JACOPONE DA TODI, LAUDE (Lauds, or Praises)
JACOPONE DA TODI'S (C. 1230-1306) LAUDS ARE WHAT ONE EDITOR HAS CALLED "THE MOST POWERFUL RELIGIOUS POETRY IN ITALY BEFORE DANTE. " THE NINETY-THREE POEMS, WRITTEN IN ITALIAN, SPEAK BOTH OF THE AUTHOR' S INTERIOR STRUGGLE WITH SIN, AGE, LOSS, AND MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE AND OF HIS OUTER STRUGGLE WITH THE OPPONENTS OF THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS IN THE LATE 13TH CENTURY.
Jacopone was born sometime between 1230 and 1236 to an aristocratic family in Todi, a town in Umbria. He married and began to work as a public notary. When his wife died at an early age, Jacopone abandoned his career and became a bizzacone, a penitent beggar. He lived this solitary life for ten years, gaining fame as a holy man throughout the region of Umbria. In 1278, for reasons unknown, Jacopone joined the Franciscan Order, just as the controversy over Franciscan poverty was reaching its height. In the late 1290s, he was an outspoken critic of papal politics, and he supported the rebellion of the Colonna cardinals against Boniface VIII in 1297. When this rebellion failed, Jacopone was sentenced to life imprisonment in the dungeon of Todi monastery. He was finally released in 1303, and he lived with the friars of the Convent of San Lorenzo until his death in 1306.
The Lauds are brief poems, mostly ' mystical' in nature, tracing the path of the soul from the life of the senses to interior union with God. Others are social criticism, attacking popes or bishops for their moral failures. Several of his later lauds are pleas for clemency from succeeding popes. Jacopone is an introspective poet. His deepest insights come from an appropriation of the Franciscan theme of poverty. For Jacopone, true
poverty is not simply the refusal of material wealth but rather the total abandonment of the self to 'nichil, ' to nothingness before God. If one were pursuing an Augustinian theme like ' interiority,' then many of Jacopone' s Lauds could be useful. The meditations upon " How grace transforms the Hell of Sin into Bliss " and on "Pride, the Root of All Sins" could be useful in showing the continuity of the Augustinian theme of grace and sin in the Middle Ages. A fair number of the social-critical poems address apocalyptic themes of Antichrist and the Heavenly Jerusalem, which may play into a millennial or utopian theme. For Jacopone, the mystical journey of the soul is complemented by the journey of the entire Church to God. Be forewarned, his poetry is not for the faint of heart. The internal struggles are marked by grim and graphic representations of the decay of a corpse (Laud 25), sharp cautions against the dangers of the senses (Lauds 5, 6, 7) and on the 'dangerous charms of woman' (Laud 8). But there are also wonderful depictions of the Nativity and the 'Tree of Divine Love.' All in all, Jacopone's Lauds bear witness to the vibrancy of the Franciscan mystical tradition in the midst of the ecclesiastical turmoil of the late thirteenth century.
Critical Edition and Translation:
Laude, edited by Franco Mancini. Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1974.
Jacopone da Todi. The Lauds. Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahwah, NJ: Pauliat Press, 1982.
Contextual and Specific Studies:
Burr, David. Olivi and Franciscan Poverty. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
Croce, Benedetto. Poesia d 'arte e poesia popolare. Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1946.
Lambert, Malcolm D. Franciscan Poverty. London: SPCK, 1961.
Peck, George. The Fool of God -¬Jacopone da Todi. Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1980.
Underhill, Evelyn. Jacopone da Todi -- A Spiritual Biography. London: J. Dent Se Sons, Ltd, 1919.
JULIAN OF NORWICH: REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE
JULIAN WAS A 14TH-CENTURY MYSTIC WHO HAD VISIONS OF CHRIST' S SUFFERING} ON THE CROSS, DESCRIBING HIM IN VIVID DETAIL AS IF SHE WERE THERE. SHE ALSO RECEIVED FROM HIM WORDS OF COMFORT FOR ALL OF SUFFERING HUMANITY. SHE REMAINS TO THIS DAY THE FAVORITE SPIRITUAL WRITER OF A WIDE VARIETY OF READERS.
