The Promise of His coming.
His commands to prepare and be worthy.
Statement of what is happening in the world in connection with the Second Coming of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.


Nuzul i Isa, Qiyamah, the Parousia of Jesus Christ Our Lord.


Rv:22:7

Behold I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book.

Blog List

Eucharist in house churches Commanded by God

Eucharist in house churches Commanded by God - HE COMMANDS TO NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE VATICAN WHICH HAS ALREADY BECOME TOTALLY APOSTATE AND DIABOLIC AT THIS POINT.

GO HERE:Traditional Catholic Prayers: Eucharist in house churches Commanded by God. To rise above the concerns of the world to the service of God.

The Justice of God: New Testament Prayer, Psalms Hymns and Canticles, and first century Communion in full




Traditional Catholic Prayers: Office of the Hours for the Week

Sayyidah Parousia

Watch and Pray Always

Watch and Pray Always as Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ commanded



Morning Prayer and through the day.







In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Father Who are in heaven,
hallowed be your name,


O Lord Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour, living and reigning and ruling with God Our Father in the unity and power and bond of love of the Holy Spirit our Paraclete from heaven



your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.


with and by the prayer and company and presence of the same all your elect angels and saints for and with us unceasingly,

especially Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel truly present with us, Saint Enoch in the flesh and Saint Elijah in the flesh your holy prophets yet to return their holy angels truly present with us,

the Holy Family especially blessed St. Joseph and the most Blessed Virgin Mary your mother Christ Jesus our only Lord and Saviour your half brothers and sisters in the flesh Christ Jesus our only Lord and Saviour the only mediator between God and man in the flesh most holy angel of almighty counsel, captain of the hosts of the Lord, going before us with all of your elect doxas, especially St. Michael and St. Gabriel truly present with us, unto all salvation and victory totally protecting and delivering us in all things at all times immediately unceasingly and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come;

with all thanksgiving, we love you for you first loved us, with all thanksgiving, thank you for You, for all your gifts and mercies to us, unceasingly: especially your all holy, almighty, gifts of our creation, your redemption of us, your gifts of your creation to us, Christ Jesus our only Lord and Saviour,

your life and teaching, your Incarnation, Conception, Birth in the flesh, your Epiphany, your Transfiguration, your most Holy Cross, Holy Blood, Holy Spirit, of you the Immortal son of the Father, Christ Jesus our only Lord and Saviour, your Resurrection, the only first born from the dead in the flesh, your Ascension, Assumption, in the same flesh, back to the Father’s bosom in the third heaven at his right hand in the unity and power and bond of love of the Holy Spirit our Paraclete, the gift of your Holy Spirit our Paraclete at Pentecost, and throughout all time and creation, indwelling us, bringing with him, you God Our Father and the Son Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour, unceasingly and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come,

your most holy Eucharist, which you alone God Our Father and the Son Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour and the Holy Spirit our Paraclete give to us,

Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour, infinitely pure and undefiled, truly made manifest again in the bread the wine and the water whom we receive in faith with all thanksgiving,

your Parousia, in the same flesh in which you came in your Incarnation and suffered for us and rose again in, in the future, at the end of this age, at the time known to you alone O Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God almighty, Blessed Trinity, Holy Unity, with all your elect angels, our resurrection in the flesh at the first resurrection of the just, our same spirits, souls and bodies reunited, we with all your elect angels and saints worshipping you, Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour, in the glory of God Our Father, in the unity and power and bond of love of the Holy Spirit our Paraclete, face to face unceasingly unto the endless ages of ages to come, for your spiritual gifts of food and drink,

for your simple gifts of food and drink, for all your gifts and mercies and this new day with all thanksgiving, we love you for you first loved us with all thanksgiving, blessed are You in all Your elect angels and saints, unceasingly and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come.



Your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us,
Give us today our Supersubstantial bread,
and forgive us our debt,
as, in You Holy Spirit, we also forgive, those in Your body Jesus Christ Our Only Lord and Saviour, our debtors,




+

Against you, you alone, Jesus Christ our Only Lord and Saviour, have we sinned and done what is evil in your sight, forgive us our sins, purge us with hyssop and we shall be cleansed, wash us and we shall be made whiter than snow, make the bones you have numbered to rejoice. Come Holy Spirit cleanse us from all stain of spirit, soul, flesh, make us only one in You, as you are one in God Our Father, in You, You in us, Most Holy Lord God Pantocrator, Christ Jesus our Only Lord and Saviour, Who alone bought us in the flesh by Your most Holy Cross, Holy Blood, Holy Spirit, of You the Immortal Son of the Father, Christ Jesus Our only Lord and Saviour, infinitely pure and undefiled covering the whole world and cleansing the whole universe, Jesus Christ our Only Lord and Saviour the only first born from the dead in the flesh the only one Resurrected Ascended Assumed Bodily in the flesh and sitteth on the right hand of God Our Father in the third heaven in the unity and power and bond of love of the Holy Spirit our Paraclete Holy Holy Holy Lord God Pantocrator, with and by the prayer and company of the same all Your elect angels and saints for and with us unceasingly:



By Your most Holy Blood and Holy Spirit and this Your Most Holy Shield of You Christ Jesus Our Only Lord and Saviour invincible and inpenetrable, only-begotten Son of the Immortal Father covering the whole world cleansing the whole universe, in the Holy Spirit the Unity and Power and Bond of Love of the Father and the Son Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Saviour, covering, shielding, delivering, us unceasingly, save us, and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come: cleanse, shield, heal, guide, guard, keep, deliver and bless our households, your faithful departed blessed in Your bosom unceasingly with especially all of our faithful departed kinsmen after the flesh, and all of Your faithful throughout the earth; especially by Your Most Holy Eucharist, infinitely pure and undefiled, whom You alone Christ Jesus Our Only Lord and Saviour, God Our Father, Holy Spirit Our Paraclete give to us, Whom we alone receive in faith with all thanksgiving, indwelling us: our households, all of Your faithful upon earth and upon salvific confession in You God Our Father and the Son Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour and the Holy Spirit Our Paraclete all of Your lost sheep – unto all salvation eternal and temporal, Your presence God Our Father and the Son Jesus Christ Our Only Lord and Saviour and the Holy Spirit our Paraclete; Holy Blood of Christ Jesus, Holy Energy Holy Spirit Holy Wisdom of God Our Father and the Son Jesus Christ Our Only Lord and Saviour and the Holy Spirit Our Paraclete, indwelling us in our spirits souls bodies truly present with us and for us everywhere with and by the prayer and company and presence, especially St. Michael and St. Gabriel and St. Enoch and St. Elijah in the flesh – their holy angels, truly present with us and all of Your faithful, of all your elect angels and saints for and with us in all places, utterly perfectly forevermore in everything, everywhere in every detail, blessed here on earth in long life and good health, totally protected and delivered in all things at all times and totally cleansed, sanctified, strengthened, purified, vindicated in spirit soul body, our households totally delivered in all things at all times, all Your faithful and upon salvific confession in You God Our Father and the Son Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour and the Holy Spirit Our Paraclete all of Your lost sheep, totally delivered in all things at all times, Holy Blood of Christ Jesus – Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour, Most Holy Lord God Pantocrator in the flesh, Most Holy Angel of Almighty Counsel, Captain of the Hosts of the Lord, the Divine Almighty Warrior – St. Michael – St. Gabriel – with all your elect angels surrounding us, shielding us, going forth before us, no one interfering with us in anyway, absolutely nothing at all, all times past present future, totally delivered from all evil immediately forever.



