"God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land. The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides -- may we follow their directions home". -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
At a time when more and more readers are rediscovering their spirituality and seeking to integrate the divine into their daily lives, Vintage is proud to inaugurate its own series of spiritual classics. As the series title suggests, these books include the mainstays of the Western spiritual canon along with some of its less familiar masterpieces. They have been selected both for their historical importance and for their continued relevance to successive generations of readers. Printed in handsome uniform editions, with specially commissioned introductions by distinguished contemporary commentators, Vintage Spiritual Classics present the cumulative wisdom of the centuries to contemporary readers.
Of all the texts in the Christian tradition only the Bible has been more influential than this fifteenth-century meditation on the spiritual life, which has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul I. With its instructions for renouncing worldly vanities in favor of eternal truths, The Imitation of Christ is the clearest and most universally accessible expression of Western religious ideals.
