Book 4, Chapter 12 of The Imitation of Christ tells us how to properly prepare to receive the Holy Eucharist. "Shut out the whole world, and all the tumult of vices: sit like a sparrow solitary on the housetop, and think in your excess and in the bitterness of your soul. For every lover prepares the best and fairest room for his dearly beloved; and hereby is known the affection of him that entertains his beloved."

Fr. Robert Nixon thinks this section on the Blessed Sacrament is particularly important. "We need to try to put things in order. If we can imagine if we had a guest coming to our house, we would take care of things. And the example he gives of someone receiving a beloved. And you can imagine in the early stages of a romance and hopefully in married life, hopefully people take care that they're making a fitting dwelling place for the person who they love so much. And Christ, of course, we love above all other things. So can we beautify, can we put into order, can we clean up the chambers of our heart and soul so that we're ready to receive this most beloved of guests?"

Episode 16 of The Commentaries dives into Book Four of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 8-14.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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O Christ, in bread and wine disguised,

Hidden from our earthly eyes,

But present here in mystery,

From death and sin, please set us free.

Grant us pure and true devotion.

Rule our senses, thoughts, emotions.

Let Thy blood refresh our souls.

Let Thy body make us whole.

Amen.

Episode 15 of The Commentaries dives into Book Four of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 1-7.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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In Book 3, Chapter 58 of The Imitation of Christ, the idea of nature and grace is explored extensively. Fr. Robert Nixon says, “This is something which people who've studied theology will perhaps have thought about quite a lot, but other people maybe not so much. So the idea of this contrast or these two fortunes of nature and grace. So we do certain things by nature. It's within who we are, our created being, but we do things also by grace, which is something which comes from God above.

“Now, in talking about nature and grace, it's important not to make too hard a distinction between the two because in fact our nature comes from God as well. So it actually is a form of grace. So sometimes nature and grace are in opposition, but at the same time, we don't want to draw too strongly a dichotomy between them, which is what the Protestant traditions tend to do, making nature and grace in firm opposition, which of course is not the reality because God has given us our nature in order that we may glorify him.”

Episode 14 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 54-59.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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"A most happy mansion of the city above, a most bright day of eternity, which knows no night," the disciple says, "But is always enlightened by Thy sovereign truth, a day, always joyful, always secure, and never changing in its state for the country. Oh, that this day would shine upon us, and all those temporal things would come to an end. It shines indeed upon the saints, resplendent with everlasting brightness. But to us pilgrims upon earth, it is seen only as far off and through a glass."

Fr. Robert Nixon thinks a lot of us struggle to think about Heaven in its fullness of glory. “I think we sometimes succumb to interpretations of Heaven that it's really only a metaphor to living a good life in this world,” Fr. Nixon comments. “There's a certain degree of truth in that idea, but it's very inadequate. It doesn't explain the great glories of Heaven, which are presented to us so vividly in the Bible, in the Book of Revelation, and elsewhere. But here we're asked, in briefer form but equally powerfully, to contemplate these glories of Heaven, which we see only vaguely in this present life, but which the saints enjoy to its fullness.”

Episode 13 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 47-53.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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In Book 3, Chapter 38 of The Imitation of Christ, Christ says, “You must diligently make it your aim, that in every place and in every action or outward employment, you be inwardly free and master of yourself, and that all things be under you and not you under them, that you may be the Lord and ruler of your actions and not a slave or bondsman, but rather a free man.”

Fr. Robert Nixon comments, “This is a great call to freedom of soul. Freedom is something which perhaps we tend to think of in political terms as something associated with liberalism and so forth. But in fact, freedom of soul, true freedom is one of the foundational values of Christianity.”

Episode 12 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 38-46.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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"My God and my all! Enough is said to Him that understands; and it is delightful to Him that loves to repeat it often. You give tranquility to the heart and great peace and pleasant joy. You make us to think well of all and praise You in all things, nor can anything without You afford any lasting pleasure.”

This exhortation from the disciple in Book 3, Chapter 34 of The Imitation of Christ inspired Fr. Robert Nixon to advise using the phrase, “My God and my all,” often in prayer. “I recommend perhaps trying to repeat that several times as a prayer or as a meditation at various moments throughout the day,” Fr. Nixon says, “to reflect on my God and my all, simply His greatness and glory and infinity and eternity without asking for anything, without asking for help, even without asking for mercy, but just pure reflection on that wonderful glory of God, which is pure love. He says that, speaking to God, ‘You make us to think well of all things and to praise all things.’ And this is a remarkable thing because I guess for most people, myself included, it's quite rare to be able to say that we think well of all things and think well of all people. We can probably think of at least half a dozen people who we don't think that well of."

Episode 11 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 32-37.

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Fr. Robert Nixon admits the idea of seeking the lowest place can be hard to understand. “This might sound a bit troubling,” Fr. Nixon says, “like when it says inferior does it mean we should try to be worse or less meritorious or less able than other people? That's not what it means in this context. Inferior means occupying a lower place in any given scale…But the fact is being higher in this scale doesn't actually make us any happier or any closer to God.”

True humility, Fr. Nixon goes on to add, is the opposite of what our modern world often encourages. “It's to our own peace if we can develop this inverse ambition, a contentment to take the lowest place unless we are called upon or there's a grave responsibility that asks us to do otherwise.”

Episode 10 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 23-31.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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“Everything we ask for from God,” Fr. Nixon comments, “We should say, ‘God, if this is in accordance with Your will and Your will is my salvation and my ultimate good, so if it's what You want, let it be done.’ There's a certain amount of humility in this in giving up our own preferences, realizing that sometimes we can be mistaken about what's good for us and what's actually bad for us. A lot of the time the things which our hearts seem to want might actually be for our own final destruction, and, of course, we have no way of knowing it at the time.”

Episode 9 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 13-22.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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Christ says to his disciple in The Imitation of Christ, "My son, I must be thy chief and last end if thou desire to be truly happy. But this intention of yours shall be purified, which too often is irregularly bent upon thyself and created things. For if in anything you seek yourself, you presently faint away from yourself and grow dry, refer therefore all things principally to Me for it is I who have given thee all. Consider everything as flowing from the supreme good and therefore they must all be returned to Me as to their origin."

Episode 8 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 7-12.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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An exchange in The Imitation of Christ between Christ and the soul, his disciple, stands out in episode seven of The Commentaries.

"Son, walk before Me in truth and always seek Me in the simplicity of thy heart. He that walks before Me in truth shall be secured from evil occurrences, and truth shall deliver him from deceivers and from the detractors of the wicked. If truth is on your side, you will be free from all anxiety and unconcerned at all that vain men can say against you."

Then the soul, the disciple, replies to Christ, "Lord, this is true as Thou say, so I beseech You. Let it be done with me. Let Your truth teach me. Let Your truth guard me and keep me till I come to a happy end. Let the same truth deliver me from all evil affections and all inordinate love, and I shall walk with the imperfect freedom of heart.”

Episode 7 of The Commentaries dives into Book Three of The Imitation of Christ, chapters 1-6.

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The Commentaries is a podcast series from TAN in which you’ll learn how to read and understand history’s greatest Catholic works, from today’s greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into the darkness of our modern trials and tribulations. Visit http://TANCommentaries.com/ to get your copy of the book, and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for The Commentaries listeners.

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