Julian of Norwich is perhaps the most accessible of medieval mystics. She is read and loved--and taken as a spiritual guide--by a large non-academic audience. One reason is that her visions are simple and direct, and vivid with sensory detail <for instance, she describes exactly what Christ looks like as his body dries up with thirst on the cross). Another is that her book is immensely comforting: she wants her readers to imagine Christ looking at them with infinite tenderness and saying, as he said to her: "Are you well satisfied with my suffering for you?....If you are satisfied, I am satisfied too. It is a joy, and bliss, and everlasting delight to me that ever I suffered for you..." and (most famously) '.'All shall be well, and all shall be well ... and thou shah see thyself, that all manner of thing shall be well. "
Julian had her visions during a severe illness when she was thirty years old. Soon afterwards it seems she wrote them down in what is now called the Short Text of her Showings or (in more contemporary translation) Revelations. But she had a long life ahead of her to meditate on the theological issues raised by these visions. The result is the Long Text, written twenty years later, in which she tackles the thorny problem Of theodicy: how can all things be well if some creatures end up eternally damned? After recounting Julian's visions as before, the Long Text goes on to agonize over this problem in a theological meditation that is intellectually exciting, fiercely complex, and not quite orthodox, drawing from certain mystical themes such as the notion that the higher part of our soul contains a will that has never sinned or been separated from God. In the course of her attempt to combine this theme with orthodox Christology, there emerges the notion of Christ as our eternal Mother, which Julian develops with astonishing boldness and depth.
Critical Edition:
4 Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich, ed. E. Colledge, and J. Walsh. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1978. Contains the original middle English texts, with extensive introduction and commentary on Julian's texts, sources, and theology.
Translations:
--Julian of Norwich., Showings, ed. E. Colledge and J. Walsh New York: Paulist, 1978. (Classics of Western Spirituality series). The best scholarly edition in modem English, containing both the Short Text and the Long Text, together with a long introduction.
--Revelations of Divine Love, ed. C. Wolters. New York: Penguin, 1966. Has all the features of a good Penguin edition: reliable translation and a useful, reader-friendly introduction to Julian's life and theology.
Contextual Studies:
Raitt, Jill (ed). Christian Spirituality, vol. 2: High Middle Ages and Reformation. New York: Crossroad, 1987. Encyclopedic articles by eminent scholars covering a variety of authors, movements, themes and forms of devotion in Julian's era.
Critical Studies:
Baker, Denise. Julian of Norwich's Showings: From Vision to Book. Princeton: Princeton University, 1994. Subtle study by a medievalist interested in issues of textuality and extensively familiar with the textual landscape of the 14th century.
Jantzen, Grace. Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian. New York: Paulist, 1988. Fine introductory study, with helpful discussion of historical background, by a philosopher interested in the contemporary relevance of Julian's spirituality.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-L546)
THE FOUNDING FIGURE OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION, LUTHER IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THEOLOGIANS OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION, A FIGURE OF ENORMOUS HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE, AND ONE OF THE MOST FASCINATING CHARACTERS IN HUMAN HISTORY. HIS WRITINGS REMAIN GRIPPING AND CONTROVERSIAL.
Augustine, the West's "teacher of grace, " taught that we cannot truly obey God unless God helps us by giving us grace. Luther's theology centers on how to get this grace--by believing God's promises in the Gospel of Christ. Hence whereas Augustine prays for God to give him the grace to obey His law ( " Give what you command, and command what you will") Luther tells us where to look to find this grace ("The promises of God give what the commands of God require " ). This is why Luther teaches his famous doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from the works of the law. Like Augustine, he thinks that if we try to justify ourselves by following God's commandments, we will fail, and end up hating God and his Law. But if instead we believe the Gospel of Christ and its promises of mercy, we will be comforted by God's kindness towards us, and thus come to love him (which is of course what it means to obey the first and greatest of God's commandments). To put it in Catholic terms, Luther thinks of the Gospel as the fundamental means of grace.
