Daily Reading for July 24 • Thomas à Kempis, Priest, 1471

If your heart be right, then every created thing will become for you a mirror of life and a book of holy teaching. For there is nothing created so small and mean that it does not reflect the goodness of God.

Were you inwardly good and pure, you would see and understand all things clearly and without difficulty. A pure heart penetrates both heaven and hell. As each man is in himself, so does he judge outward things. If there is any joy to be had in this world, the pure in heart most surely possess it; and if there is trouble and distress anywhere, the evil conscience most readily experiences it. Just as iron, when plunged into fire, loses its rust and becomes bright and glowing, so the man who trusts himself wholly to God loses his sloth and becomes transformed into a new creature.

From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, translated by Leo Sherley-Price (Penguin 1952).