and do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one and all it’s minions visible and invisible;
for yours is the power and the glory unto the endless ages of ages to come.



Leading us forth O Lord,

Drive far away our preternatural foe,

And Your abiding peace bestow;

If You be our preventing Guide,

No evil can our steps betide.





Bless our meetings, O Lord.
Utterly uproot all idolatry from the world.
Crush under our feet Satan.
Humble now, as at all times, the enemies of Your Church, You and us.

Lay bare their pride.
Speedily show them their weakness.
Bring to naught the wicked plots they contrive against us.
Arise, O Lord, and let Your enemies be scattered, and let all who hate Your holy name be put to flight.







with and by the prayer and company and presence of the same all your elect angels and saints for and with us unceasingly and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come cover, cleanse, shield, heal, guide, guard, keep, deliver and bless Your sheep, faithful and in salvific confession of You Christ Jesus Our Only Lord and Saviour, Your lost sheep, unto all salvation eternal and temporal, absolutely immediately utterly forevermore unceasingly and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come, save us.



Your good Spirit shall lead me in the land of uprightness; for Your Name's sake, O Lord, shall You quicken me.



In Your righteousness shall You bring my soul out of affliction, and in Your mercy shall You utterly destroy mine enemies. And You shall cut off all them that afflict my soul, for I am Your servant. For as You have been sanctified in us in their sight, so you shall be magnified among them in our presence, make them fall back as those did before You by Your presence unceasingly and never come near us everything and everybody in every way that means us any harm at all times and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come forevermore.



Come Holy Spirit Wisdom Energy Sanctifier Our Paraclete throughout the entire earth for the salvation of all of Your lost sheep and the deliverance of all of Your innocent and faithful, especially those in the worst of distress. Most Holy Lord God Almighty Abba Our Father, through You, beloved and Only Son of God, Our Only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, send forth Your Most Holy Spirit Our Paraclete, enkindle in our hearts the fire of Your love and we shall be created and You shall renew the face of the earth. Through Our Only Lord God Saviour King most Holy Pantocrator in the flesh Jesus Christ, the Divine warrior, Glory be to God Our Father and to the Son Jesus Christ Our Only Lord and Saviour and to the Holy Spirit Our Paraclete as it was before all time and creation, Creator and ruler over all, at the beginning of all time and creation, past present future and now and always unceasingly unto the endless ages of ages to come.





Prevented preventing from before all time and creation utterly invisible passing through the midst of all evil and all of our enemies thereof unharmed and untouched all of it bound and gone from us unceasingly for you LORD are not in any of that, neither are we, forevermore from before all time and creation: God Our Father and the Son Jesus Christ Our Only Lord and Saviour and the Holy Spirit Our Paraclete

Holy Blood of Jesus Christ, Holy Holy Holy Lord God Pantocrator, forevermore unceasingly, Olam Olam, Creator and Ruler over all, with and by the prayer and company and presence of all Your elect angels and saints for and with us unceasingly, at the beginning of all time and creation past present future and now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come.





In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


The final Prayer before Communion

Especially for all of those in the vineyard of the Lord devastated by Ecumenism and Latin and Byzantine and Protestant Freemasonic irruptions of church and all the false gnostic nonsense permeating the Evangelical community and all other opposition to the True Gospel, all are welcome here on this site and to pray with us: Parousia of Jesus Christ Our Lord: Eternal faith and beliefs: Jesus Christ is the Truth




Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, Who is and Who was and Who is to come

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

Lord our God, You are worthy to receive praise and glory and honor and blessing

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

The Lamb Who was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength, and honor and glory and blessing

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

Let us bless the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit:

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

Sing praise to our God, all you His servants and you who fear God, the small and the great.

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

Let heaven and earth praise Him Who is glorious

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

And every creature that is in heaven and on earth and under earth and in the sea and those which are in them.

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Let us praise and glorify Him forever.

Let us pray:

All-powerful, most holy, most high, and supreme God:

all good,

supreme good,

totally good,

You Who alone are good; may we give You all praise, all glory, all thanks, all honor:

all blessing,

and all good things.

So be it.

So be it.

Amen.

O OUR most holy FATHER,

Our Creator, Redeemer, Consoler, and Savior

WHO ARE IN HEAVEN:

In the angels and in the saints,

Enlightening them to love, because You, Lord, are light

Inflaming them to love, because You, Lord, are love

Indwelling and filling them with happiness, because You, Lord, are the Supreme Good,

the Eternal Good

from Whom comes all good

without Whom there is no good.

HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME:

May our knowledge of You become ever clearer that we may know the breadth of Your blessings

the length of Your promises

the height of Your majesty

the depth of Your judgments.

YOUR KINGDOM COME:

So that You may rule in us through Your grace

and enable us to come to Your kingdom

where there is an unclouded vision of You

a perfect love of You

a blessed companionship with You

an eternal enjoyment of You.

YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN

HEAVEN:

That we may love You with our whole heart by always thinking

of You

with our whole soul by always desiring You

with our whole mind by directing all our

intentions to You and by seeking Your

glory in everything

and with our whole strength by spending all our energies and affections

of soul and body

in the service of Your love

and of nothing else

and may we love our neighbors as ourselves

by drawing them all with our whole strength to Your love

by rejoicing in the good fortunes of others as well as our

own

and by sympathizing with the misfortunes of others

and by giving offense to no one.

GIVE US THIS DAY:

in memory and understanding and reverence

of the love which You in our Lord Jesus Christ had for us

and of those things which He said and did and suffered for us.

