In Nomine Dei Summi - Sermon 3

From R. E. McNally, "In nomine Dei summi": Seven Hiberno-Latin Sermons', Traditio 35 (1979), pp. 121-43.

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In the name of God most high.

In the first place, it is proclaimed through the pages of sacred scripture, that all the inhabitants, both believers and unbelievers alike, scattered over the whole earth believe faithfully in the almighty trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three Persons, one God, remaining in one divine substance; who is the creator of the universe, i.e. the heavens and the earth and the sea, maker of all things visible and invisible, and the creator of the angles and archangels and of the whole celestial army of powers.

We are instructed by divine oracles that this God of great power is above all, and that we should love our creator 'from our whole heart and from our whole soul and with our whole strength'.

Similarly, for all those who desire to reach eternal life, it is most necessary to believe and confess Jesus Christ our Lord. That he is truly the only-begotten Son of the Father, who for our salvation came down from the heavens sent by the Father, and was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Saint Mary ever virgin. And that he was born 'in Bethlehem of Judah', the first-born of his mother according to the predictions of the holy prophets.

In his divinity he is, before the ages, the source of the universes, without any beginning he remains with the Father, being 'the Word through whom all things were made'. As a human being he humbly and mercifully assumed flesh, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and was buried, and on the third day he rose from the dead in the same flesh, and in the same body after forty days 'he ascended over all the heavens' and he sits at the right hand of God. From whence in the final time of the ages he will come again in his glory and of the Father and of the holy angels, the moment of the burning of the heavens and the earth, and coming with the earth trembling 'in the voice of the archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God' to judge the living and the dead and 'to render to each one according to his works'. Then there will be the everlasting life after death prepared for all the saints, but for the impious and the sinners there will be the eternal punishments and these will be undimmed forever.

So the Christian stands upon the foundation of faith, while he raises the structure of good works; but first those evil works which scripture prohibits are to be avoided, then the good works, which are pleasing to God, are to be built. Blessedness is prepared for those, who according to the psalmist 'move away from evil and do good' by the most excellent Jesus Christ, our Lord, 'to whom is glory forever and ever. Amen'.

(From "Journeys on the Edge: the Celtic Tradition" by Thomas O'Loughlin, (Traditions of Christian Spirituality Series) 2000, London, Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd. )