Commontide
Proper 11
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 6th Sunday after Trinity
O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Priest and Spiritual Writer
Ecumenical Commemoration
Thomas à Kempis was an Augustinian monk of the Rhineland near modern Holland who spent some seventy quiet years in a single monastery, copying Scripture and writing of the inner life. From that hidden cell came *The Imitation of Christ*, a small book on following Jesus, of such depth and simplicity that it has been read and loved by Christians, across every confession for centuries.
Thomas Hemerken was born around 1380 in Kempen, near Cologne. At about twelve he entered the school conducted by the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer, an educational community devoted to the Devotio Moderna — a movement emphasizing interior piety, practical charity, and direct engagement with Scripture over scholastic disputation.
In 1399, Thomas entered the Augustinian monastery at Mount St Agnes near Zwolle, where he was ordained priest in 1413. He remained there for the next fifty-eight years, engaged in copying manuscripts, spiritual direction, and writing. His literary output included the four books of The Imitation of Christ (c. 1418–1427), biographies of community founders Gerard Groote and Florentius Radewijns, sermons, and devotional meditations.
The Imitation of Christ became the most influential devotional work of the post-medieval period, translated into every European language. Its attribution was debated for centuries (candidates included Groote and Jean Gerson), but modern scholarship firmly assigns it to Thomas. The work's emphasis on interior devotion, detachment from worldly honor, and meditation on Christ's suffering made it appealing across Catholic, Protestant, and Anglican traditions. Thomas died at Mount St Agnes in 1471 at approximately ninety-one years of age.
Thomas developed no hagiographic tradition in the medieval sense. His influence was exercised entirely through The Imitation of Christ rather than through miracle traditions or cult veneration. He was never formally canonized.