Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Thomas à Kempis on Midges



“There is no creature so little and so vile as not to manifest the goodness of God.” (Thomas à Kempis,  Imitation of Christ, Book 2, ch. 4)

Really, Thomas?

When I was young, I questioned whether the goodness of God was manifest in gnats flying around me on a summer afternoon. (I was also not a big fan of worms, but they could usually be avoided.) Lots of other insects were not on my ‘good list’ even if they might be on God’s. Yellow jackets in the rotting apples on the ground under the tree or sipping from our soda cans at a picnic. Crickets in our cellar. Mosquitoes.

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on suffering

“Eckhart does not counsel anyone to seek suffering for its own sake, nor even as a special mode of God’s presence. In this he differs considerably from most of his contemporaries, and even some of his own disciples. Eckhart’s way is to seek God in all things, and all things in God, even suffering, not with fatalistic resignation as inescapable, but as a gift of God’s presence and companionship.”

Woods, Richard. Meister Eckhart: Master of Mystics. New York: Continuum, 2011, p. 177

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suffering and power

“Now the plain truth is that he who has never been tried by suffering and has never experienced the power of the Word of God to give strength, cannot know the true purport of this petition [i.e., “Give us this day our daily bread”]. Such comfort cannot appeal to him, for he has known and tasted only his own and other creatures’ comfort and aid. He has never drunk a cup of woe to the dregs and been disconsolate.”

Luther, Martin. “An Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer for Simple Laymen” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969, page 53.

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Luther’s 95 Theses (3 of them, anyway)

If you really, really want to read all 95 Theses from 31 October 1517 to see what all the fuss was about, you can find them easily enough. Today – which some in the Church mark as Reformation Day – I’m just going to post the first 3; plus a few lines from Martin Luther’s later commentary on number 3. Here goes:

"Out of love and zeal for truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following theses will be publicly discussed at Wittenberg under the chairmanship of the reverend father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology and regularly appointed Lecturer on these subjects at that place. He requests that those who cannot be present to debate orally with us will do so by letter. [There actually was no formal debate following.] In the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

"1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

"2. This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

“3. Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortifications of the flesh.”

Then from Luther’s August 1518 explanation of the Theses, some of his comments on the 3rd Thesis:

“It follows that the three parts of satisfaction (fasting, prayer, and alms) do not pertain to sacramental penance… But since these satisfactions are related to evangelical penance, fasting consists of all chastenings of the flesh apart from the choice of food or difference in clothes. Prayer includes every pursuit of the soul, in meditation, reading, listening, praying. The giving of alms includes every service toward one’s neighbor. Thus by fasting a Christian may serve himself, by prayer he may serve God, and by the giving of alms he may serve his neighbor… Therefore all mortifications which the conscience-stricken man brings upon himself are the fruit of inner penance, whether they be vigils, work, privation, study, prayers, abstinence from sex and pleasures, insofar as they minister to the spirit. The Lord himself showed forth these fruits of the spirit as did all his saints.”

[I especially like that in his next to last sentence he includes “study” as a “mortification.” Something to think about there!]

Luther, Martin. “Ninety-Five Theses, or Disputation in the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” (1517) Luther’s Works Vol. 31. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957, page 25;

Luther, Martin. “Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses, or Explanations of the Disputation Concerning the Value of Indulgences” (1518) Luther’s Works Vol. 31. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957, pages 86-87.

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diminishment is growth

from a prayer within the text: “When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more my mind); when the ill that is to diminish or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and above all at the last moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive in the hands of the great unknown energies that have formed me; in all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is you (provided only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fiber of my being to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself.”

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Divine Milieu. Translated by Siôn Cowell. Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2012, pp. 50-51.

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in suffering

“In suffering, exasperation may get the better of us, but it is important to keep silent by remaining in the presence of God.” Thought 338.

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 175.

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silence and surviving suffering

“In fact, silence can make it possible to survive in the most precarious situations. Tortures, ill treatment, and torments, however diabolical they may be, will start to be calmed by a silence that is directed toward God. In a mysterious but real way, he supports us by suffering with us. He is inseparably united to man in all his tribulations; it is one thing to rebel against God because he remained silent during our sufferings; it is another thing to entrust our suffering to him in silence, to offer it to him so that he might transform it into an instrument of salvation by associating it with Christ’s suffering.”

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. With an Afterword by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Translated by Michael J. Miller. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017. Thought 318. p. 166.

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a hermit’s dark night

“The solitary easily plunges to a cavern of darkness and of phantoms more horrible and more absurd than the most inane set of conventional social images. The suffering he must then face is neither salutary nor noble. It is catastrophic.”

Merton, Thomas. “Notes for a ‘Philosophy of Solitude’.” (1960) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, p. 72.

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being Christian

“We who want to be God’s must be devout and holy so that God may not suffer because of our sin. If we won’t lead pious lives, he will punish us terribly and make us suffer for our sin. If we do not want to think of him as a God whom we must obey, then he, in turn, will not think of us as his people whom he must help and save.”

Luther, Martin. “Appeal for Prayer Against the Turks” (1541) Luther’s Works Vol. 43. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969, page 234.

Christianity does bring with it some responsibility on our part. It isn’t a list of dos and don’ts, and isn’t a heavy burden or crushing legal obligation. It’s really more the responsibility to ‘act our part’ as freed, forgiven, loved beings; as people who are freeing, forgiving, and loving. With respect to God that means being devout, holy, pious, and obedient.