Don't set dates.

Our Lord Jesus Christ will return at a time we don't expect.

MATTHEW 24
CHAPTER XXIV.

26 If therefore, they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert: go ye not out: Behold he is in the closets, believe it not.
27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth, even unto the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 *Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together.
29 *And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be moved:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn: *and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and majesty.
31 *And he shall send his Angels with a trumpet, and a great voice: and they shall gather together his elect, from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them.
32 Now learn a parable from the fig-tree: when its branch is now tender, and the leaves come forth, you know that summer is nigh.
33 So also you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34 Amen, I say to you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
35 *Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
36 But of that day and hour no one knoweth, no not the Angels of heaven, but the Father alone.
37 *And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away: so also shall the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field: the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill: the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
42 Watch ye, therefore, because you know not at what hour your Lord will come.
43 But this know ye, *that if the master of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open.
44 Wherefore be ye also ready, because at what hour you know not, the Son of man will come.
45 Who, thinkest thou, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath set over his family, to give them meat in season?
46 *Blessed is that servant, whom, when his lord shall come, he shall find so doing.
47 Amen, I say to you, he shall set him over all his goods.
48 But if that evil servant shall say in his heart: My lord is long a coming:
49 And shall begin to strike his fellow-servants, and shall eat, and drink with drunkards:
50 The lord of that servant shall come, in a day that he expecteth not, and in an hour that he knoweth not:
51 And shall separate him, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites.  *There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Ver. 26.  Behold he is in the desert.  This prediction of false Christs, may be understood before the destruction of Jerusalem, but chiefly before the end of the world.  Wi. — As we have mentioned above, in note on verse 5.

Ver. 5.  For many will come.  One of these was Simon Magus, who in the Acts (c. viii. v. 10.) is mentioned as calling himself the power of God; hence the apostle S. John (1 ep. ii. 18,) says, and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists.  By Antichrists I understand heretics, who, under the name of Christ, teach doctrines different from Christ; neither is there any reason for us to be surprised, if many be seduced, since our Lord declares that many will be seduced.  S. Jerom. . . .  This alone will be sufficient for us to know the false doctrines taught by Antichrist, when they assure us that they are Christ; for we do not read in any part that Christ said so of himself.  The miracles he performed, the doctrines he taught, and the virtues he on every occasion exhibited, were proofs sufficient to convince us that he was the Christ.  There is need of the assistance of God to overcome the snares laid for us by hypocrisy.  Origen. — Among these impostors were one Theodas, (Acts v. 36,) the impious Egyptian, (Acts xxi. 38,) Judas of Galilee, Menander, and several others who preceded the destruction of Jerusalem; but many more will precede the destruction of the world.  This therefore is the first sign, the seduction of many souls from the true faith by heresies, and is common to both events.  Jans. — See much more in Barradius, tom. iii. l. 9, c. 2, where he collects various illustrations from Josephus and profane authors.  M.

Ver. 28.  Wheresoever the body,[3] &c.  This seems to have been a proverb or common saying among the Jews.  Several of the ancient interpreters, by this body, understand Christ himself, who died for us; and they tell us, that at his second coming the angels and saints, like eagles, with incredible swiftness, will join him at the place of judgment.  Wi. — When he shall come to judgment, all, as it were by a natural instinct, shall fly to meet him, and receive their judgment.  S. Hilary understands this literally; that where his body shall hang upon the cross, there will he appear in judgment, i.e. near the valley of Josaphat; in which place the prophet Joel (c. iii. v. 2,) declares, that the general judgment shall take place.  T.

Ver. 29.  The sun shall be darkened, &c.  These seem to be the dreadful signs that shall forerun the day of judgment. — The stars shall fall, not literally, but shall give no light.  Wi. — According to S. Austin, by the sun is meant Jesus Christ; by the moon, the Church, which will appear as involved in darkness.

