The Imitation of Christ

Spending some wonderful time with a Kempis, a spiritual master from the fifteenth century. His words have fed both Catholics and Protestants alike, a life given all to God. His spirituality isn't complicated. It isn't simply for the cloistered or pastor eager to score spiritual points. It is for everyone who knows things aren't right with the world, or themselves, who sense their own inner brokenness and seek the living born in dying.

From his first chapter:

Christ's teaching- how it overshadows all the Saints have to teach us! Could we but master its spirit, what a store of hidden manna we should find there! How is it that so many of us can hear the Gospel read aloud with so little emotion? Because they haven't got the Spirit of Christ; that is why. If a man wants to understand them, he must be one who is trying to fashion his whole life on Christ's model.

We spend so much time on becoming relevant and unraveling philosophies of all kinds when all our Jesus pleads is his life alive in us.

This particular edition was translated by Ronald Knox. a Kempis also wrote On the Passion of the Christ, which you can find here. Knox's translation comes in a handy size and reads beautifully.