The three treatises anthologized below are of particular interest:
1. The Freedom of a Christian: non-polemical (engaging in no attacks on the Pope), this treatise is an introduction to the heart of Luther's theology of Law and Gospel (here called the "commandment" and "promise" of God, respectively).
2. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (in Dillenberger, The Pagan Servitude): Luther's great polemic against Roman Catholic sacramental theology.
3. Letter to the Christian Nobility (in Dillenberger, Appeal to the Ruling Class): a key document for those interested in the political history of the Reformation, this is Luther's call for the princes of Germany to do what the Pope (in Luther's view) refused to do--reform the Church.
Critical Edition: Kritische Gesamtausgabe den Werke D. Martin Luthrs. Weimar 1883ff The Weimar edition (usually abbreviated WA for Weimarer A usgabe) has superseded all other editions as the definitive reference point for Luther scholarship.
Translations:
Luther's Works (54 vols), ed. Jaroslav Pelikan et al. The standard American edition in the red binding, contains the most important of Luther's writings.
Three Treatises. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960. See above.
Luther: Selections from his Writings, ed. John Dillenberger. New York: Doubleday, 1962.
Contextual & Specific Studies
Hillenbrand, Hans. The Reformation: a Narrative History Related by Contemporary Observers and Participants. An anthology of illuminating documents from the period.
Ozment, Steven. The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth-century Germany and Switzerland. New Haven: Yale, 1975. A study of the state of popular culture and conscience at the height of the Reformation. If you know what it was like for an ordinary person going to confession in Luther's Germany, the explosive power of Reformation theology becomes much clearer.
Althaus, Paul. The Theology of Martin Luther. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966. Together with its companion volume The Ethics of Martin Luther (Fortress, 1972) this comprises a comprehensive survey of Luther' s thought. Arranged topically and well-indexed, it can easily be used as a reference work.
Bainton, Roland. Here I Stand a Life of Martin Luther. Originally 1950, now Nashville; Abingdon Press, 1978. A classic, immensely readable biography, which sets Luther's theology in the context of his life and times, including the early history of the Reformation.
PROCOPIUS (historian, ca. 500-after 554)
ASSESSOR (LEGAL ADVISOR) TO GENERAL BELISARIOS, THE MAJOR GENERAL WHO SERVED UNDER THE BYZANTINE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTH CENTURY, PROCOPIUS WAS WELL PLACED TO OBSERVE THE EVENTS HE INCLUDES HIS ACCOUNTS OF THE EVENTS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.
Wars:
Procopius's Wars are a classicizing military history in eight books of the campaigns of Belisarius against the Persians, Vandals (in Africa) and Goths (in Italy). In addition to being the only eyewitness whose account of most of the events survives, Procopius contributes considerable talents as a brilliant narrator, as his colorful description of the defense of Rome by Belisarius against the Goths well illustrates. His account lays emphasizes the brilliance of Belisarius' military strategies, as well as the human foibles p which affect their success.
Secret History:
While the Wars are overtly neutral, the Secret History, which seems not to have circulated until the tenth century, is a virulent and satirical attack on Procopius' boss, Belisarius, his wife Antonia, as well as on the Byzantine emperor Justinian and his empress Theodora. Strongly biased and deeply involved in the intrigues of the Byzantine court, the Secret History is an excellent example of the ancient genre of satirical invective. The description of Justinian' s character is a marvelous illustration of the vices of typically attributed to the tyrant in Late Antique rhetoric, depending largely on the standard theme of the " world turned upside down" . Part of this theme, the salacious description of Theodora, includes in exaggerated form all the accusations (sexual, personal and political) typically made against a powerful woman in Late Antiquity. This passage might work well with other classical and medieval portraits of women to show the terms according to which women were typically judged.
Critical Edition:
Opera omnia, ed. Jacobus Haury and rev. Gerhard Wirth (1982-64).
Translations:
Averil Cameron translates in an abridged form all of Procopius's works in History of the Wars, Secret History and Buildings (New York: Twayne, 1967); Richard Atwater's translation is of the complete Secret History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963).
