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by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Continued From: The Divine Romance: The Blessed Trinity by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Part 1
Now to apply this to God. God thinks. He thinks a thought. That Thought of God does not come from the outside world; it is generated in His Spirit in a much more perfect way than the thought of Justice is generated by my spirit. The giving of life or the power of birth, I repeat, is not limited to us. In the language of Sacred Scripture: "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, doth he not consider?" "Shall not I that make others to bring forth children, myself bring forth, saith the Lord? Shall I, that give generation to others, be barren?"
Since God is an infinite Spirit, His thought will not be a mere feeble reflection but rather a thought reaching to the abyss of all things that are known and can be known. Into this thought God will put Himself so entirely that it is as living as Himself, infinite as Himself, perfect as Himself. If a human genius can put his whole personality into a thought, as we have said, in a more perfect way God is able to put so much of Himself into a thought that it is conscious of itself and is a Divine Person.
This thought of God may be called by a double name: It may be called a word, or it may be called a son — and the two are one and the same, except from different points of view.
Firstly, this thought of God is a word, as my own thought is called a word after it is pronounced. It is an internal word. But God's thought is not like ours. It is not multiple. God does not think one thought, or one word, one minute and another the next.
Thoughts are not born to die, and do not die to be reborn, in the mind of God. All is present to Him at once. In Him there is only one Word. He has no need of another. That Thought or Word is infinite and equal to Himself, hence a Person unique and absolute, first-born of the spirit of God; a Word which tells what God is, a Word from which all human words have been derived, and of which created things are but merely the broken syllables or letters; a Word which is the source of all the wisdom in the world.
The latest scientific discoveries, the new knowledge of the great expanse of the heavens, the sciences of biology, physics, and chemistry, the more lofty ones of metaphysics, philosophy, and theology, the knowledge of the Shepherds, and the knowledge of the Wise Men — all this knowledge has its source in the Word or the Wisdom of God.
The infinite Thought of God is called not only a Word, to indicate that He is the Wisdom of God, but is also called a Son, because He has been generated. Just as in our own human order the principle of all human generation is called the Father, so too in the Trinity the principle of the spiritual generation is called the Father and what is generated is called the Son, because it is the perfect image and resemblance of the Father. If an earthly father can transmit to his son all the nobility of his character and all the fine traits of his life, how much more so can the Heavenly Father communicate to His Eternal Son all the nobility with all the perfection and eternity of His Being.
The Father is not first, and then thinks — the Father and Son are co-eternal, for in God all is present and unchanging. Nothing is new and nothing is lost. Thus it is that the Father, contemplating His Image, His Word, His Son, can say in the ecstasy of the first and real paternity: "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee."
"This day" — this day of eternity, that is, the indivisible duration of being without end. "This day" in that act that will never end as it has never begun; this day — the agelessness of eternity.
Go back to the origin of the world, pile century on century, aeon on aeon, age on age — "The Word was with God." Go back before the creation of the angels, before Michael summoned his war hosts to victory and there was a flash of archangelic spirits — even then "The Word was with God." It is that Word which St. John heard in the beginning of his Gospel, when he wrote: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).
And just as my interior thoughts are not made manifest without a word, so in the language of John, that Word "Became flesh and dwelt amongst us." And that Word is no other than the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word who embraces the beginning and the end of all things, the Word who existed before creation, the Word who presided at creation as the King of the Universe, the Word made flesh at Bethlehem, the Word-made-flesh on the Cross, and the Word-made-flesh dwelling with divinity and humanity in the Eucharistic Emmanuel.
The Good Friday of twenty centuries ago did not mark the end of Him, as it did not mark the beginning. It was but one of the moments of the Eternal Word of God. Jesus Christ has a pre-history — the only pre-history that is prehistory, a pre-history not to be studied in the rocks of the earth, not in the caves of man, not in the slime and dust of primeval jungles, but in the bosom of an Eternal Father; He alone brought history to history; He alone has dated all the records of human events ever since into two periods — the period before and the period after His coming, so that if we were to deny that the Word became Flesh, and that the Son of God became the Son of man, we would have to date our denial as one thousand nine hundred and thirty years after His coming.
Continued ...
Next Part:
The Divine Romance: The Blessed Trinity by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Part 3
Holy Spirit: Love at such a stage does not speak; does not cry; does not express itself by words, nor by canticles; it expresses itself as we do in some ineffable moments, by that which indicates the very exhaustion of our giving — namely, a sigh, or a breath. And that is why the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is called the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost.
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