Page:Ninety-nine homilies of S. Thomas Aquinas upon the epistles and gospels for forty-nine Sundays of the Christian year (IA ninetyninehomili00thom).pdf/183

 alone grows young. (6) That which is intermittent, which is pride, which quickly fails: “ When they were lifted up, Thou hast cast them down,” Ps. lxxii. 18, Vulg. “They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all other, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn,” Job. xxiv. 24. (7) That which is putrid: “ A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones,” Prov. xiv. 30. II. On the second head it is to be noted, that there are seven medicines which heal men of these fevers. (1) A devoted hearing of God: “He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions,” Ps. cvii. 20. “For it was neither herb nor mollifying plaster that healed them, but Thy Word, O Lord, which healeth all things,” Wisd. xvi. 12. (2) In contrition for sin : “ For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me,” Ps. li. 3. (3) A devoted calling upon God : “ O Lord, my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed me,” Ps. xxx. 2. (4) The infusion of faith: “And He said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace,” S. Luke vii. 50. (5) The showing of compassion: “ When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him: and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily,” Isai. lviii. 7, 8. (6) The desertion of sin: “In returning and rest shall ye be saved,” Isai. xxx. 15. (7) Perfect contrition of heart: “ Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings .... truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel,” Jer. iii. 22, 23. This is the “seventh hour,” in which the fever leaves the sinner altogether. But all these means avail nothing, unless they take their efficacy from that sacred medicine which heals all our diseases— i.e., the Passion of Christ our God, “Who His own Self bare our sins in His own Body on the tree, by Whose stripes ye were healed,” 1 S. Pet. ii. 24.