Studies: Cameron, Averil. Procopius and the Sixth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). Evans, J.A.S. Procopius. New York: Twayne, 1972.
RULE OF BENEDICT (ca. 54O CE)
ONE OF THE SHORTEST, MOST PRAGMATIC SPIRITUAL CLASSICS IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION. ONLY 80 PAGES IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION, THE RULE COVERS SUCCINCTLY THE PRINCIPLES OF MONASTIC LIFE AND DETAILS MEDIEVAL MONASTIC PRACTICES OF PRAYER, FASTING; AND COMMUNITY LIFE. EASY TO READ AND SURPRISING TO MANY STUDENTS IN ITS DEMANDS, THE RULE PROVIDES EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR DISCUSSING THE NATURE OF A COMMUNITY AND/OR CAN REPRESENT A PRACTICAL SOLUTION TO AUGUSTINE'S PROBLEM OF PRIDE OR SELF LOVE.
If the Rule is taught after Augustine, students often find it a great relief to read something less speculative, but they find it even laughable to suppose that someone would willingly submit to such a set of rules and regulations. This often provides ample opportunity to reflect upon what rules and regulations (many unspoken, and few chosen) we submit to every day -fashion, social convention, 'coolness,' etc. In this light, perhaps, Benedict's proposal that you might actually choose the rules by which you live less bizarre, although the particular monastic observances may still seem impenetrable. Also, refuse to let your students get away with dismissing the Rule as 'back then' and thus 'backwards' by insisting that thousands of people still return to this text today as a Rule for life.
The American Benedictine edition of the Rule, RB 1980, is recommended, both because it offers a better translation than some others and because it numbers chapters and verses like the Bible does, making references in class and citations in papers easier. It's also the cheapest edition on the market.
The Prologue provides ample food for reflection and must be considered in some depth for the particular observances in the text that follows to make any sense at all. The first lines are drawn from Proverbs: "Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart, " marking the text as a form of wisdom literature. Like Proverbs, it moves back and forth between the mundane practical stuff and the deeper reflective moments with ease. If one had read Proverbs earlier, this could point to some interesting comparisons. The Prologue also discusses the centrality of obedience, of ' giving up your own will' to salvation. Images of battle against sin stand alongside parental images (as above) and pedagogical images (the monastery is to be a 'school for the Lord's service' Prol. 45) Also, the prescription for silence can be most fruitful in discussion (no mean irony there). Generally, students will take this as patently absurd at first, but, when pushed, may acknowledge that they or their roommate or (most damning of all!) their professors just talk too much, and silence may be something that one would desire. As the classic Western Christian monastic text, it can also be read alongside the Rule of Francis, whose way of life is 'in the world,' but whose call to poverty is more absolute.
As both easy to read and alien to our contemporary sensibilities, the Rule has led to some of my most interesting classes in Core Humanities Seminar.
Texts:
RB 1980, ed. Timothy Fry, OSB. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1981. The complete edition, ISBN 0-8146-1220-2, contains both Latin and English and has ampler Support material for the history of Christian monasticism and for particular issues that arise in the text itself. For students, order RB 1980: The Rule of Benedict in English (same as above, but 1982), ISBN 0-8146-1272-5.
SILENCE
A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ANGLO-NORMAN ROMANCE, SILENCE TELLS THE STORY OF A YOUNG GIRL RAISED AS A BOY BY HER PARENTS. THE POEM EXPLORES GENDER ISSUES AS ALLEGORICAL FIGURES NATURE AND NURTURE DEBATE THE INNATE AND LEARNED ABILITIES OF THE FEMALE SEX. THE POEM ALSO EXPLORES ISSUES OF LANGUAGE AND CHALLENGES TO SOCIAL ORDER IN WHICH A GIRL NAMED SILENCE CONCEALS HER SEXUALITY BY DRESSING LIKE A BOY.
