1 Samuel 2:10

These words refer to the return of Christ or to the return of God to heaven. His teaching [will be] heard like thunder by all, and holy Scripture foretells his future judgment of all afterwards. And after this it is said that the Lord will give strength to our kings. And these would be the apostles of Christ, of whom it is written in Psalm 67: "The Lord will give a word to the preachers of the gospel with much power." Here, also, he mentions Christ by name, humanly known as our Savior, whose horn he says shall be exalted, meaning his invisible power and kingdom. For it is usual for Scripture to call a kingdom a "horn." It is found also in Psalm 88: "And in my name shall his horn be exalted."

Are these words going to be regarded as simply the words of one mere woman giving thanks for the birth of her son? Are people's minds so turned away from the light of truth that they do not feel that the words poured out by this woman transcend the limit of her own thoughts? Surely, anyone who is appropriately moved by the events whose fulfillment has already begun, even in this earthly pilgrimage, must listen to these words and observe and recognize that through this woman (whose very name, Hannah, means "God's grace"), there speaks, by the spirit of prophecy, the Christian religion itself, the City of God itself, whose king and founder is Christ. There speaks, in fact, the grace of God itself, from which the proud are estranged so that they fall, with which the humble are filled so that they rise up, which was in fact the chief theme that rang out in her hymn of praise. Now it may be that someone will be ready to say that the woman didn't utter a prophecy but merely praised God in an outburst of exultation for the son who was granted in answer to her prayer. If so, what is the meaning of this passage, "He has made weak the bow of the mighty ones, and the weak have girded themselves with strength. Those who were full of bread have been reduced to want, and the hungry have passed over the earth. Because the barren woman has given birth to seven, while she who has many children has become weak." Had Hannah herself really borne seven children, although she was barren? She had only one son when she spoke these words; and even afterwards she did not give birth to seven, or to six, which would have made Samuel the seventh. She had in fact three male and two female children. […]

When He will receive all the elect into the eternal contemplation of His Only-Begotten, so that He may preside over them with that eternal and ineffable Majesty — those who, while they were living in the pilgrimage of the present life, were not with Him. Then He will exalt the horn of His Christ, when in His loftiness the sublimity of the Redeemer will be beheld. Concerning this sublimity, it is said through John: "We shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2). For the power or kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is always equal; but it is said to be exalted then, when we shall be such as to be able to gaze upon His sublimity; for whatever the human mind can now imagine to itself concerning that sublimity is altogether nothing in comparison with that glory. For it is written concerning it: "What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him" (Isaiah 64:4; 1 Corinthians 2:9). Therefore, first dominion is given to Christ, then His horn will be exalted, because then the height of His sublimity is beheld, when our nature too is raised up from the depths of its corruption, when by rising again it receives the wholeness of its renewal, by which it may be able to contemplate the surpassing light of the Redeemer.

But if someone wishes to understand a kingdom by the horn, the holy Church is designated by the kingdom of Christ. This horn will indeed be exalted, because our lowly state will be brought to equality with the angels. Hence the Lord also says of the elect in the Gospel: "They were like the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. 22:30). Concerning this exaltation of His horn, He says again: "The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13:43). The horn of Christ will therefore be exalted, because the holy Church will be raised up in the eternal contemplation of her Redeemer; and she who is now pressed down in this valley of misery by the punishment of her fallen state will then, with death swallowed up, be lifted up, renewed at the summit of eternal joy.

26. For we are heavens when we are lifted up to the height of the divine grace that presides over us. And we have thunders against His adversaries when with the powerful voices of holy desires we shatter everything that breathes upon us from their suggestion. For whatever thunder strikes, it kills. Therefore the thunders of the heavens are the perfect desires of the elect. For they come forth as if sounding terribly from the height of the heavens, when from that summit of the mind they strike the malign spirits, over which Almighty God so presides that by the love of the One presiding, one easily overcomes everything that the audacity of the enemy suggesting evil things could have stirred to battle. But with the Redeemer forewarning, we know that he who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved (Matt. 10:22). And with the same Lord promising, we have learned that at whatever hour the sinner is converted, he shall be saved (Ezek. 18:21). Therefore at the end of her canticle let Anna add, and let her say what should terrify the sinner, let her say what should make the righteous more cautious. The Lord, she says, will judge the ends of the earth. 27. He does not say "the earth," but "the ends of the earth." For the ends of the earth are those who have closed the final moments of their life with the commission of sin. For he who sins and corrects what he has done wrong is earth through sin, but is not the end of the earth, because by sinning he cast down the heights of his redemption, yet from the depths of his fall he rose again before judgment. For he wept over what he had done, and he awaits the coming Judge all the more joyfully, because in the condemnation of his earthliness he holds through penance the scourges of vengeance upon himself. […]