Luke 12:40 — Community Reflections

LUKE 12:40 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.”

Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? — the two examples together (political atrocity and structural accident) present the full range of sudden death and reject both a providential explanation (they deserved it) and a probabilistic one (it was random). Both deaths are used not to explain the past but to urge the present: unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Church Fathers on Luke 12:40

Our Lord having taught His disciples moderation, taking from them all care and conceit of this life, now leads them on to serve and obey, saying, Let your loins be girded, that is, always ready to do the work of your Lord, and your lamps burning, that is, do not lead a life in darkness, but have with you the light of reason, showing you what to do and what to avoid. For this world is the night, but they have their loins girded, who follow a practical or active life. For such…
Theophylact · 11th century

Or, he teaches us to keep our lamps burning, by prayer and contemplation and spiritual love.
MAXIM ·

Or, to be girded, signifies activity and readiness to undergo evils from regard to Divine love. But the burning of the lamp signifies that we should not suffer any to live in the darkness of ignorance.
Cyril of Alexandria · 5th century

Read all 27 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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