The author of the poem Heldris of Cornwall combined traditional themes of the warrior maiden, Potiphar' s wife, and Merlin' s inexplicable laughter to narrate the adventures of a girl raised as a boy in order to circumvent the English king's inheritance laws which only recognized males as heirs. When she reaches adolescence, Nature and Nurture appear and fiercely debate Silence's future. Nature argues that sex determined one's social role and Silence should go sew. Nurture argues that no one would want to be a repressed, silent woman. Silence agrees with Nurture and determines to run away, continuing her life as a male. Students would find the debate about gender determined social roles easy to transpose to their own experience and observations. Who would want to be female (or male) given society's expectations and limitations? Silence's true sex is discovered when she must fulfill a seemingly hopeless quest - capturing Merlin. She does capture Merlin but her success reveals her disguise because according to prophesy only a woman can ensnare the magician. In the end her success makes Silence a voiceless woman who ends up marrying the king but laments "I thought I was tricking Merlin, but I tricked myself I thought/to abandon woman's ways forever. " Silence's regret at the sudden stricture society imposes upon her activities and possibilities makes the poem an uneasy commentary upon contemporary society.
Critical Edition and translation:
Roche-Mahdi, Sarah, ed. and trans. Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance. East Lansing, MI: East Lansing Colleagues Press. 1992. An edition of the text with a facing page translation.
Secondary Literature:
Arthuriana 7 (1997). The entire volume is devoted to articles on Le Roman de Silence covering topics of allegory, romance genre conventions, narrative patterning, issues of power and gender, misogyny, sexuality.
Kinoshita, Sharon. Heldris de Cornualle's Roman de Silence and the Feudal Politics of Lineage. PMLA 110(1995):397-409.
Bullough, Vern L. " On Being a Male in the Middle Ages. " In Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages. Ed. Lees, Clare E, Thelma Fenster, and Jo Ann. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P. 1994. 31-45.
Allen Peter L. "The Ambiguity of Silence: Gender, Writing, and Le Roman de Silence. " In Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature. Ed. Wasserman, Julian N. and Lois Roney. Syracuse: Syracuse UP. 1989. 98-112.
Bloch, R. Howard. "Silence and Holes: The Roman de Silence and the Art of the Trouvere. " Yale French Studies 70 (1986):81-99.
BUILE SHUIBHNE (SWEENEY ASTRAY)
THIS TWELFTH-CENTURY SAGA IS ABOUT A PAGAN IRISH KING WHO IS DRIVEN INSANE BY THE CURSE OF AN ANGRY CHRISTIAN CLERIC. DURING HIS INSANE WANDERINGS, SWEENEY COMPOSES AND RECITES DECEPTIVELY SIMPLISTIC POETRY DESCRIBING NATURE, HIS SLOWLY EMERGING FAITH IN GOD, AND THE TRAGEDY OF EXILE AS A FORM OF PENANCE.
According to Irish annals, during the Battle of Moira in 637 a.d., Sweeney, king of the Dal-Arie, went mad because he had abused the cleric Ronan Finn who asked God for vengeance. Transformed into bird (in his poetry, Sweeney describes his feathers), Sweeney wanders Ireland - too afraid to make contact with humans, composing poetry about the landscape, his own mental deterioration and his acceptance of the Christian God. Just before he dies a traditional Irish three-fold death by stabbing, drowning, and falling, Sweeney find acceptance and peace in the monastic community of St. Moling.Buile Shuibhne articulates the tension between the newly dominant Christian ethos and the older, stubborn Celtic temperment. Although by the end of the saga, Sweeney' s madness has become not only a curse but also a means for him to access celestial, divine knowledge of the natural, Christian world " he knows when terce has come in Rome - the reconciliation between the pagan and the Christian is tenuous and fragile. Sweeney can also be interpreted as the figure of the artist who is alienated from society and its contraints upon imagination and artistic freedom. Buile Shuibhne has many connections with King Lear - where both kings find refuge from their rash behavior in the wilderness and where both kings learn empathy for human frailty and mortality by exposure to the hardships of nature.
Critical Edition:
O'Keeffe J.G., ed. and trans. Buile Shuibhne The Frenzy of Suibhne), vol. 12. London: Irish Texts Society. 1913.