OUR DAILY BREAD:

Your own Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES:

Through Your ineffable mercy

through the power of the Passion of Your Beloved Son together with the merits and intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all Your chosen ones.

AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST

US:

And whatever we do not forgive perfectly, do you, Lord, enable us to forgive to the full

so that we may truly love our enemies and fervently intercede for them before You

returning no one evil for evil

and striving to help everyone in You.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

Hidden or obvious

Sudden or persistent.

BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL

Past, present and to come.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Christmas the Birth of the Son of God Jesus Christ in the Flesh

Christmas the Birth of the Son of God Jesus Christ in the Flesh
Seek the Immortal Son of God the Messiah Jesus Christ - click on picture

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Traditional Catholic Prayers: Parousia of Jesus Christ Our Lord: Jews called in Christ: The I AM in the Old and New Testaments and the seven names of God in the Old Testament

Traditional Catholic Prayers: Parousia of Jesus Christ Our Lord: Jews called in Christ: The I AM in the Old and New Testaments and the seven names of God in the Old Testament



Parousia of Jesus Christ Our Lord: Jews called in Christ: The I AM in the Old and New Testaments and the seven names of God in the Old Testament






The seven names of God in the Old Testament – all other names therein are variations for the most part.

In addition the Holy Spirit is named. In Hebrew the Holy Spirit is Ruach or Ruach Elohim (the Holy Spirit of the Triune God).

Jesus Christ, the Son of God and His leading the Patriarchs and Israel is shown in the Old Testament. And Jesus is named in Greek in the Septuagint prophetically.

One example: Hb:3:18 But I will rejoice in the Lord: and I will joy in God my Jesus. (DRV)

The Seven Names of God {Reference source: The Catholic Dictionary 1950} ADONAI YAHWEH ELOHIM EL SHADDAI ELYOWN QADOSH which can be translated in order directly and it is correct. It translates, literally as: Lord Yahweh (I Am) God (Majestic plural "We" as in French where it is literally plural, i.e. the Trinity) God Mighty (as in Almighty) Most High Holy (as in All Holy, the Holy one, not meaning plainly absolutely singular but the One who is Holy). Therefore: Lord Yahweh Triune God, God Mighty, Most High, Holy. ADONAI = Lord, YAHWEH = I Am - meaning the only One and True God who has Aseity which is self existence, ELOHIM = God Trinity, EL = God, SHADDAI = Mighty, ELYOWN = Most High, QADOSH = Holy

Dt:6:4:4 Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. (DRV) In Hebrew, that is: Shemah Y’srael Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh echad. This English translation is as deficient as most are. Not on purpose, because translation is many times very difficult. The Hebrew text is taken to be the Masoretic by most translators (which is not what St. Jerome worked from) and therefore Yahweh is rendered Adonai which is Lord in English. Concerning the Most Holy Trinity, one name of God here and it’s modifier are important. Eloheinu is a form of Elohim and both are plural. El in the above seven names of God is singular and in the Old Testament almost always refers to God the Father. Echad is plural but in a sense of unity of the plurality concerning Eloheinu – Who is Yahweh, which is the most sacred name of God in the Old Testament Hebrew. The Jew, Maimonides, the Anti-Christian Talmudist, in the later Middle Ages attempted to make God in the Shemah singular by lying and substituting iahid (which is absolutely singular) for echad. St. Jerome’s vulgate renders the Shemah as “audi Israhel Dominus Deum noster Dominus unus est” simply because Latin has no equivalent for echad. Hence St. Jerome used ‘unus.’ Moses certainly did know that God is Triune. In the above seven names of God, Adonai or Lord refers to any one of the Holy Trinity. Yahweh is the actual name of God in His very nature which is His essence or substance. Essence is houmoosia in Greek and substance is substantia in Latin. Yahweh therefore is the name equally of all three persons of the Holy Trinity. Elohim is the Trinity. El is God the Father and Shaddai (almighty power of God) is the Almighty Son who is the only Mediator between God and men and Qadosh or Holy One, as it is usually rendered, can refer to the Holy Spirit and most especially does in Miqqadosh meaning literally Sanctifier. Hence the Shemah is Moses confession given him by God of the Triune three persons of the Godhead.

A further extension of Yahweh’s name given Moses is Ahiyah asher Ahiyah where Yah is directly Yahweh. In this name the very nature of God is Yah of Yah so that Christ only – begotten of the Father before all time and creation is meant. Also, the Church Fathers tell us that Yeshua is Hebrew for Jesus, especially in St. Matthew’s Gospel in it’s original Hebrew. Yeshua is exactly from Yahweh in a form that indicates that Yeshua is of the nature of Yahweh (in this case God the Father – El) and is furthermore distinct in a sense, in other words, God the Son. This is the verse it occurs in. Ex:3:14:14 God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you. (DRV) This is the verse that the Jews call the tetragrammaton, but in fact, it is the most explicit Old Testament reference to the eternal begetting from the Father of the Son. That is, the Son of God Who will be sent for the salvation of those who believe in Him. It was Christ pre-incarnate on the mount that gave Moses the law and Who during Moses’ sojourn with Him gave Moses the prophecies of His own future Incarnation. Another such prophecy of Christ’s future incarnation is the following: Dt:18:15:15 The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a PROPHET of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me: him thou shalt hear: (DRV) These are in the Old Testament. Two of the New Testament references to the same meanings are the below: Jn:8:58:58 Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM. (DRV) St. Paul referring to the Exodus: 1Cor:10:4:4 And all drank the same spiritual drink: (And they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ.) (DRV)

Especially regarding the importance of the New Testament verse Jn:8:58:58 Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM. We must absolutely take note of the fact that Christ here professes Himself as pre-existent, which only God can be by His nature pre-existent. Patristically, the Greek here is most important and very exact, "I AM" is in the Greek, "egoo eimi." It is linguistically, and especially in terms of the Septuagint-Koine Greek it philologically extends from, "o oon" which exactly sums up the core meaning of Homoousion from Houmoosia, which is extended exactly from "o oon." (Homo = same and ousion from ousia from oon meaning essence, which the Church Fathers used creedally from this exact verse to exegete the Most Holy Trinity; with "Yahweh" which is "egoo eimi" i.e. "o oon" which is "I AM" as the core essential BEING of GOD self existent and Immortal, having always existed and always existing forever, which nature is shared equally by all three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity - i.e. all three having the same essence.)




