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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 3 · On Inward Consolation
Chapter 31Imit.3.31

De neglectu omnis creaturæ, ut Creator possit inveniri.

The Need for Greater Grace

The soul longs for the grace that frees it from every creature so it may rise unhindered to God.

My Lord, I still need greater grace if I'm ever to reach the point where no one can hold me back and no creature at all can stand in my way. As long as something holds me back, I can't fly freely to you. The one who wanted to fly freely was the one who said, "Who will give me wings like a dove? Then I will fly and I will rest."✦ What is more peaceful than a single eye, and what is more free than desiring nothing on earth?✦ It is necessary, therefore, to pass beyond every creature, to abandon oneself completely, to stand in ecstasy of mind, and to see that you, the Creator of all things, have nothing in common with creatures.1 And unless someone has been freed from all creatures, they will not be able to turn their attention freely to divine things. This is why so few are found to be truly contemplative: because few know how to separate themselves completely from perishable creatures.

Grace That Lifts the Soul Above Itself

True spiritual weight comes not from human learning but from divine grace that raises the soul beyond all creatures.

Great grace is needed for this — grace that can lift the soul and carry it above itself. And unless a person is lifted above himself in spirit, freed from all creatures, and wholly united to God, whatever he knows, whatever he possesses, is not of great weight — he'll remain small for a long time. And whoever considers anything of great importance except the one immense, eternal Good will remain below. And whatever is not God is nothing, and ought to be counted as nothing. There is indeed a great difference between the wisdom of an enlightened and devout person, and the knowledge of a learned and studious cleric. Far nobler is the teaching that flows from above, from divine influence, than what is laboriously acquired by human talent.

The Hindrance of Attachment to Transitory Things

Many desire contemplation but cling to sensible things and neglect the inner mortification it demands.

A lot of people want contemplation, but they don't bother with the things it actually requires. There's also a big obstacle: we get hung up on signs and things we can sense, and we pay almost no attention to true mortification. I don't know what's going on, or by what spirit we're being led, or what we think we're pretending to be — we who seem to be called to the spiritual life — when we pour all our effort, and even greater anxiety, into things that are fleeting and worthless, and barely ever, with our senses fully gathered, stop to think about what's happening inside us.

Corruption Within and the Call to Purity of Heart

Because our inner affections are corrupted, our actions fail; only a pure heart yields the fruit of a good life.

Alas, grief — no sooner have we pulled ourselves inward for a brief moment than we burst back out again, and we never weigh our actions under the scrutiny of a rigorous examination.2 Our affections lie where they have always lain — we pay no attention to them, and we never grieve over how impure everything in us has become.3 "All flesh had corrupted its own way," and so a great flood followed.✦4 Since, then, our inner affection is corrupted, it follows that the action which comes after — as a telltale sign of our lack of interior strength — is corrupted too.5 From a pure heart comes the fruit of a good life.✦6

Nature Looks Without, Grace Looks Within

The world values outward gifts, but grace judges by interior poverty, patience, and devotion—and alone is reliable.

It's not how much someone has done that matters, but the strength of virtue behind what they do — that's what's not weighed so carefully.7 If someone turns out to be strong, wealthy, handsome, talented — a fine writer, a gifted singer, a skilled worker — that's what gets looked into. But how poor they are in spirit, how patient and gentle, how devout and interior — that's what most people pass over in silence.89 Nature looks at the outside of a person; grace turns inward.10 The first is often deceived; the second places its hope in God, so that it will not be deceived.1112

Read the original Latin

Domine mi, adhuc indigeo majori gratia, si debeo illuc pervenire, ubi nemo me poterit, nec ulla creatura impedire. Nam quamdiu res aliqua me retinet, non possum libere ad te volare. Cupiebat libere volare qui dicebat: Quis dabit mihi pennas sicut columbæ, et volabo, et requiescam? Quid simplici oculo quietius, et quid liberius nil desiderante in terris? Oportet igitur omnem pertransire creaturam, et se ipsum perfecte deserere ac in excessu mentis stare, et videre te omnium Conditorem cum creaturis nil simile habere. Et nisi quis ab omnibus creaturis fuerit expeditus, non poterit libere intendere divinis. Ideo enim pauci inveniuntur contemplativi, quia pauci sciunt se a perituris creaturis ad plenum sequestrari.

