Week 1: Introductory Note — Who Was Thomas à Kempis?

1.The introductory note describes Thomas as spending the last seventy years of his life at Mount St. Agnes, occupied with 'copying manuscripts, reading, and composing, and in the peaceful routine of monastic piety.' What is your initial reaction to a life shaped so entirely by hiddenness and repetition? Does it attract you, repel you, or both?

2.The note observes that The Imitation of Christ 'is hardly an original work at all' — its ideas and phrases are drawn from the Bible and the Church Fathers, woven together with 'delicate skill and a religious feeling at once so ardent and so sound.' How does knowing this shape the way you approach the book? What might Thomas be modeling by preferring received wisdom over originality?

3.The note records genuine scholarly uncertainty about whether Thomas actually wrote this book. Why do you think the identity of the author has mattered so much to readers over five centuries? And why might Thomas himself — given what the book argues — not have minded the ambiguity?

4.The Imitation has been read and loved by Catholics, Protestants, and those of no particular tradition — by John Wesley, Ignatius of Loyola, Thomas More, and countless ordinary believers. What does that extraordinary breadth of readership suggest about what Thomas is actually addressing in human beings?

5.The book's full title is The Imitation of Christ. Before you read further, what does that phrase mean to you? What would it actually look like to imitate Christ in your own daily life this week?

6.The note says Thomas's work 'promises to remain what it has been for five hundred years, the supreme call and guide to spiritual aspiration.' What are you hoping to gain — or be changed by — as you work through this book?