Rev. 1:4 – 6 John to the seven churches which are in Asia. Grace be unto you and peace, from him that is and that was and that is to come: and from the seven spirits which are before his throne:

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth, who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood (when He became Incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the blessed virgin Mary and went to the Cross for our salvation)

And hath made us a kingdom, and priests to God and his Father. To him be glory and empire for ever and ever. Amen.(DRV)

Rev.:21:6:

6 And he said to me: It is done. I am Alpha and Omega: the Beginning and the End. To him that thirsteth, I will give of the fountain of the water of life, freely. (DRV)

These two phrases that is and that was and that is to come (Greek “‘o oon kai ‘o en kai ‘o erchoumenos”) and I am Alpha and Omega (Greek: “egoo eimi to Alpha kai to Omega”) are emphatic declarations of Christ’s Divinity and Immortality for it is the Thrice Holy Trinity – Rv:4:8 And the four living creatures had each of them six wings: and round about and within they are full of eyes. And they rested not day and night, saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. (Greek “‘agious ‘agious ‘agious kurios ‘o theos ‘o pantocrator”) – alone Who possesses Aseity (self existence and Who is therefore alone uncreated) and Who is Immortal of the same Essence/Substance – Nature.


In the above: the “who [that] is”, in Greek “‘o oon”, is the declaration of Aseity. The “who [that] was” and the “who [that] is to come” with the “‘o oon”, self existence, is the declaration of Immortality (having no beginning and no end – always existing). The phrase I am Alpha and Omega has exactly the same meaning. “I am” – “egoo eimi” is the equivalent of Yahweh (God’s proper name) in Hebrew meaning “I am” in the same sense as the above “‘o oon”. Alpha and Omega has the same meaning as Immortality in the above. Pantocrator (translated as Almighty) is the declaration of the Thrice Holy Lord God’s All ruling absolute Sovereignty and includes emphatically the meaning that He is alone uncreated and Creator, ex nihilo, of all of creation. This relates directly to the beginning of the Gospel of St. John and the beginning of the first book of the Torah (the Pentateuch) which is Genesis. See: Genesis 1:1 through 2:4 and St. John’s Gospel 1:1 through vs. 18. All of this and the exact seventy human generations recounted in St. Luke’s Gospel 3:1 – 38 from Adam to Christ (see also the parallel in St. Matthew’s Gospel 1:1 – 25 from Abraham to Christ) and the testimony of the Church Fathers does not allow any pagan evolutionary gods nor even sophist pantheistic idolatrous creationism but only creation by the Creator as He said He did it, and only Redemption in God and His Christ (the Messiah, al-Maseeh) as He said that it is; the false gods or pagan idolatrous religions that willfully reject God and Jesus Christ (those who do not willfully reject Him but seek God in their hearts are judged by God alone) are without grace and they and their followers will be damned forever, who do not repent in this life from those false gods and religions and come to God and His Christ and make confession in Him and be baptized by God’s Spirit {believers in monotheistic Islam and all men of good will (in the full consensus of the Church Fathers) are included as true believers in the true God and therefore saved by their confession of belief in and fulfilling the will of God, Allah (SWT)}. Allah is from biblical Hebrew ‘Eloah’ and means the true God, All middle Eastern Christians, including Catholics, who are Arabic speakers call on Allah as the name of the true God. Amen.


Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Traditional Catholic Prayers: God and His Messiah Jesus Christ our Lord - our right and duty to witness to Him: Traditional Catholic Prayers: Confession of Faith in the True God « BellesHeures's Weblog

Traditional Catholic Prayers: God and His Messiah Jesus Christ our Lord - our right and duty to witness to Him: Traditional Catholic Prayers: Confession of Faith in the True God « BellesHeures's Weblog



God and His Messiah Jesus Christ our Lord - our right and duty to witness to Him: Traditional Catholic Prayers: Confession of Faith in the True God « BellesHeures's Weblog





Traditional Catholic Prayers: Confession of Faith in the True God « BellesHeures's Weblog







See link: Confession of Faith in the True God « BellesHeures's Weblog


[excerpt]




Confession of Faith in the True God

GOD is the Truth. The Most Holy Trinity is God and none other is God. The Most Holy Trinity is Three Persons Who are One God. These Three Persons are The Father and the Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Father is the fountainhead of the Trinity, the Son proceeds from His engendering in the Father’s bosom, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father in the unity of the engendering of the Son from the Father. This procession of the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Father is immortal from before all time and creation and unto eternity never-ending. This Triune God alone has Aseity, that He is immortal without beginning and without end, self sustained in His existence which preceded all time and creation and, His existence, continues forever; God’s existence is infinite. This God is above all that He has created and transcendent in all that He has created. There is nothing apart from nor outside of God that He has not created. He created all that has been created ex nihilo, that is from nothing by His infinite power. Nothing that is created has aseity. Time is only an aspect of that which has been created by God. Time is therefore part of God’s creation. God is not limited by His creation, this includes that God is not limited by time. God is Omnipotent and Omniscient and Ubiquitos and with eternal complete foresight: Almighty and All seeing and knowing and equally present everywhere and knowing all things before their creation and all events before they come to pass unto eternity. There is no way to God but through the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity Who is the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom alone there is salvation by His Most Holy Cross and Resurrection. Creation had a beginning but will continue unto the eternal ages to come. At the return of Jesus Christ from God the Father’s right hand in the third heaven and the just judgement of Christ of His creatures, creation will be cleansed by fire (the damned, both angels and men consigned to hell forever) and renewed with paradise restored, with the presence around God of all His elect angels and saints, and continue in this way forever.



Salvation by Christ is by His Kenosis (the elect angels do not stand in need of salvation for they never sinned and are God’s servants forever).



Holy Holy Holy Lord God of hosts who will return in glory and in flaming fire taking vengeance upon those who know not God and who obey not the Lord Jesus Christ



Heb:5:

1 ¶ For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins:

2 Who can have compassion on them that are ignorant and that err: because he himself also is compassed with infirmity.

3 And therefore he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.

4 Neither doth any man take the honour to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.

5 So Christ also did not glorify himself, that he might be made a high priest: but he that said unto him: Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee.

6 As he saith also in another place: Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech.

7 Who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence.

8 And whereas indeed he was the Son of God, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.

9 And being consummated, he became, to all that obey him, the cause of eternal salvation:

10 ¶ Called by God a high priest, according to the order of Melchisedech.

11 Of whom we have much to say and hard to be intelligibly uttered: because you are become weak to hear.

12 For whereas for the time you ought to be masters, you have need to be taught again what are the first elements of the words of God: and you are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat.

