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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 3 · On Inward Consolation
Chapter 25Imit.3.25

In quibus firma pax cordis, et verus profectus consistit.

The Gift of Christ's Peace

Christ offers his peace to the humble and obedient, inviting the soul to follow his voice.

Child, I have spoken: <quote>Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as this world gives do I give to you</quote>.✦ Everyone wants peace, but not everyone cares about what leads to true peace. My peace is with the humble and gentle in heart; your peace will lie in great patience.✦ If you listen to me and follow my voice, you'll be able to enjoy great peace.✦

Guarding the Heart in Daily Life

True peace is preserved by directing one's whole intention to God and refraining from judging others.

What, then, should I do in every situation? Pay attention to yourself — what you do and what you say — and direct your whole intention to this one thing: that you may please me alone, and that outside of me you desire or seek nothing. But do not rashly judge the words or deeds of others, and do not entangle yourself in matters that are not your responsibility; and so it may happen that you are seldom or little troubled.✦

The Illusion of Present Peace

The absence of suffering or the presence of consolation is not proof of true peace or spiritual perfection.

But you will never feel any disturbance, nor suffer any trouble of heart or body, is not something belonging to the present time, but the state of eternal rest. So don't think you've found true peace if you haven't felt any heaviness, nor that everything is good at that point if you don't suffer any adversary, nor that this is perfect if all things have gone according to your own affection.1 Nor should you then consider yourself someone of great account, or think yourself especially beloved, if you've been in great devotion or sweetness, because the true lover of virtue is not recognized in these things, nor does the progress and perfection of a person consist in them.2

The Way of True Peace

True peace consists in wholehearted self-offering to God's will, patient hope in desolation, and self-contempt leading to abundant peace.

How, then, Lord? By offering yourself wholeheartedly to the divine will, seeking nothing of your own—neither in small things nor in great, neither in time nor in eternity—so that with one and the same steady countenance you remain in thanksgiving through all things, whether favorable or adverse, weighing them all on an equal scale.34 If you prove so strong and patient in hope that, even when inner consolation is withdrawn, you prepare your heart to endure still greater things—and do not justify yourself or praise yourself as holy—then you walk in the true and right way of peace, and your hope will be an undoubting one: that you will see my face again, in jubilation.✦56 But if you arrive at a full contempt of yourself, know that then you will enjoy an abundance of peace, according to the capacity of your dwelling place.789

Read the original Latin

Fili, ego locutus sum: Pacem relinquo vobis, pacem meam do vobis; non quomodo hic mundus dat ego do vobis. Pacem omnes desiderant: sed quæ ad veram pacem pertinent, non omnes curant. Pax mea cum humilibus et mansuetis corde, pax tua erit in multa patientia. Si me audieris, et vocem meam secutus fueris, poteris multa pace frui. Quid igitur faciam in omni re? Attende tibi quid facias et quid dicas et omnem intentionem tuam ad hoc dirige, ut mihi soli placeas, et extra me nihil cupias, vel quæras. Sed et de aliorum dictis vel factis nil temere judices, nec cum rebus tibi non commissis te implices, et poterit fieri ut parum vel raro turberis.

Nunquam autem sentire aliquam turbationem, nec pati aliquam cordis vel corporis molestiam non est præsentis temporis, sed status æternæ quietis. Non ergo exstimes te veram pacem invenisse, si nullam senseris gravitatem, nec tunc totum esse bonum, si neminem pateris adversarium, nec hoc esse perfectum, si cuncta fuerint secundum tuum affectum. Neque tunc magni aliquid te reputes aut specialiter dilectum existimes, si in magna fueris devotione aut dulcedine: quia in istis non congnoscitur verus amator virtutis, nec in istis consistit profectus, et perfectio hominis.

In quo ergo, Domine? In offerendo te ex toto corde tuo voluntati divinæ, non quærendo quæ tua sunt, nec in parvo nec in magno, nec in tempore nec in æternitate, ita ut una æquali facie in gratiarum actione permaneas inter prospera et contraria omnia æqua lance pensando. Si fueris tam fortis et longanimis in spe, ut subtracta interiori consolatione etiam ad ampliora sustinenda cor tuum præparaveris, nec te justificaveris et sanctum laudaveris: tunc in vera et recta via pacis ambulas, et spes indubitata erit, quod rursus in jubilo faciem meam sis visurus. Quod si ad plenum tui ipsius contemptum perveneris, scito quod tunc abundantia pacis perfrueris secundum possibilitatem tui incolatus.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩John.14.27 — Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
  2. ↩Matt.5.5;Ps.37.11 — Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Ps.37.11 — But the humble shall inherit the land, and they will delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
  3. ↩John.10.27 — My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
  4. ↩Matt.7.1;Rom.14.4 — Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. Rom.14.4 — Who are you to pass judgment on another's servant? Before his own master he stands or falls. And he will be made to stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
  5. ↩1Cor.13.12;Rev.22.4 — For now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. Rev.22.4 — And they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩affectus here rendered as 'affection' in the sense of personal inclination or disposition, not disordered attachment; the Latin carries the force of one's own will or preference.
  2. 2 ↩dilectum here rendered as 'beloved' in the sense of specially favored or dear (to God), not as a term of endearment; the warning is against presuming special divine favor based on felt devotion.
  3. 3 ↩Gratiarum actione (genitive plural) rendered as 'thanksgiving' rather than 'the action of thanks' to capture the devotional sense of sustained grateful praise, not a single act.
  4. 4 ↩Voluntati divinæ rendered as 'the divine will' rather than 'your divine will' to preserve the objective, theological sense of God's will as the offering's destination.
  5. 5 ↩The speaker shifts here to Christ's voice ('faciem meam' — 'my face'). The first-person 'my' is Christ addressing the reader directly, a common rhetorical move in Imitatio. This is not Thomas speaking.
  6. 6 ↩Nec te justificaveris et sanctum laudaveris: literally 'nor justify yourself and praise yourself as holy.' The reflexive force warns against self-exaltation even in spiritual progress; rendered to preserve the interior, moral sense rather than a forensic-justification reading.
  7. 7 ↩Quod si: 'But if' — quod here functions as a conjunction introducing a conditional clause, adversative to the preceding sentence's condition. Rendered as 'But if' to capture the shift.
  8. 8 ↩Tui ipsius contemptum: 'contempt of yourself' — the reflexive genitive intensifies the self-directed contempt, a key ascetical concept (contemptus sui). Rendered with the reflexive force preserved.
  9. 9 ↩Tui incolatus: 'your dwelling place' — incolatus can mean the place one inhabits or the act of dwelling. Here it likely refers to the soul's capacity or the body as the soul's dwelling, limiting how much peace can be experienced in this life. Rendered as 'your dwelling place' to preserve the ambiguity between literal habitation and the soul's embodied condition.