Christian Art | Jesus Preaches To His Disciples
Office Of Readings | Week 22, Monday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Imitation Of Christ | I Have Taught My Prophets
‘I have taught my prophets.’
The reading, presented as the voice of Christ addressing the disciple, reflects the central themes of The Imitation of Christ — listening to God’s word with humility, preferring eternal truth over temporal vanities, and persevering in faith through both trials and consolations.
The opening draws upon John 6:63: ‘My words are spirit and life.’ Christ’s teaching surpasses human philosophy, not because it denies reason but because it transcends the limits of human wisdom. The divine word must be received not through intellectual pride or self-serving interpretation, but through silence, humility, and love. The silence emphasised here suggests interior stillness, a disposition in which God’s voice can be heard beyond the distractions of worldly concerns.
The text recalls Psalm 94(93):12–13: ‘Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law.’ Instruction in the divine law is presented not as abstract knowledge but as practical guidance that strengthens the believer in the ‘evil day.’ The contrast is drawn between God’s constant speaking through the prophets and humanity’s frequent deafness and obstinacy. This theme echoes biblical laments about Israel’s unresponsiveness (e.g., Isaiah 6:9–10; Matthew 13:14–15).
The critique of human behaviour centres on the disproportionate zeal with which people pursue worldly goods compared with their lukewarm pursuit of eternal life. Earthly rulers and transient pleasures attract devoted service, while God’s promises — eternal and unfailing — are often neglected. The text warns that misplaced zeal leads to deception and disappointment, while God’s word is certain and faithful.
The voice of Christ also highlights the necessity of perseverance: ‘What I have promised I shall give … I am the rewarder of all good men.’ This assurance recalls Hebrews 11:6, where God is described as ‘the rewarder of those who diligently seek him’. Yet the promise of reward is balanced with the reality of testing. God’s elect are ‘visited’ in two ways: through temptation, which exposes faults and humbles the soul, and through consolation, which strengthens and encourages. Both form part of divine pedagogy, teaching believers through correction and encouragement alike.
The reading closes with a warning: possession of God’s word without obedience leads to judgement. This echoes Jesus’ own teaching in John 12:48: ‘The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.’ Thus, the disciple is urged to write these words in the heart — an interiorisation of Scripture that shapes life and prepares for perseverance in trial.
A Reading From The Imitation Of Christ | I Have Taught My Prophets
My son, says the Lord, listen to my words, the most delightful of all words, surpassing all the knowledge of the philosophers and wise men of this world. My words are spirit and life and cannot be comprehended by human senses alone. They are not to be interpreted according to the vain pleasure of the listener, but they must be listened to in silence and received with all humility and great affection.
And I said: Blessed is the man whom you teach, Lord, and whom you instruct in your law; for him you soften the blow of the evil day, and you do not desert him on the earth.
The Lord says, I have instructed my prophets from the beginning. Even to the present time I have not stopped speaking to all men, but many are deaf and obstinate in response.
Many hear the world more easily than they hear God; they follow the desires of the flesh more readily than the pleasure of God. The world promises rewards that are temporal and insignificant, and these are pursued with great longing; I promise rewards that are eternal and unsurpassable, yet the hearts of mortals respond sluggishly.
Who serves and obeys me in all matters with as much care as the world and its princes are served?
Blush, then, you lazy, complaining servant, for men are better prepared for the works of death than you are for the works of life. They take more joy in vanity than you in truth.
Yet they are often deceived in their hope, while my promise deceives no one, and leaves empty-handed no one who confides in me. What I have promised I shall give; what I have said I will fulfil for any man who remains faithful in my love unto the very end. I am the rewarder of all good men, the one who rigorously tests the devoted.
Write my words in your heart and study them diligently, for they will be absolutely necessary in the time of temptation. Whatever you fail to understand in reading my words will become clear to you on the day of your visitation.
I visit my elect in a double fashion: that is, with temptation and with consolation. And I read to them two lessons each day: one to rebuke them for their faults; the other to exhort them to increase their virtue.
He who possesses my words, yet spurns them, earns his own judgement on the last day.
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
Lord Jesus Christ,
your words are spirit and life,
surpassing the wisdom of this world.
Grant us ears to hear your voice with humility,
hearts to treasure your promises,
and strength to endure both testing and consolation.
May we prefer your eternal reward above passing things
and remain faithful in your love until the end.
For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
The Imitation of Christ – A spiritual classic, written in the early 15th century and traditionally attributed to Thomas à Kempis, focusing on humility, obedience, and following Christ in daily life.
‘My words are spirit and life’ – A reference to John 6:63, where Jesus describes the life-giving power of his teaching.
Silence and humility – Key dispositions in Christian spirituality, understood as openness to God beyond pride or distraction.
Psalm 94(93):12–13 – A biblical source for the blessing of divine instruction and consolation in trials.