Ad hoc magna requiritur gratia, quæ animam levet et supra semetipsam rapiat. Et nisi homo sit super se levatus in spiritu, et ab omnibus creaturis liberatus ac Deo totus unitus quidquid scit, quidquid etiam habet, non est magni ponderis, diu parvus erit. Et infra jacebit qui aliquid magni existimat nisi solum unum immensum bonum æternum. Et quidquid Deus non est, nihil est et pro nihilo computari debet. Est quippe magna differentia inter sapientiam illuminati et devoti viri, et scientiam litterati, et studiosi Clerici. Multo nobilior est illa doctrina quæ desursum ex divina influentia manat, quam quæ laboriose humano acquiritur ingenio.

Plures reperiuntur contemplationem desiderare, sed quæ ad eam requiruntur non student exercere. Est et magnum impedimentum quia in signis et rebus sensibilibus statur, et parum de perfecta mortificatione habetur. Nescio quid est, et quo spiritu ducimur et quid prætendimus qui spirituales dici videmur quod totum laborem et ampliorem sollicitudinem pro transitoriis et vilibus rebus agimus, et de interioribus nostris vix raro plene recollectis sensibus cogitamus.

Proh dolor, statim post modicam recollectionem foris erumpimus, nec opera nostra destricta examinatione trutinamus. Ubi jacent affectus nostri, non attendimus, et quam impura sint omnia nostra, non deploramus. Omnis quippe caro corruperat viam suam, et ideo sequebatur diluvium magnum. Cum ergo interior affectus noster corruptus sit, necesse est ut actio sequens index carentiæ interioris vigoris corrumpatur. Ex puro corde procedit fructus bonæ vitæ.

Quantum quis fecerit non quæritur, sed ex quanta virtute agit, non tam studiose pensatur. Si fuerit fortis, dives, pulcher, habilis vel bonus scriptor, vel bonus cantor, aut bonus laborator, investigatur; sed quam pauper sit spiritu, quam patiens et mitis, quam devotus et internus, a multis tacetur. Natura exteriora hominis respicit: gratia ad interiora se convertit. Illa frequenter fallitur; ista in Deo sperat, ut non decipiatur.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.54.7;Ps.56.6 — He will turn evil back upon my enemies; in your faithfulness, put an end to them. Ps.56.6 — All day long they twist my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil.
  2. ↩Matt.6.22;Luke.11.34 — The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. Luke.11.34 — The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but when it is diseased, your body is full of darkness.
  3. ↩Gen.6.12 — And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth.
  4. ↩Matt.12.33 — Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten; for by its fruit the tree is known.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩excessu mentis rendered as 'ecstasy of mind' in the technical devotional sense of the mind being carried beyond itself, not in the modern colloquial sense.
  2. 2 ↩'destricta examinatione' rendered as 'the scrutiny of a rigorous examination' to preserve the ablative-of-manner force and the sense of unflinching self-scrutiny.
  3. 3 ↩'affectus' rendered as 'affections' following the approved lexeme policy for affectio/affectus, carrying the sense of disordered interior inclinations rather than mere feelings.
  4. 4 ↩Quoted span identified as Genesis 6:12 (Vulgate). Moses resolution pending in tx-08.
  5. 5 ↩'affectus interior' rendered as 'inner affection' to preserve the technical devotional sense of the disordered interior inclination. 'index carentiae interioris vigoris' rendered expansively as 'a telltale sign of our lack of interior strength' to make the compressed Latin noun phrase readable.
  6. 6 ↩Echoes Matthew 12:33 / Luke 6:45 (the tree known by its fruit). Moses resolution pending.
  7. 7 ↩Sed introduces a sharp contrast: the quantity of work is not what's examined, but rather the virtue behind it. The double negative (non…non tam) is rendered naturally in English.
  8. 8 ↩Sed marks the key turn: external qualities are scrutinized, while interior ones are ignored. The series of vel/aut alternatives is rendered with natural English listing.
  9. 9 ↩Pauper spiritu ('poor in spirit') echoes the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3); the allusion is noted but not formally resolved here.
  10. 10 ↩Natura and gratia are personified here as two ways of seeing — the natural versus the grace-guided perspective.
  11. 11 ↩Ut introduces a purpose clause: grace-guided hope aims at not being deceived. Rendered as 'so that' to preserve the teleological force.
  12. 12 ↩Illa and ista refer back to natura and gratia from the previous sentence. The pronouns are rendered as 'the first' and 'the second' for clarity.