The Life of Thomas a Kempis
Thomas was born in Kempen in
1379/80, the son of John and Gertrude Haemerken (the family name means ‘hammer’). His father was a blacksmith and his mother
ran a school for small children.
Even at this early age Thomas
yearned for education and the quiet life of reading and study.
His favorite motto is said to have been: “I
sought for rest but never found it, save in a little corner with a little
book.” Perhaps he also felt even so
early the call to the religious or the monastic life. Which of these two impulses was the more
urgent we will never know. But what an
important day it was for the whole history of Christian life and asceticism,
even for the course of Western literature.
On a day in 1392, Thomas
Haemerken, a German boy of some twelve years, knocked on the door of Florent
Radewijns in the town of Deventer, in the Low Countries. He made the journey from his native Kempen,
fifteen miles northwest of present-day Dusseldorf. His older brother John had made the same trip
some years earlier, in order to join a small community founded by Gerard Groote
and now directed by Radewijns, where Latin studies and the copying and
illustrating of manuscripts flourished.
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| Example of Early Manuscripts |
Seven years after his arrival, he
determined to enter religious life. His older
brother was prior of the monastery of Mount St. Agnes, at Agnetenberg, beyond
the walls of the city of Zwolle, but the Rule forbade two brothers to live in
the same community, without special dispensation which was granted, because of
the good character of both the brothers.
In 1425 he was appointed
sub-prior of the monastery, and was also entrusted with the training of the
novices. For a brief time he was
procurator (treasurer) of the house, but it was soon recognized that he had
little talent for this kind of administration.
The world at the time of Thomas
was a particularly confused and bewildered one.
The very foundation of the Church—and hence the Western civilization—seemed
to be shaken and crumbling. Monasteries and
convents were often torn by inner dissensions; the tumult of the outside world
made its way into places and souls there the peace of God should have
reigned. Religion, it may be said, was
in not too healthy a state...
Thomas knew from intimate and
agonizing experience—what the religious disorders of the time meant and could
lead to. This is probably one reason why
the pages of The Imitation are so
sincere, so convincing in their tone of immediate experience, rather than
seeming to echo spiritual teaching which is good and sound but rather remote and
theoretical. Thomas knew the world from
which he was so strongly to recommend withdrawal—thought that withdrawal must
be understood as Thomas meant it, not as some commentators have read their own
meaning into it...
After his brother died around the
year 1429, Thomas held various other posts in the monastery and in 1448 was
elected sub-prior for the second time.
For the next twenty years, his was the quiet life of student, counselor,
copyist, and writer. From his pen, in
addition to The Imitation, came a
remarkable quantity of work (of which The
Imitation comprises only one-tenth), including sermons, treatises for the
instructions of the novices and monks, devotional works, and two biographies—of
St. Lydwine, virgin, and of Gerald Groote...
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| Thomas Kempis on Mount St. Agnes painted in 1569 |
He died on July 25, 1471, in his
92nd year, the 63rd of his religious life—and 58th
of his priesthood says the Chronicle of Mount St. Agnes...
The Imitation was first translated from Latin into English in 1460
by an unknown translator who omitted the fourth book. This was a manuscript version. The first English version to be printed was
made in 1502 by William Atkinson, Cambridge scholar--also without the fourth book. In 1503, Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of
King Henry VII and patron of St. John Fisher, translated the fourth book from a
French version...
The Imitation breathes a spirit of humility and peace as well as a
salutary fear. If Thomas insists
strongly on compunction for sins, and a filial fear of the God whom we have
offended, he does not forget the goal of such compunction and fear is Christian
confidence and joy...
By Harold C. Gardiner, S.J. 1955
Excerpts from the Introduction of
The
Imitation of Christ, Image Books Doubleday, 1955
The Imitation of Christ
is one of
the best known
Christian books on devotion.
QUOTES FROM THOMAS A KEMPES
The following quotes are
attributed to him:
"Without the Way,
there is no going,
Without the Truth,
there is no knowing,
Without the Life,
there is no living.”
"If thou wilt receive profit,
read with humility,
simplicity, and faith,
and seek not at any time the fame of being learned."
"At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked
what we have read,
but what we have done."
The Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter
3
"If, however, you seek Jesus in all things,
you will surely find
Him. "
The Imitation of Christ, Book II,
Chapter 7
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