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| February 15, 2023 |
The Sonship of the Second Person, although true and real, differs in some important respects from that which is in Nature, and must not be judged of according to this last. In Nature, the father exists before the son. In God that is not the case, but Father and Son are equally eternal. So the Eternal Son speaks under the name of Wisdom in the Old Testament: "I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived . . . before the hills I was brought forth" (Prov. viii. 23, 25). In nature, a being may exist and is perfect without offspring. In God the production of the Eternal Son is not a voluntary circumstance, but is the necessary mode of God's existence; it is the essential activity of the divine intellect. So the Father did not exist before the Son; He did not generate the Son at a definite epoch which is now past. The generation of the Son is outside the limits of time: it has no past, present, future; it is the actual activity of God. So the Father can always say: "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee" (Ps. ii. 7). The divine generation is co-extensive with the divine life; just as a man is reflected in a mirror the very instant he places himself before it; just as the force of attraction comes into effect between masses of matter simultaneously with their existence, without delay and without deliberation. Adore Our Lord Jesus Christ for this wonderful prerogative of His, when you contemplate Him in the arms of His Blessed Mother or dying on the cross. He existed in time, yet "His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity" (Mich. v.)
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