"My Son, now will I teach you the way of peace and of true liberty."
"Strive, My Son, to do another's will rather than your own. Choose always to have less rather than more. Seek always after the lowest place, and to be subject to all. Wish always and pray that the will of God be fulfilled in you.
Behold, such a man as this entereth into the inheritance of peace and quietness."
Inheritance of peace and quietness — in an exhausting world.
The whole of the Christian life in four sentences. Twenty-five days of Kempis — the stripping, the building, the burning, the singing, the battles, the promotions, the feathers, the fountain, the liberty, the sweetness, the beaches — and it all comes down to four things:
Do another's will rather than your own. The self is not the center. The other is. The Beloved is. The will that matters is not mine.
Choose less rather than more. The world says: more is better. Kempis says: less is freedom. The soul that chooses less has less to lose, less to manage, less to distract. The motorhome over the mansion. The Benimar over the villa.
Seek the lowest place. Not as performance. Not as false humility. As the honest recognition that the lowest place is the safest place — because the soul that is already at the bottom cannot fall. And from the lowest place, every direction is up.
Pray that God's will be fulfilled in you. Not your plans. Not your desires. Not your vision of Brittany. His will. The compass is peace. The prayer is surrender. And the inheritance — peace and quietness. In an exhausting world. On a beach where eighty-two years ago the world was anything but quiet. The peace that Kempis describes is not the absence of noise. It is the presence of surrender.
O my Lord, this Your short discourse has in itself much of perfectness. It is short in words but full of meaning, and abundant in fruit.
For if it were possible that I should fully keep it, disturbance would not so easily arise within me. For as often as I feel myself disquieted and weighed down, I find myself to have gone back from this teaching.
But You, Who are Almighty, and always lovest progress in the soul, vouchsafe more grace, that I may be enabled to fulfil Your exhortation, and work out my salvation.
Kempis is as human as I am. "For as often as I feel myself disquieted and weighed down, I find myself to have gone back from this teaching."
This may be the most important note of twenty-five days with Kempis. Le said: Kempis is as human as I am. And she is right. The man who wrote the most luminous teaching on peace in the history of Christian devotion — and he admits he goes back from his own teaching.
As often as I feel myself disquieted and weighed down, I find myself to have gone back. Not once. Not in the early days. As often as. The teacher fails his own lesson. The monk who wrote the four things that bring peace cannot always keep them. And he says so — openly, honestly, without pretending. That is why Le loves him. Not because he is above her. Because he is beside her.
He is not a saint on a pedestal handing down wisdom from a height the reader can never reach. He is a fellow traveler who discovered the road and admits he wanders off it. I find myself to have gone back. And the response is not despair. It is not shame. It is not the abandonment of the teaching. It is prayer: vouchsafe more grace, that I may be enabled. The grace to keep the teaching is not in the teacher. It is in the One who teaches through the teacher.
✦ The Grace to Begin Again
Twenty-five days ago, on the first morning, Kempis said: kindle our hearts to zeal, as if each day were the first day of our conversion. Grant that this day I may make a good beginning, for until now I have done nothing. And today — on the twenty-fifth day — he says the same thing from the other side: I find myself to have gone back.
The going back is not the end. The beginning again is the grace.
Four things that bring peace. Short in words. Full in meaning. Abundant in fruit. And impossible to keep perfectly — because all perfection has some imperfection joined to it in this life. But the soul that goes back and prays for more grace — the soul that does not pretend to have mastered the teaching but humbly admits the failure and asks for help — that soul is closer to the peace than the one who never tried.
Kempis is as human as Le. And Le is as honest as Kempis. And the grace — the grace that enables, the grace that restores, the grace that says today is the first day again — that grace is available. This morning. On Sword Beach. On the Lord's Day. In an exhausting world.
The inheritance of peace and quietness is not earned by perfectly keeping the four things. It is received by the soul that keeps returning to them — again and again and again — trusting that the One who teaches them also provides the grace to keep them.
The grace is available to begin again. 🙏
"The going back is not the end. The beginning again is the grace."
Sword Beach · The Lord's Day · Twenty-five days with Kempis · The inheritance of peaceThe Four Things
Do another's will. Choose less. Seek the lowest place. Pray that God's will be fulfilled. Four sentences — the whole Christian life. The inheritance: peace and quietness in an exhausting world.
Beside You, Not Above You
Kempis is as human as I am. The teacher who fails his own lesson. The monk who goes back from his own teaching. Not a saint on a pedestal — a fellow traveler who admits he wanders off the road.
The Grace to Begin Again
The going back is not the end. The beginning again is the grace. Vouchsafe more grace — that I may be enabled. The grace that restores is available this morning. Every morning.
Sword Beach — The Lord's Day
The day after the anniversary. The reverence still in the air. The inheritance of peace on the beach where peace was purchased. Four things — and the grace to keep returning to them.