Ver. 30.  The sign of the Son of man, &c.  The Fathers generally expound this of the cross of Christ, that shall be seen in the air.  Wi. — This sign is the cross, much more resplendent than the sun itself.  Therefore the sun hides its diminished head, whilst the cross appears in glory; because the great standard of the cross, excels in brightness all the refulgent rays that dart from the meridian sun.  S. Chrys. hom. lxxvii. — The Jews, looking upon him whom they had pierced, now coming in the clouds of heaven with power and exceedingly great glory, shall have great lamentations.  Bitterly will they weep over their misery, in having despised and insulted him on a cross, who ought to have been the object of their veneration, adoration, and love.  S. Chrys. hom. lxxvii.

Ver. 34.  This generation; i.e. the nation of the Jews shall not cease to exist, until all these things shall be accomplished: thus we see the nation of the Jews still continue, and will certainly continue to the end of the world.  T. — Then the cross, which has been a scandal to the Jew, and a stumbling-block to the Gentile, shall appear in the heavens, for the consolation of the good Christian.  Hoc signum crucis erit in cœlo, cum Dominus ad judicandum venerit. — If it be to be understood of the destruction of Jerusalem, the sense may be, this race of men now living; if of the last day of judgment, this generation of the faithful, saith Theophylactus,[4] shall be continued: i.e. the Church of Christ, to the end of the world.  Wi. — This race, I tell you in very truth, shall not pass away till all this be finally accomplished in the ruin of Jerusalem, the most express figure of the destruction and end of the world.  V. — By generation, our Saviour does not mean the people that were in existence at that time, but the faithful of his Church; thus says the psalmist: this is the generation of them that seek the Lord.  Ps. xxiii, v. 6.  S. Chrys. hom. lxxvii.

Ver. 35.  Shall pass away:  because they shall be changed at the end of the world into a new heaven and new earth.  Ch.

Ver. 36.  No man knoweth . . . but the Father alone.  The words in S. Mark (xiii. 32.) are still harder: neither the angels, nor the Son, but the Father.  The Arians objected this place, to shew that Christ being ignorant of the day of judgment, could not be truly God.  By the same words, no one knoweth, but the Father alone, (as they expound them) the Holy Ghost must be excluded from being the true God.  In answer to this difficulty, when it is said, but the Father alone, it is certain that the eternal Son and the Holy Ghost could never be ignorant of the day of judgment: because, as they are one and the same God, so they must hove one and the same nature, the same substance, wisdom, knowledge, and all absolute perfections.  2. It is also certain that Jesus Christ knew the day of judgment, and all things to come, by a knowledge which he could not but have, because of the union by which his human nature was united to the divine person and nature.  See Colos. ii. 3.  And so to attribute any ignorance to Christ, was the error of those heretics called Agnoitai.  3. But though Christ, as a man, knew the day of judgment, yet this knowledge was not due to him as he was man, or because he was man, but he only knew the day of judgment, because he was God as well as man.  4. It is the common answer of the fathers, that Christ here speaks to his disciples, only as he was the ambassador of his Father; and so he is only to know what he is to make known to men.  He is said not to know, says S. Aug.[5], what he will not make others know, or what he will not reveal to them.  Wi. — By this Jesus Christ wished to suppress the curiosity of his disciples.  In the same manner after his resurrection, he answered the same question: 'Tis not for you to know the times and the moments, which the Father has placed in his own power.  This last clause is added, that the apostles might not be discouraged and think their divine Master esteemed them unworthy of knowing these things.  Some Greek MSS. add nor even the Son, as in Mark xiii. 32.  The Son is ignorant of it, not according to his divinity, nor even according to his humanity hypostatically united to his divinity, but according to his humanity, considered as separate from his divinity.  V.

Ver. 37-38.  And as it was.  The same shall take place at the coming of the Son of man at the last day, as at the general deluge.  For, as then they indulged their appetites, unmindful of the fate that was attending them, gamounteV kai ekgamizonteV, marrying and given in marriage, solely occupied with the concerns of this life, and indifferent to those of the next; so shall it be at the end of the world.  They are not here accused of gross sins, but of a supine security of their salvation, as is evident from what follows.  Jans.

