The first that is thought is the last thing that is executed

Catholic Homilies by Fr Linus Clovis

St. Thomas Aquinas who is known for his wisdom but above all for his clarity of thought, says “what is first thought of is the last thing that is executed”. If you want to do something, you have to make preparations for it. For example, Our Lord speaking in the Gospels tells us, “Which one of you wanting to build a tower would not first sit down, calculate how much it would cost and then begin to build”, so the first thought is to build a tower, the last thing you do is actually build it. Equally we think of the building of the temple in Jerusalem, where David wanted to build the temple. However because his hands had shed so much blood, God did not allow him to build the temple but rather his son Solomon. So what did David do, he made the preparations; he got the gold, the silver the bronze, the metals, the lead, the wood, the stone and the craftsmen. He had them all ready. Then the building of the temple was that of Solomon. The end was a temple, glorious to be seen from the description given to it by Scripture and secular authors. So the first idea we have, we need to make preparations to complete it. Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we should think that God also works in that way, not that He needs to, but that we might understand what He is doing. So when we read the book of Genesis, the first chapter, we see that God takes six days to build this world. Already the Angels had been created. The book of Genesis begins, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” We’re not told how the Heavens were created, but we are certainly told how the Earth was created… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.