13 For every one that is a partaker of milk is unskilful in the word of justice: for he is a little child.

14 But strong meat is for the perfect: for them who by custom have their senses exercised to the discerning of good and evil.

(DRV)



St. Paul explains this same thing with different wording in Philippians.



Phil:2:

5 For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6 Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7 But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man.

8 He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.

9 For which cause, God also hath exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names:

10 That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth:

11 And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.

(DRV)



This is crucial to our understanding of Christ’s mission to save us. In the above “emptied” is kenosis in the Greek. Christ’s kenosis (He Who is the Immortal Son of God and has always existed from before He created anything, His emptying out of Himself for us and to us) consists of “taking the form of a servant” at His incarnation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, “being made in the likeness of men” extremely important — His incarnation in the flesh, “in habit found as a man” this part explains phrases like “learned obedience”. Jesus never had to learn anything for Himself since He is God and Omniscient – All Knowing. But He willed to be born and grow up and be taught by Joseph and Mary. Think about it, it was the Blessed Virgin who taught Him the Psalms that He was the Mediator for David to receive by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and record for us. In simple terms He taught David the Psalms and willed that Mary would teach Him on earth the same psalms, though, of course He knew them already. So all references to His learning and growing and being perfected are only those things that He willed to go through for two basic reasons for our sakes. Number two first: to show us what our attitude and efforts should be on His behalf as His ambassadors to the rest of mankind. He “learned” but is actually teaching us. Number one in importance: “being made in the likeness of men” extremely important — His incarnation in the flesh. St. Athanasius Contra Mundum (against the world [opposing heresy]) addresses this when he explains that had Christ the Immortal Son of the Father in the Unity and Power of the Holy Spirit simply have erased Adam’s sin then the natural debt we all inherited to die from that sin would have meant that all men would die forever and be lost since God doesn’t lie and He pronounced that the separation of man from God due to sin would by the natural property of human nature make anything else impossible. In other words if God simply erased the sin He would have erased men as well thereby. Worst yet, St. Athanasius tells us, the devil would thereby have won that round. But what God did, the Son, Who because of His Divine substance/essence – nature cannot die, is to take upon himself the real human nature of all men subsumed from Mary — and therefore of Adam (see the genealogies in St. Matthew’s, Chapter 1, and St. Luke’s, Chapter 3, Gospels; in St. Luke’s Gospel all the way back to Adam). Since of Adam, then, of all men. Since He had and has that nature in total union with His divine nature, when he suffered and died (it is in this sense that St. Paul says “learned obedience”) in our place as the ransom from death then we become sons and daughters by adoption unto real eternal life at the future Return of Christ and the General Resurrection of the flesh, each of us, our bodies reunited with our same soul and same spirit. Therefore death, which insured that God’s law would be obeyed, was originally God’s way to insure that man would not become a diabolic creature totally in bondage to the devil, incapable of being in union with the Holy God, Himself. Christ took death, merited by all men, upon Himself preserving what God had said to Adam and Eve “upon that day (of disobedience) you will die”. Therefore, Christ’s death, then becomes the ransom to bring us out of thralldom to the devil and into union with God in Christ. Christ’s Resurrection then becomes the guarantor of our resurrection — which will absolutely happen. This is a brief description of Christ’s kenosis. Christ’s kenosis is the weightiest subject in the whole Bible. Christ’s obedience loosed the debt of Adam’s disobedience as Mary’s obedience undid the knot of Eve’s disobedience (that last is from St. Irenaeus). A note of warning: those who retie the knot of Eve’s disobedience and who bind themselves again in the debt of Adam’s disobedience by becoming part of pagan religions, who profess atheism or agnosticism, who follow after the Antichrist or who walk not in God’s commandments though they pretend to be Christ’s, will certainly be resurrected, but to eternal undying destruction in the lake of fire with the devil and all the fallen angels and all of the demons. Only the saints will inherit paradise with the elect angels in this universe recreated by God at the second coming of Jesus Christ at the end of this age of grace.


Monday, December 29, 2014

Traditional Catholic Prayers: As in the days of Noah: Look up, your redemption is at hand: Mount Ararat or Mount Judi?

Traditional Catholic Prayers: As in the days of Noah: Look up, your redemption is at hand: Mount Ararat or Mount Judi?



As in the days of Noah: Look up, your redemption is at hand: Mount Ararat or Mount Judi?





Mount Ararat or Mount Judi?






Where did Noah's Ark land? The Bible says: "the mountains of Ararat" .... The Qur'an says: "the heights". Which one? Are they the same place or are they different? Is the Ark at both of these locations? I have received several letters from concerned Christians and Muslims. I tried to look at this objectively and found some interesting things.


Mount Ararat seems to be the easier mountain to find, possibly from the large amount of information about Mount Ararat and all the "famous" searches at that location.


Mount Judi seemed to be a little harder to find. However, through the help of personal and Web friends, I believe I have found some information which is accurate and revealing!


Enjoy!










Mount Ararat





Hebrew
Mount 
AraratKnown in Turkey as "Agri Dagh", Mount Ararat represents the Bible's location for Noah's Ark. To be specific and clear, the bible says the following:
Genesis 8:4 "Then the ark rested ... on the mountains of Ararat." (NKJV)
Note that the bible does not specifically say, Mount Ararat. However, this being the highest place in the mountains of Ararat lends itself to become the biblical location and thus the area of intense Ark searches by many Christians.



Mount Judi

Known in Turkey as "Cudi Dagh", Mount Judi represents the Qur'an's location for Noah's Ark. First and foremost, be careful when discussing the location of Mount Judi! There is truly a lot of confusion over its location. What I mean is this:

