Donald Jackson has been called the world’s foremost calligrapher. St John’s University in Minneapolis commissioned him to hand copy and illustrate the entire Bible. Don’t feel sorry for the guy. He claimed it was his dream job. He started the project in 1998 and finished it in May 2011. That’s 13 years of copying 1,150 pages with quill and ink. Before the invention of the Gutenberg press in 1440, all Bibles were copied this way and monks at Benedictine Monasteries did most of the heavy lifting. It was painstaking, tedious work. Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) copied the entire Bible by hand into Latin four times. Four times! Somehow, he also found time to write one of the definitive works on the Christian life, The Imitation of Christ. He was given the assignment at his Dutch monastery to write a manual for novice monks in the way of Christ. He wrote four booklets of instruction and stated his purpose in the first book, “We must imitate Christ’s life and his ways…Let it be the most important thing we do.” He singled out humility as the most important Christian virtue, “If you are to learn something that will help you, learn to see yourself as God sees you and not as you see yourself in the distorted mirror of your own self-importance.” The Imitation of Christ has been published more often than any other book in human history, except for the Bible itself. John Wesley called it the best summary of the Christian life he had ever read. One quote attributed to Kempis is a personal favorite–“Without the way, there is no going; without the truth, there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living.” Today’s prayer is an excerpt from The Imitation of Christ:
Thomas a Kempis
Grant that nothing in the world might be as important to me as you are, and for your sake grant that I may serve you with deep humility and love, caring little for recognition and honor. Grant above all else, that I may rest in you and that my heart may find peace in you. You are the heart’s true peace: you are its only rest. Apart from you, everything is hard and uneasy. Only in this peace that is you, highest and eternal Good, do I find sleep and take my rest. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.