Deaf and obstinate – Biblical imagery for human resistance to God’s word, used by prophets and repeated in the New Testament.
Visitation – God’s active presence in a believer’s life, experienced both in trial (temptation) and encouragement (consolation).
Temptation – A testing of faith and virtue, not only as enticement to sin but as a means of spiritual refinement.
Consolation – Spiritual encouragement or comfort, given to strengthen perseverance in the Christian life.
Judgement by the word – The biblical teaching (e.g., John 12:48) that the word of Christ will serve as the standard by which humanity is judged.
‘Death,’ says His Grace, ‘throws it all apart. For we are not as we should be. Faith requires our adjustment to God’s truth. God’s triumph in a very real sense requires in us the loss of our everything. Which, as with Mary at the other end of Jesus’s life, is God’s truth.’ The Gospel reading is of John 11: 1-45, which is a long passage, and His Grace’s homiletic theme commences in textual wilderness. Our brokenness – in this place – a family home. Our faith, our doubt, our death… The irruption – death, doubt, fear – within our precious scenes and our most intimate places. Our domesticity. His Grace speaks from the chair, as is a bishop’s prerogative, and says: ‘So much is obscure in the Gospels. We’re always reaching through them. We’re never there. Really, we never are. Our knowledge, our understanding, of the Gospels is never complete, and with each reading comes a new revelation. There are always new riches there. Just as there are between all of us, between myself and you. The Gospels are living texts. This is a part of the conversation we have with our own Christianity. It is a part of who we are in our relationship with Jesus. We are in this sense always on the brink. ‘So yes, there is plenty that doesn’t seem to make sense. As one of the order of bishops, we would be lying if we said that weren’t the case. They are not easy texts to encounter, if by that word we may signify something more than a superficial glancing off against, but rather a profound search for the word of God. The Gospels are written by people who had their own ideas, and often didn’t know what had really happened. Luke is quite explicit on this point. His is an investigation, from the explicitly claimed point of view of an historian, rather than that of a first-hand witness, who attempts, so he says, to set out an orderly account, out of the chaos, the sheer muddle, that has been handed down to him. It is possible to imagine Luke researching and composing his account after many years, when there has arisen a desire to know what exactly happened, and this implies a certain call to faith and certain demands of historicity, to historical exactitude. So in these different ways, the people of the first years of Christian faith are in the dark. There is also a decisive need to define the life of Jesus. And people didn’t get Jesus. The whole meaning of Christianity is only now beginning to take root throughout the composition. So much needs to be evangelized. The light shines almost in tentative fashion like that first star, which drew the wise men from the east to our Lord’s cradle. ‘John’s is widely held to be a very late Gospel. There are others who say that John’s Gospel might have been the first to acquire its true shape, because it most fully expresses Jesus, as we know him to be, as members of the Catholic Church. We don’t really know when any of this is being written, but we get a feel in John of a Gospel refined over many years, through a community. So there’s a lot going on there that I’d like you to think about. ‘What I would like to suggest to you is that, while within the Gospels we are often confronted with clues, guesswork, stories that have been handed down through so many people, and so in this sense we might find ourselves to be in the wilderness, this is the very desolate space itself to which we must give ourselves in order to experience Christ’s full redemption in our lives. I suggest it is for God’s glory that we do so. ‘As we become aware of ourselves, in this seminary, we find ourselves in a very secure, comfortable setting, and there are signs of Easter everywhere. Within the very fabric of these buildings, our Lord is risen; our Lord lives. But now this is our Lenten journey, where death enters, where death breaks us. We are to ride into Jerusalem in triumph, and then we are to be utterly broken, all hope gone, our hope extinguished. And really, I suggest to you, it is only by inhabiting this thought, as if we don’t know Easter is there, that our new life can follow, just when we have given up all hope, when every promise that Jesus made to us seems to have been cancelled. ‘And here now we have the story of Lazarus. I should like to suggest to you that we have a very powerful call now. In our very comfortable space, our domesticity, with all this comfort, where so very little might seem to happen each day, so it might seem to you, there is a disturbance within all of this comfort, and that is a disturbance within ourselves, and that is our call to Jesus. I think it is correct to say that our most comfortable places break in the light of Jesus from the inside, in order that we may take the necessary steps to be with Jesus. ‘Faith is not comfortable. I think that we can all receive the message of the rolling away of the rock from the tomb of Lazarus to say something of vital importance to ourselves concerning our openness to God’s love. The rock we roll away can come in all sorts of guises, but we know when we are blocked, and I firmly believe if we are truthful then we know where those blocks might be. ‘Next Sunday, which will be Palm Sunday, we process as it were to Jerusalem, to begin our Holy Week. Now as I speak to you we are on the brink. Even now, I suggest it might be very good for all of us to lay aside what we think we know, to fall apart a little, and so […]
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