Actual Mount Judi



Arabic

The following is taken from the article by Bill Crouse in Archaeology and Biblical Research,Noah's Ark: Its Final Berth Vol. 5, No. 3. Summer, 1992.
MapCudi Dagh is located approximately 200 miles south of Mt. Ararat in southern Turkey almost within eyesight of the Syrian and Iraqi borders.11 The Tigris River flows at its base. The exact co-ordinates are 37 degrees, 21 minutes N., and 42 degrees, 17 minutes E. In literature it has also been called "Mt Judi", "Mt. Cardu", "Mt. Quardu", "the Gordyene mountains", "Gordian mountains", "The Karduchian mountains", "the mountains of the Kurds", and to the Assyrians: "Mt. Nipur "(see photo #1) . It is also important to note that at times this mountain has even been called "Mt. Ararat". At about 7000 feet altitude it is not a terribly high mountain, though it is snow-capped most of the year. The current edition of the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM lists it as "over 13,000 feet and largely unexplored." We are unsure of the exact altitude, but it seems strange that it would not be noted on our modern aerial navigation map if it were 13,000 feet!
Most modern maps do not show the location of Cudi Dagh. It is, however, located about 25 miles from the Tigris River (see map), just east of the present Turkish city of Gizre and still within the bounds of the Biblical region of Ararat (Urartu).12
Cudi Dagh overlooks the all-important Mesopotamian plain and is notable for its many archaeological ruins in and around the mountain. There are also many references to it in ancient history.13 Sennacherib (700 B.C.), the Assyrian king, carved rock reliefs of himself on the side of the mountain (see photo #2).14 The Nestorians (a sect of Christianity) built several monasteries around the mountain including one on the summit called "The Cloister of the Ark". It was destroyed by lightning in 766 A.D.15 The Muslims later built a mosque on the site. In 1910, Gertrude Bell explored the area and found a stone structure still at the summit with the shape of a ship (see photo #3) called by the locals "Sefinet Nebi Nuh" "The Ship of Noah". Bell also reports that annually on September 14, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sabians and Yezidis gather on the mountain to commemorate Noah's sacrifice.16 As late as 1949 two Turkish journalists claimed to have seen the Ark on this mountain, a ship 500 feet in length!17

Questionable Mount Judi

For clarity I add this sensational article from the London Observer:
The Observer (London)

16 Jan 1994

'Arkologists' claim to have found Noah's Ark

By Martin Wroe
LONDON -- Noah's Ark has been found on the Turkish-Iranian border, 32 kilometres from Mount Ararat, according to the leader of a team of scientists that has been investigating the site for six years.
The Turkish government is so convinced by the findings that, after years of intransigence, it has designated the site one of special archaeological interest and agreed to its excavation next summer.
Buried ArkThe remote site contains a buried, ship-like object, resting an altitude of 2,300 metres.
At 170 metres long and 45 metres wide, it conforms almost exactly to the 300 cubit by 50 cubit boat that God told Noah to build, according to Genesis 6 in the Bible.
On surrounding terrain, the American and Middle Eastern scientists have identified huge stones with holes carved at one end, which they believe are "drogue-stones," dragged behind ships in the ancient world to stabilize them. Radar soundings indicate unusual levels of iron-oxide distribution.
Salih Bayraktutan, head of geology at Turkey's Ataturk University, estimates the age of the 'vessel' at more than 100,000 years.
"It is a man-made structure and for sure it is Noah's Ark."
The site is directly below the mountain of Al Judi, named in the Qur'an as the Ark's resting place.
MapDavid Fasold, an American shipwreck specialist with no religious affiliation, has led the investigation. He says subsurface radar surveys of the site have produced "very good pictures."
"The radar imagery at about 25 metres down from the stern is so clear that you can count the floorboards between the walls."
He believes the team has found the fossilized remains of the upper deck and that the original reed substructure has disappeared.
But the findings have infuriated the scores of Christian Ark-hunters who travel to Turkey, convinced the Ark will only be found on Mount Ararat.
Fasold, who calls himself an "Arkologist," also argues that it was not a great flood that pushed the Ark into the mountains. He says it was "an astronomical event causing a tectonic upheaval, a tidal bore causing gravitational pull in the ocean waters that forced the boat into the mountains."
Some of Fasold's team of geophysicists and geologists are reserving final judgement until the excavation and carbon-dating.
But in a British TV series on the environment next month, team member Vendyl Jones, a Middle East archeologist and inspiration for film character Indiana Jones, says it is "between maybe and probably" that they have found Noah's Ark.
As you see in the drawing, the "buried ship" or the item discussed above is located south of Mount Ararat by 20 miles.
Additionally, as indicated by the drawing, Mount Judi is locate 30 miles south of Lake Van which is 200 miles south of Mount Ararat.

Ararat-Judi Reconciliation

Even with the above information, could Mount Ararat and Mount Judi be the same location? Bear with me and let's see.....

Taken from Charles Berlitz, The Lost Ship of Noah, we find the following:
Mount Judi, Spelled Cudi-Dagh in Turkish means "highest" or "the heights" in Arabic and for this reason a number of people in Eastern Turkey, including some Islamic scholars, think Al Judi refers to Ararat. But Cudi-Dagh is actually located south of Lake Van, rising to a height of 7700 feet. The local tribesmen there maintain that the Ark drifted to a high point in the Cudi mountain chain and that the remains of it are still on the top of Cudi-Dagh, the highest mountain in the area. ....
There is a mountain named Judi. There is a mountain named Ararat. They are both located within the bounds of the Biblical region of Ararat (Urartu). It is very possible that both the Bible and the Qur'an speak in unison on this issue. Could it be that both Mount Ararat and Mount Judi are the same location? As you can see, some of today's authors use the two words and locations interchangeably regarding the location of the Ark.
In peace, I submit to you that the Qur'an location of "the heights" and the Bible location of the "mountains of Ararat" are the same location even though there are two different mountains named as such. The location that is currently studied and the highest location in the Ararat region is Mount Ararat. It is this mountain that can be identified by both holy books as the mountain that Prophet Noah's Ark rested. As always, I humbly say, inshaa Allah (let it be according to God's will).

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Traditional Catholic Prayers: As in the days of Noah: Matthew 24 - As in the days of Noah

Traditional Catholic Prayers: As in the days of Noah: Matthew 24 - As in the days of Noah



As in the days of Noah: Matthew 24 - As in the days of Noah







At the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70, only the leader of the Pharisees Rabbi Jochanan ben Zacchai escaped by his cowardly act of murder and deception after already having incited the Jews to the second worst act of rebellion against God by actually cursing God in God’s own temple. The first worst act of rebellion was to commit the double crime of Deicide murdering God’s own Messiah Jesus Christ and Perfidy never repenting of that Deicide. While setting the rest of the Jews at each other he faked his own death and secretly arranged to be and was so removed alive from the city during the siege that destroyed the temple and the city of Jerusalem.

Jochanan ben Zacchai then asked for and received the sponsorship and help of the Roman Emperor Vespasian and with that then reorganized the Satanic Priesthood of the Naasseni (the Babylonian sect of the Jews which were the Haburah the serpent worshippers), i.e the Pharisees’ Sanhedrin, in Jamnia (Yavneh).