Ver. 39.  And they thought not of the deluge, though preached and predicted by Noe, (which rendered their ignorance and incredulity inexcusable) till it came and swept them all away.  So shall it be at the coming of the Son of man.  S. Luke adds, (c. xvii, v. 28,) likewise as it was in the days of Lot; they shall be eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, i.e. totally immersed in worldly pursuits.  Hence the apostle; when they shall say peace, viz. from past evils, and security, viz. from future, then shall destruction come upon them on a sudden.  But some one may ask, how can there possibly be all this peace, all this security, when the evils mentioned above, famines, wars, plagues, earthquakes, and particularly the darkness of the sun, &c. &c. are presages calculated to strike with panic and consternation minds the most thoughtless and giddy?  I answer, that the wicked are chiefly designed here, who in the midst of the afflictions and alarms of the good, will still indulge in their pleasures and luxuries, like cruel soldiers, whilst the peaceable inhabitants are plundered.  S. Jerom adds, that the world for some time before its final dissolution, will be freed from all those calamities.  As to what is said (v. 29,) of the darkness of the sun and moon, these are circumstances that refer to the very coming of the judge.  Jans.

Ver. 40.  Then of two men, who shall think of nothing less than of going to appear before God, one shall be taken to be placed among the number of the elect, and the other shall be left condemned to eternal fire with the damned, on account of his crimes.  V. — This example of the men in the field, and of the condition and disposition of men at the period of the deluge, strongly expresses how unexpectedly these evils will rush in upon mankind; and the subsequent account of the two women grinding in the mill, shews how little they were solicitous for their salvation.  We are, moreover, taught by these examples, that some of all states and conditions will be saved, whether rich or poor, in ease or labour, or decorated with all the various degrees of worldly honour.  The same is mentioned in Exodus, c. xi, v. 5.  From the first-born of Pharao, who sitteth on his throne, even to the first-born of the handmaid that is at the mill, . . . every first-born shall die.  S. Chrys. hom. lxxviii.

Ver. 41.  Two women.  Slaves of both sexes were employed in grinding corn.  Of these, one shall be carried up to heaven by angels, the other shall be left a prey to devils, on account of her bad life.  V. — In many ancient MSS. both Greek and Latin, what we read in S. Luke, (xvii. 34.) of two men in the same bed, one shall be taken, and the other shall be left, is here added.

Ver. 42.  Watch ye, therefore.  That men might not be attentive for a time only, but preserve a continual vigilance, the Almighty conceals from them the hour of their dissolution: they ought therefore to be ever expecting it, and ever watchful.  But to the eternal infamy of Christians be it said, much more diligence is used by the worldly wise for the preservation of their wealth, than by the former for the salvation of their immortal souls.  Though they are fully aware that the Lord will come, and like a thief in the night, when they least expect him, they do not persevere watching, nor guard against irreparable misfortune of quitting the present life without previous preparation.  Therefore will the day come to the destruction of such as are reposed in sleep.  S. Chrys. hom. lxxviii. on S. Mat. — Of what importance is it then that we should be found watching, and properly attentive to the one thing necessary, the salvation of our immortal souls.  For what will it avail us, if we have gained the whole world, which we must then leave, and lose our immortal souls, which, owing to our supine neglect to these admonitions of Jesus Christ, must suffer in hell-flames for all eternity?  A.

Since 1960 - All the Evangelicals and Christian Zionists (Christian Zionism is a heresy) preached the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Catholic Charismatics preached the age of Mary (a heresy) - and all we got instead was 911.

Americans, stay true to real scripture and remember the Two Great Commandments of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

MATTHEW 22
CHAPTER XXII.

29 And Jesus answering, said to them: You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.
30 For in the resurrection they shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage: but shall be as the angels of God in heaven.
31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken by God, saying to you:
32 *I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
33 And the multitudes hearing this, were in admiration at his doctrine.
34 And the Pharisees hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together:
35 *And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him:
36 Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said to him: *Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.
38 This is the greatest and first commandment.
39 And the second is like to this: *Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
40 On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.
41 And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them,
42 Saying: What think you of Christ? whose son is he?  They say to him: David's.
43 He saith to them: *How then doth David in spirit call him Lord: Saying:
44 *The Lord said to my Lord: Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool?
45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?
46 And no man was able to answer him a word: neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

