given in the book uncomfortable and you rebel against it, however if followed it will greatly improve your chances of getting to heaven and that is the aim of the author, its not a book on how to win friends and influence people its a book on how to give yourself the best chance of getting to heaven and as such his advice is in line with the teaching of the Apostles and the Saints concerning who you keep company with.

Do not work together with unbelievers, for what does justice have in common with injustice? II Corinthians 6:14

You help the ungodly, and you are joined in friendship with those who hate the Lord; and therefore you did indeed deserve the wrath of the Lord. II Paralipomenon 19:2

Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? And what concord does Christ have with Belial? Or what part do the faithful have with the unbeliever? …] Wherefore, go out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord. II Corinthians 6:14-17

If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house, nor say to him: “God speed you.” For he who says to him “God speed you” communicates with his wicked works. II John 1:10-11

Have I not hated them, O Lord, who hated Thee? …] I have hated them with a perfect hatred, and they have become enemies to me. Psalm 138:21-22

It is an illusion to seek the company of sinners on the pretence of reforming them or of converting them; it is far more to be feared that they will spread their poison to us. St. Gregory Nazianzen
 
Tantum_ergo said:
If my doddering memory serves, the author was writing for men in community–priests and monks. . .not to lay persons. Of course the overall focus and Christian advice holds for either but since the community for lay people is somewhat larger (the world as opposed to a monastery) one needs to temper the ideal with the practical. I mean, I’m a woman and so some of the advice which is geared toward men doesn’t QUITE fit for me, but I still love the book and find it useful.
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Exactly right. It’s always helpful to look at the context and the intended audience, as well as the time period in which it was written. “Imitation of Christ” is a spectacular devotional book, but it’s not on par with Scripture in terms of inerrancy. Not everything in the book will resonate with all people at all times. That’s okay, though. 🙂
 
JohnDamian said:
Thomas Haemerkken’s The Imitation of Christ is meant for Monastics and Aesthetics, not for a common man.

It is a good read nonetheless.
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I think you mean “Ascetics.” I only mention this for aesthetic purposes
 
As other people have said, you have to look at Imitation of Christ in it’s proper context. Some of the things recomended in the book are necessary for the formation of a monk but would be detrimental to a non-religious. Take the advice about not forming close friendships, for example. If the monks started favouring one or two of their brothers over all the others, you’d have the monastery forming off into little cliques in no time, and it would be a disaster for community life. Likewise the advice about hanging around young people too much. If you’re busy trying to die to the world, you don’t want to spend all your time with young people who might be very superficial spiritually.

I think it’s possible to take the abide by the spirit of some of the teachings without actually putting them fully into practice. You don’t have to cut off all your close friendships, but that chapter can still teach you about the hazard of putting things like friendships above your relationship with God. You can live in a spirit of detachment while still being in the world.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I’ve been giving the passage more thought, and this is what I’ve discerned. I think Thomas a Kempis’ intent was to warn against the following:
  1. People who are an occasion to sin
  2. Idolizing people or putting your friendships with people above your friendship with God
  3. Flattering your ego or trying to impress others by associating with the rich, powerful, young, or beautiful.
I do think his advice should be tempered with wisdom and self-knowledge, though. For instance, he appears to suggest that being friends with women is a near occasion to sin. But on the contrary, as I mentioned above, I’m less likely to be sexually tempted by female friends than by women I pass on the sidewalk. It just so much easier to objectify a stranger than a friend. Also, old people can be just as bad influences as young people. You just don’t know, and it’s judgmental and unloving to assume the worst of everyone you meet. In my experience a stranger is just as likely to be a brother in Christ as they are to be a pagan, and that pagan is just as likely to be a charitable person as that Christian is to be a jerk.
 
FreeWhistler said:
But on the contrary, as I mentioned above, I’m less likely to be sexually tempted by female friends than by women I pass on the sidewalk.
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Some of the language translation is not absolutely precise. You are assuming that the author’s use of “familiar” is the same as “friendly”, and it isn’t. Familiar, in the sense of this book, would be a relationship, more involved than the friendliness afforded other relationships, where one begins to forgo a certain propriety of language, and would be more inclined to an increased casualness in speech, actions, and thought.

In other words, you owe charity and kindness to all. Familiarity is that next level of relationship where we begin to drop our guard, so to speak, which is more likely to increase the occasion of sin.

Hope that helps. It is how I apply “Imitation” to my life as husband and father. I have several copies around at home, at work, and in the car. When I have a moment, I will open it at random and read. It always seems to provide advise appropriate to my current situation.
 
giuseppeTO said:
Some of the language translation is not absolutely precise. You are assuming that the author’s use of “familiar” is the same as “friendly”, and it isn’t. Familiar, in the sense of this book, would be a relationship, more involved than the friendliness afforded other relationships, where one begins to forgo a certain propriety of language, and would be more inclined to an increased casualness in speech, actions, and thought.

