When the fullness of time came

Tuesday of the Second Week in August

From the Treatise against Heresies by St Irenaeus, Bishop & Martyr

With God is nothing incomplete or out of due season, just as with the Father there is nothing incongruous. For all things were foreknown by the Father; but the Son works them out at the proper time in perfect order and sequence. This was the reason why, when Mary was urging him on to perform the wonderful miracle of the wine, and was desirous before the time to partake of the cup of emblematic significance, the Lord, checking her untimely haste, said, “Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour is not yet come” — waiting for that hour which was foreknown by the Father.

This is also the reason why, when men were often desirous to take him, it is said, “No man laid hands upon Him, for the hour of His being taken was not yet come”; nor the time of his Passion, which had been foreknown by the Father; as also says the Prophet Habakkuk, “By this thou shalt be known when the years have drawn near; thou shalt be set forth when the time comes; because my soul is disturbed by anger, thou shalt remember thy mercy.” Paul also says: “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son.”

By which is made manifest, that all things which had been foreknown of the Father, our Lord did accomplish in their order, season, and hour, foreknown and fitting, being indeed one and the same, but rich and great. For he fulfils the bountiful and comprehensive will of his Father, inasmuch as he is himself the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Lord of those who are under authority, and the God of all those things which have been formed, the only-begotten of the Father, Christ who was announced, and the Word of God, who became incarnate when the fullness of time had come, at which the Son of God had to become the Son of man.

Responsory. When the fulness || of the time was come, * God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law: that we might receive the adoption of sons. V. Christ, when as yet we were weak, according to the time, died for the ungodly. * God sent … Glory be … God sent …