MATTHEW 24:42 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.”
Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. The watchfulness command that follows from the ignorance of the day: stay awake because you do not know when. The stay awake is the Olivet Discourse's primary practical instruction — the appropriate response to the unknown timing is not calculation but constant readiness.
Church Fathers on Matthew 24:42
Having declared that 'of that hour knoweth no man, but the Father only,' He shews that it was not expedient for the Apostles to know, that being ignorant they might live in perpetual expectation of His coming, and thus concluding the whole, He says, 'Watch therefore, &c.' And He does not say, 'Because we know not,' but 'Because ye know not,' shewing that He Himself is not ignorant of the day of judgment.
He would have them ever ready, and therefore He says, 'Watch.'
To watch is to keep the eyes open, and looking out for the true light, to do and to observe that which one believes, to cast away the darkness of sloth and negligence.
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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