Page:Ninety-nine homilies of S. Thomas Aquinas upon the epistles and gospels for forty-nine Sundays of the Christian year (IA ninetyninehomili00thom).pdf/13

 day: by enlarging upon the divisions of each and every head, lengthening the whole sermon equally. But by far the most telling result is obtained, in the majority of cases at least, by confining the expansion to only one head. Take, for example, Homily X., for Lent: "The Word of God and its Hearers." Omitting the first head, the three ways in which the Saints are of God; the third and fourth heads, the foolishness and misery of those who hear not; we treat alone of the second head, the Threefold Word of God which the Saints hear.

" 1. Eternal: S. John i. 1, 'In the beginning was the Word.'" This naturally leads to the mention of all the utterances of God the Son, whether as the Word creative or prophetical, before the Incarnation; of what our Lord did in that infinite abyss of past time, in that eternal to-> day of God when the Son went out to create the worlds. The pre-Incarnate naturally links itself on to the Incarnate Word, to our Lord's eternal words which He spake in time; eternal in import, containing an eternal consequence either for life or for death. These eternal words He is speaking in His Body the Church now; as He spake, so speaks the Church, proclaiming those words of truth and life, which became as wells of water in the souls of the faithful, springing up into everlasting life. So for ever to His Elect will the Saviour speak words of encouragement, and hope, and love; at the end of all things of love only, when charity alone remains. The Eternal Word, "I am Alpha and Omega." Abel heard His voice; all the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Elder Church all the Saints, Virgins, Martyrs, Confessors of the New Covenant; the Voice of the Beloved, eternal as His own nature is, eternal in power and action upon ourselves. The Saints "hear by faith." He it is Who