Sunday, 17 December 2023

Our Greatest Pursuit

 Qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris: dicit Dominus. Haec sunt verba Christis quibus admonemur, quatenus vitam eius et mores imitemur: si velimus veraciter illuminari, et ab omni caecitate cordis liberari. Summum igitur studium nostrum sit: in vita Iesu Christi meditari.
 
‘He who follows Me, walks not in darkness’ [John 8:12], sayeth the Lord. With these words of Christ, we are advised to imitate His life and habits, if we verily wish to be enlightened and free from all blindness of heart. Let our greatest pursuit therefore be to study the life of Jesus Christ.
Thomas à Kempis, De imitatione Christi libri quatuor, ed. by Karl Hirsche (Berlin: C. Habel, 1874), p.3. My translation
 
*Although this text is from an autograph ms, ‘volumus’ would be better grammatically than ‘velimus’.