In other words, you owe charity and kindness to all. Familiarity is that next level of relationship where we begin to drop our guard, so to speak, which is more likely to increase the occasion of sin.

Hope that helps. It is how I apply “Imitation” to my life as husband and father. I have several copies around at home, at work, and in the car. When I have a moment, I will open it at random and read. It always seems to provide advise appropriate to my current situation.
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I really do think some of the difficulties simply arise from the language. The book was written a long time ago, and language was used differently. I am, for a small example, reminded of my Irish grandmother’s injunction to treat clergy and religious “civil but strange”. By that, she meant they are in their vocation and we are in ours, and that is a division that really can’t (and shouldn’t) be fully breached. We are not clergy and shouldn’t get into their lives as if we were in their world in the same way they are in it, and vice versa. Yet, the relationship should be respectful and cordial.

But to people here and now, “civil but strange” would not make a lot of sense.
 
Something I’d add to what others have said is the idea of being alone with oneself. Being alone is an important part of an individual’s spiritual life, alone with God of course, but also alone with one’s own thoughts and company.

C.S. Lewis laments in an essay how “these days” no one gets to be alone, with all the incessant clubs and activities, and especially due to the invention of the wireless. This is even more true now, with people having less leisure time than ever before, increasing demands in other aspects of our lives, and television, the internet, cellphones, and other electronic media.

I think this is an important thing we can take from what Kempis is saying here. We do not need to be social butterflies, constantly connected to others. Monastics avoid particular friendships not only due to the pressures of living common lives, but to give their lives something of the advantages the hermit or anchorite has in the pursuit of the spiritual life. As lay people, we may have particular friendships, and we may even have a more active social life. But that should not be the primary focus of our lives. Probably, most of us have the proportions reversed.
 
giuseppeTO said:
Some of the language translation is not absolutely precise. You are assuming that the author’s use of “familiar” is the same as “friendly”, and it isn’t. Familiar, in the sense of this book, would be a relationship, more involved than the friendliness afforded other relationships, where one begins to forgo a certain propriety of language, and would be more inclined to an increased casualness in speech, actions, and thought.
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Thanks for the comment. However, I was quite aware that the use of “familiar” in the context of this book is meant to refer to friendships and not just a formal relationship. And therein was the crux of my confusion. The idea of abandoning human friendship entirely when compared to the example of Christ’s life seems erroneous.

Interaction with other humans can be an occasion to sin, but so can interaction with one self. To exist is an occasion to sin. This is the unfortunate nature of human life that we all struggle against. However, there are so many positive things in life and positive things that you get from not only being alone with oneself but in having various kinds of relationships, including friendships, with others.

Perhaps a better question is where do you draw the line between complete isolation and the need for companionship? Where are the extremes and where is the middle ground? Where do the scales between positive and negative balance? I’m a big fan of “moderation in all things.” Being close friends solely with old, Catholic men seems a bit extreme if not impractical and,dare I say it, unbiblical. There must be other ways, such as setting conscious limits within the friendships that you form so those occasions to sin do not present themselves or at least are easily overcome.
 
FreeWhistler said:
Perhaps a better question is where do you draw the line between complete isolation and the need for companionship? Where are the extremes and where is the middle ground? Where do the scales between positive and negative balance? I’m a big fan of “moderation in all things.” Being close friends solely with old, Catholic men seems a bit extreme if not impractical and,dare I say it, unbiblical. There must be other ways, such as setting conscious limits within the friendships that you form so those occasions to sin do not present themselves or at least are easily overcome.
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Obviously, complete isolation is an extreme but is certainly chosen by many who join Contemplative religious orders. God provided for man’s need of companionship by providing him with a spouse. God did not provide man with other buddies in the garden of Eden to supplement the companionship of a wife.

Prudently, we should take this example and avail ourselves of this gift from God if we are so inclined. The point of the I.O.C. is to be God-centered and not man-centered. So, it is understandable that we would have friendships and that we might particularly favor some friendships over others. That is not sinful. If I had to boil it down into a bullet list that all single/married Catholics could/should follow, it would probably read something like:
  • Find the primary fulfillment of your need for companionship in a spouse, consummated in a marriage that is centered on Christ.
  • be charitable and compassionate to others in accordance which Christ’s teachings
  • refrain from excessive extra-marital friendships that detract from the time with your spouse and Christ. In other words, if you are spending more time with close friends than you are in front of the Blessed Sacrament, you are out-of-balance.
  • and for prudence sake, avoid casual relationships with those of the opposite sex outside of marriage.
The Imitation of Christ is a tall order for many and our modern instincts of freedom and independence shutter at what it is calling us to do. The more you can follow, the more Christ-like you will become.
 
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