Ver. 29.  You err.  The Sadducees erred in supposing that there would be no resurrection, or if there was, that the future state would be like the present.  Unable to conceive any thing else, they thought themselves justified in concluding that the soul would not survive the body.  Had they known the Scriptures, they would not have fallen into this error; since therein are found abundant testimonies of a resurrection, as Job xiv and xix, Isaias xxvi, Ezechiel xxxvii, Daniel xii.  The power of God also, had they paid sufficient attention to that consideration, would have taught them the same truth.  It cannot be difficult for that power, which created and formed all things from nothing, to raise the body again after it has been reduced to ashes: nor impossible to prepare in a future state, rewards and enjoyments superior to and widely different from any thing that is seen in our present stage of existence.  Jansenius.

Ver. 30.  As the angels.  Not in every respect, for the body shall be likewise raised with the soul, whilst the angels are pure spirits: but in this we shall be like unto angels, we shall be endowed with immortality, and impassibility; and our joys, like those of the angels, shall be wholly spiritual.  Jans. — If not to marry, nor to be married, be like unto angels, the state of religious persons, and of priests, is justly styled by the Fathers an angelic life.  S. Cyp. l. ii. de discip. et hab. Virg. sub finem.  B.

Ver. 32.  He is not the God of the dead.  Jesus Christ here proves the resurrection of the body by the immortality of the soul; because in effect these two tenets are inseparable.  The soul being immortal, ought necessarily to be one day reunited to the body, to receive therein the recompense or punishment which it has merited in this same body, when it was clothed with it. — By this text S. Jerom refutes the heretic Vigilantius, and in him many of modern date, who to diminish the honour Catholics pay to the saints, call them designedly dead men.  But the Almighty is not the God of the dead; of consequence these patriarchs, dead as they are in our eyes as to their bodies, are still alive in the eyes of God as to their souls, which he has created immortal, and which he will undoubtedly have the power of reuniting to their bodies. — The Sadducees were a profane sect, who denied the resurrection of the body, and the existence of angels and spirits, and any future state in another world: (see Acts xxiii. 8.) nor did they receive any books but the five books of Moses.  Christ therefore, from a passage Exod. iii. 15, shewed them that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had still a being; because God, 200 years after the death of the last, said thus to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, &c.  He did not say, (as S. Chrys. takes notice) I was the God of Abraham, &c.  Therefore these souls had a being: for the Lord would not call himself the God of those who were not at all: no one calling himself lord or king of those who are no more.  Wi.

Ver. 34.  The Pharisees heard that he had silenced their adversaries, the Sadducees, &c.  Some of them, says S. Luke, (xx. 39.) applauded him, saying, Master, thou hast said well.  Wi. — The Pharisees assembled themselves together, that they might confound him by their numbers, whom they could not by their arguments.  Wherefore they said one to another: let one speak for all, and all speak by one, that if one be reduced to silence, he alone may appear to be refuted; and, if he is victorious, we may all appear conquerors.  Hence it is said, And one of them, a doctor of the law, (S. Chrysostom) asked him, tempting him, if he were really possessed of that wisdom and that knowledge which people so much admired in him.  V.

Ver. 40.  On these two, &c.  Whereby it is evident that all dependeth not upon faith only, though faith be the first, but much more upon charity, which is the love of God and of our neighbour, and which is the sum of all the law and the prophets; because he that hath this double charity, expressed here by these two principal commandments, fulfilleth all that is commanded in the law and the prophets.  B.

Ver. 45.  If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?  It was allowed of as a certain truth, that the Messias was to be the son of David.  Christ shews them by David's own words, that he was the Lord as well as the son of David: and this is what they could not answer to.  Wi. — Jesus Christ here inculcates to the Pharisees, that two natures must be admitted in the Messias; in one of which, viz. in his human nature, he is the son of David, and as such inferior to him; and in the other, viz. in his divine nature, he is the son of God, and consequently superior to David; whence this latter, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, justly calls him Lord.  T. — Jesus Christ does not wish them to think that the Messias is not the son of David, but only wished to rectify their opinion concerning him.  When therefore he asks how he is the son, he teaches them that he is not after the manner they understand it, the mere Son, but what is much more, the Lord also, of David.  S. John Chrysostom, hom. lxxii.

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