His successor, Rabbi Gamaliel (II), circa 90 A.D., continued the curses against Christ and the Christians made in the temple by the Jew Satan Worshippers, the Naasseni. This was originally just before the destruction of the temple by the Roman General Titus.  This was the "curse against the noẓerim and the minim" (Christ and the Christians) added to the Eighteen Temple Benedictions then. This was the abomination of desolation that Jesus Christ warned about in Matthew 24. It has been recited at every "authorized" synagogue since then – ALL OF THESE SYNAGOUES ARE THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM IS THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION.

At Jamnia the Satanic cult of Pharisee Rebbis led by Rabbi Gamaliel (II), supposedly on the authority of the first Gamaliel who taught Saul and interceded for the Christians decades earlier, spouted the wide mouth frog vitriol and claimed to close the canon of Scripture against (the so called by Jamnia only) “apocryphal books” which were in fact the real Old Testament Canon of Scripture of the Biblical original Hebrew text and the Septuagint text which was faithful to that, and also against the New Covenant (New Testament) Scriptures which were the Gospels and the Book of the Acts and the Epistles and the Book of the Revelation all of which proclaimed the Truth that Jesus is the Immortal Son of God and the Messiah of God in the flesh confessed by Jew and Gentile Christian alike.

At the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. God’s judgment fell on the bloody and Satanic Jews, which the Christians escaped, having been prophetically forewarned by Christ to flee the abomination of the desolation and did so and fled to Pella directly East of the Jordan in the Decapolis area before it occurred.

The Christians flourished while the judgment of God came upon the Jews which just increased the furor of the always bloody and perfidious and demonically hardened of heart Jews clinging to their crime of Deicide hoping to secure favor from Satan (the Naas of the Naasseni  which was the Satanic Jews’ Priesthood of Babylon, the Jews Haburah, from the 6th century B.C. and was called the sect of the Pharisees at the time of Our Only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and which persecuted Him unto death – but He rose again.


Another Satanic Hoax of the Apostate Jews.

2005 Announcement anticipating their bloody stunts to fake the coming of the Apostate Jews’ false messiah which is in actuality the Antichrist, the Dajjal, the Yiddish ha maschiah. It was supposed to all have happened by 2007 (2008 at latest) since that was 40 years from the Jews bloody invasion of the Noble Sanctuary in 1967, these are part of the prophetically forewarned wars of the Antichrist. Biblically, forty years is a “generation.” That false timeline of the Jews had been geared for that forty year period to gain the support of the Apostate Christian Zionist sect of damned heretics – it has led to the Anglo-American support of the Antichrist’s wars against God and God’s people, Christian and Muslim alike in the Middle East and around the world. God will judge America and England without mercy for the complete merciless actions of the United States and Great Britain. False Antichrist Israel Gog and Magog of the Zionist Jews is destined ONLY for everlasting perdition in hellfire with Satan their ruler forever.


Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri - "With the help of G- d [Kaduri means the Devil, belial, Satan, Iblis], the soul of the Mashiach [Kaduri means a demon or even Satan himself] has attached itself to a person in Israel." See Note 1 at the bottom.

“ba” in Graeco Egptian Pagan Necromantic Sorcery is the soul of a human being, the nephesh or psuche. “ka” is a demon from Satan, or in the worst form of Satanic possession is a fallen angel or even Satan himself.

The following is the power source of the Jews and Judaism, known as “superforce” in the Apostate Vatican and is the core of Freemasonry (including especially in Washington D.C. politics all of which are owned by the Freemasonic influence) and is the central Diabolic preternatural presence in Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the rest of all of the Diabolic cults in the world.

That is the pagan Graeco Egyptian destruction of the “immaculate children” by ripping their entrails out to secure the demon (the “ka”) supposedly attached to the young infant’s soul (the “ba”) this is the most horrid necromantic sorcery performed by murdering children (any of these three young babies-children: preborn ripped from the mother’s womb, or just after birth, or a young child). This is the core of the Jews’ blood murder of children down through the ages and the Jews’ (Alan Guttmacher and the rest of the Jews who perpetrated abortion of Gentiles) foisting upon the world the abomination of abortion. This was the core of the cults that worshipped Satan by murder blood sacrifice in the ancient world. Included are the cults of Moloch and Chemosh in the Levant and Melkart of Carthage (Hercules of Greek pagan religion) and the rest stretching from the ancient world into the 6th century A.D. in the Mediterranean and continued to the present by Jews’ in secrecy (the so called blood libel – it is no libel, it is all true).  




MATTHEW 24
CHAPTER XXIV.

Christ foretells the destruction of the temple: with the signs that shall come before it, and before the last judgment.  We must always watch.

1 And *Jesus being come out of the temple went away.  And his disciples came to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And he answering, said to them: Do you see all these things?  Amen, I say to you, *there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be thrown down.
3 And as he was sitting on Mount Olivet, the disciples came to him privately, saying: Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the consummation of the world?
4 And Jesus answering, said to them: *Take heed that no man seduce you:
5 For many will come in my name saying, I am Christ: and they will seduce many.
6 And you shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars.  See that ye be not troubled.  For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places.
8 Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows.
9 *Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
10 And then shall many be scandalized, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many.
12 And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.
13 But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come.
15 *When therefore, you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by **Daniel, the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand.
16 Then let them that are in Judea flee to the mountains:
17 And let him that is on the house top, not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 And let him that is in the field, not go back to take his coat.


19 And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days.
20 But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the *sabbath.
21 For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be.
22 And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect, those days shall be shortened.
23 *Then if any man shall say to you: Lo, here is Christ, or there: do not believe him.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if it were possible) even the elect.
25 Behold, I have told it to you before hand.
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.
____________________
*


1 - 3:  Mark xiii. 1 - 4.; Luke xxi. 5 - 7.
1:  A.D. 33.; Mark xiii. 1.; Luke xxi. 5.
2:  Luke xix. 44.
3:  Matthew v. 1. John vi. 3.
4 - 8:  Mark xiii. 5 - 8.; Luke xxi. 8 - 11.
4:  Jer. xxix. 8.; Ephes. v. 6.; Coloss. ii. 18.
5:  Matthew xxiv. 11, 24.; Jer. xiv. 14.
7:  II Par. xv. 6.; Is. xix. 2.
9 - 14:  Mark xiii. 9 - 13.; Luke xxi. 12 - 19.
9:  Matthew x. 17.; Matthew x. 21, 22.; Luke xxi. 12.; John xv. 20.;  John xvi. 2.
11:  Matthew xxiv. 5, 24.; II Peter ii. 1.; I John iv. 1.
13:  Matthew x. 22.
14:  Matthew xxvi. 13.; Mark xvi. 15.; Col. i. 5,6,23.
15 - 22:  Mark xiii. 14 - 20. Luke xxi. 20 - 24.
15:  Mark xiii. 14.; Luke xxi. 20. --- ** Dan. ix. 27.
17, 18:   Luke xvii. 31.
19:  Luke xxiii. 29.
20:  Acts i. 12.
21:  Daniel xii. 1.; Apoc. xvi. 18.
23 - 25:  Mark xiii. 21 - 23.
23:  Mark xiii. 21.; Luke xvii. 21, 23.
24:  Matthew xxiv. 5, 11.; Dt. xiii. 1.; Apoc. xix. 20.; II Th. ii. 9.
27:  Luke xvii. 24.
28:  Job xxxix. 30.; Luke xvii. 37.
29 - 31:  Mark xiii. 24 - 27.; Luke xxi. 25 - 28.