Translation:
Heaney, Seamus. Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1983.
Secondary Literature:
Osterhaus, Joe. "The Belling in the Glen." Harvard Review 10 (1996):131-35. Review of Heaney's translation of the saga. Carson, Ciaran. "Sweeney Astray: Escaping from Limbo" In The Art of Seamus Heaney. Ed. Curbs, Tony. Dufour: Chester Springs, PA. 1994. 141-48. Review of Heaney's translation. McCracken, Kathleen. "Madness or Inspiration? The Poet and Poetry in Seamus Heaney's Sweeney Astray. " Notes on Modern Irish Literature 2 (1990): 42-5 1. Stewart, James. "Sweeney among the Fighting Gaeis: Aspects of the Matter of Ireland in the Work of Seamus Heaney. " Angles on Eng. Speaking World 1 (1986):7-37. Blake, James J. "Mad Sweeney: Madness in Irish Literature." The Nassau Review: the Journal of Nassau Community College Devoted to Arts, Letters, 8e Sciences 5(19,87): 40-47. Kelly, H. A. "Heaney's Sweeney: The Poet as Version-Maker." Philological Quarterly 65(1986):293-3 10. Nagy, Joseph F. "The Wisdom of the Geilt. " Eigse 19 (1982/82): 44-60.0 Riain, Pidraig. "A Study of the Irish Legend of the Wild Man." Eigse 14 (1971-72): 179-206.
THOMAS à KEMPIS (1380-1471)
WHAT IS MOST STRIKING ABOUT THE IMITATION OF CHRIST I8 IN THE SIMPLICITY OF ITS VISION OF THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. ITS AUTHOR MANAGES TO CAPTURE IN A FEW PAGES WHAT HE DEEMS THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIAN PRACTICE, DIRECTED MOSTLY AT THE MONASTIC AUDIENCE TO WHICH HE WAS MOST FAMILIAR. AND YET PPS APPEAL IN THE LATER HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION HAS BEEN MOSTLY IN A NONMONASTIC CONTEXT. IN THIS REGARD SETTING THE RULE OF ST. BENEDICT ALONGSIDE THE IMITATION OF CHRIST MAKES FOR FASCINATING READING. WHAT MAY NOT ALWAYS BE OBVIOUS ABOUT THE IMITATION OF CHRIST, HOWEVER, I3 THE DEEP LEARNING WHICH LIES BEHIND PP, WHICH CAN EASILY BE OBSCURED BY THE WRITERS REFERENCES TO LEARNING IN THE SERVICE OF GOD.
Thomas Haemerken, born in Kempen in the Diocese of Cologne near Dusseldorf, lived most of his life as an Augustinian monk in the monastery of Mount. S. Agnes. His association with Mount S. Agnes was partly influenced by the presence of his brother John born 1388) who was already affiliated with the Brethren of the Common Life, the movement associated with the reforming spirituality of Geerd Groote (1340-1384). Thomas à Kempis would eventually emerge as one of the luminaries of the Devotio Moderna (new devotion) inspired by Groote.
Thomas à Kempis left home at thirteen to join his brother John in Deventer, the birthplace of Groote and a center of the new devotion. At nineteen (1399) he entered Mount S. Agnes, where his brother was Prior, and after a long probationary period was made a monk in 1406 and eventually received holy orders in 1413. In 1428 he became Sub-Prior and a master of Novices. He died in 1471 leaving behind a series of works, but none nearly as well-known and as influential as his Imitation of Christ. Diverse characters like Thomas More, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Ignatius Loyola, John Wesley allude to its influence. Much of this derives from the fact that the Imitation of Christ serves as a kind of distillate of the spirituality of the Devotio Moderna in a form that is easily accessible. In purpose and inspiration the Imitation of Christ is comparable to earlier Rules for the religious life, like the Rule of St. Benedict and the Rule of St. Augustine.
Available Resources for the Classroom
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Hammondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1982)
John Van Engen ed. Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings. Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1988)
