A homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 8, 2021
1 Kgs 19:4-8, Eph 4:30—5:2, Jn 6:41-51
My dad owned a few copies of “The Imitation of Christ,” by Thomas à Kempis, a guide to living in the footsteps of Jesus that, according to Wikipedia, was composed in Medieval Latin circa 1418–1427. That’s way back there.
I first noticed a copy prominently displayed on the bookcase in our living room about 530 years after its publication, when I had learned to read chapter books with big words and, as a good Catholic school second- or third-grader, when I was in desperate fear and hatred of the Antichrist.
You see, my vocabulary at that time grasped big words but not nuances, and I thought the book was about a fake messiah, the way imitation vanilla was fake and tasted fake. I wanted nothing to do with an imitation Christ. I wanted The Real Jesus.
I didn’t realize the title meant how to imitate Christ. So it was years before I attempted to open the book and take in its message.
Ah, youth.
