Only the Bible has been more influential as a source of Christian
devotional reading than The Imitation of Christ. This meditation on
the spiritual life has inspired readers from Thomas More and St.
Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul II. Written by the
Augustinian monk Thomas à Kempis between 1420 and 1427, it contains
clear instructions for renouncing wordly vanities and locating eternal
truths. No book has more explicitly and movingly described the Christian
ideal: "My son, to the degree that you can leave yourself behind, to
that degree will you be able to enter into Me." With a new Foreword by
Carl Anderson, the Supreme Knight and chief executive officer of the
Knights of Columbus.