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The Imitation of Christ
Thomas à Kempis
The Sixteenth Chapter
TRUE COMFORT IS TO BE SOUGHT IN GOD ALONE
THE DISCIPLE
WHATEVER I can desire or imagine for my own comfort I look for not here but
hereafter. For if I alone should have all the world's comforts and could enjoy
all its delights, it is certain that they could not long endure. Therefore, my
soul, you cannot enjoy full consolation or perfect delight except in God, the
Consoler of the poor and the Helper of the humble. Wait a little, my soul, wait
for the divine promise and you will have an abundance of all good things in
heaven. If you desire these present things too much, you will lose those which
are everlasting and heavenly. Use temporal things but desire eternal things. You
cannot be satisfied with any temporal goods because you were not created to
enjoy them.
Even if you possessed all created things you could not be happy and blessed; for
in God, Who created all these things, your whole blessedness and happiness
consists -- not indeed such happiness as is seen and praised by lovers of the
world, but such as that for which the good and faithful servants of Christ wait,
and of which the spiritual and pure of heart, whose conversation is in heaven,
sometime have a foretaste.
Vain and brief is all human consolation. But that which is received inwardly
from the Truth is blessed and true. The devout man carries his Consoler, Jesus,
everywhere with him, and he says to Him: "Be with me, Lord Jesus, in every place
and at all times. Let this be my consolation, to be willing to forego all human
comforting. And if Your consolation be wanting to me, let Your will and just
trial of me be my greatest comfort. For You will not always be angry, nor will
You threaten forever."
