(no subject)
I do not remember what Byrne said in particular about The Imitation of Christ, but I remember what he did not say about it. He did not say that since, according to the testimony of the Fathers of the Church, Jesus was never in any real sense a son of his father, or a brother, or a husband, or himself a father, or a worker, or a citizen, and since the difficult, all-important, adolescent years of his life are veiled in complete mystery, the example he set for imitation is of no earthly use to anybody, except perhaps to some half-crazy anchorite. His avoidance of all the difficult relations in life knocks the bottom out of any claim that he assumed 'our full humanity.' In reality, the deficiency of his example is such that it weakens his teaching.
-- Stanislaus Joyce
-- Stanislaus Joyce