29:  Isai. xiii. 10.; Acts ii. 20.; Apoc. vi. 12,13.; Is. xxxiv. 4.; Ezech. xxxii. 7.; Joel ii. 10.; Joel iii. 15.; Mark xiii. 24.; Luke xxi. 25.; 
30:  IV Esr. xiii. 32; Zach. xii. 12.; Apoc. i. 7.; Matthew xvi. 27.; Matthew xxvi. 64.; Daniel vii. xiii.; Mark viii. 38.;  Luke ix. 26.; Apoc. xiv. 14.
30, 31:  I Thess. iv. 16.

31:  1 Cor. xv. 52.; 1 Thess. iv. 15.; Matthew xiii. 41.; Isaiah xxvii. 12, 13.
32, 33:  Mark xiii. 28, 29.; Luke xxi. 29 - 31.
33:  James v. 9.; Apoc. iii. 20. 
34, 35:  Luke xxi. 32, 33.  
34 - 36:  Mark xiii. 30 - 32.  
34:  Matthew xxiii. 36. 
35:  Matthew v. 18.; Mark xiii. 31.; II Peter iii. 12.; Psalm ci. 27.; Psalm cxviii. 89. 
36:  Matthew xxv. 13.; Zach. xiv. 7.; Mark xiii. 32, 35.; Acts i. 7.   
37 - 39:  Luke xvii. 26, 27.  
37:  Gen. vii. 7.; Luke xvii. 26.
38:  Luke xx. 34.; Gen. vii. 13.  
40, 41:  Luke xvii. 34, 35. 
42:  Matthew xxiv. 50.; Matthew xxv. 13.; Mark xiii. xxxiii.
43, 44:  Luke xii. 39, 40.
43:  Mark xiii. 35.; Luke xii. 39.
45 - 51:  Luke xii. 42 - 46.
45:  Ps. ciii. 27
46:  Apoc. xvi. 15.
47:  Matthew xxv. 21, 23.
48:  Matthew xxv. 19: II Peter iii. 4.
49:  Dt. xxi. 20. 
50:  Matthew xxiv. 42.
51:  Matthew viii. 12.; Matthew xiii. 42.; Matthew xxv. 30.
====================


MATTHEW 24

CHAPTER XXIV.

Ver. 1.  After the fatigues of preaching and teaching, Jesus towards evening left the temple, as it is in the Greek, eporeueto apo tou ierou, and went towards Mount Olivet, where he was accustomed to spend his nights, as we learn from S. Luke, c. xxi. v. penult.  Jans. — His disciples came to shew him the buildings, not moved by curiosity, for they had seen them frequently before, but by pity; because he had on a former occasion, and only just before in Jerusalem, threatened the destruction of the temple and city, hoping that the splendour and magnificence of so fine a structure, consecrated to God, might alter his determination, as S. Hilarius observes.  But the anger of God, provoked by sins, is not to be appeased with stones and buildings.  He therefore answered them: (Jans.)

Ver. 2.  Do you see all these things?  Examine again and again all this magnificence, that the sentence of heaven may appear more striking. — A stone upon a stone.  We need not look on this as an hyperbole.  The temple burnt by the Romans, and afterwards even ploughed up.  See Greg. Naz. orat. ii. cont. Julianum, Theodoret l. iii. Histor. c. xx. &c.  Wi. — Julian the apostate, wishing to falsify the predictions of Daniel and of Jesus Christ, attempted to rebuild the temple.  For this purpose, he assembled the chief among the Jews, and asking them why they neglected the prescribed sacrifices, was answered, that they could not offer any where else but in the temple of Jerusalem.  Upon this he ordered them to repair to Jerusalem, to rebuild their temple, and restore their ancient worship, promising them his concurrence in carrying on the work.  This filled the Jews with inexpressible joy.  Hence flocking to Jerusalem, they began with scorn and triumph to insult over the Christians.  Contributions came in from all parts.  The Jewish women stripped themselves of their most costly ornaments.  The emperor opened his treasures to furnish every thing necessary for the building.  The most able workmen were convened from all parts; persons of the greatest distinction were appointed to direct the work; and the emperor's friend, Alipius, was set over the whole, with orders to carry on the work without ceasing, and to spare no expense.  All materials were laid in to an immense quantity.  The Jews of both sexes bore a share in the labour; the women helping to dig the ground, and carry away the rubbish in their aprons and gowns.  It is even said that the Jews appointed some pick-axes, spades, and baskets, to be made of silver, for the honour of the work.  Till this time the foundations and some ruins of the walls had remained, as appears from S. Cyril, in his catechism xv. n. 15. and Euseb. Dem. Evang. l. viii. p. 406.  These ruins the Jews first demolished with their own hands, thus concurring to the accomplishment of our Saviour's prediction.  They next began to dig a new foundation, in which many thousands were employed.  But what they had thrown up in the day, was, by repeated earthquakes, the night following cast back again into the trench.  When Alipius the next day was earnestly pressing on the work, with the assistance of the governor of the province, there issued, says Ammianus Marcellinus, such horrible balls of fire out of the earth near the foundations, as to render the place inaccessible from time to time to the scorched workmen.  And the victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, Alipius, thought proper to abandon, though reluctantly, the enterprise.  This great event happened in the beginning of the year 363, and with many very astonishing circumstances is recorded both by Jews and Christians.  See the proofs and a much fuller account of this astonishing event, which all the ancient fathers describe as indubitable, in Alban Butler's life of S. Cyril of Jerusalem, March 18th.  Thus they so completely destroyed whatever remained of the ancient temple, that there was not left one stone upon another; nor were they permitted by heaven even to begin the new one.  Maldonatus.

Ver. 3.  Tell us, when shall these things be?  and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the consummation of the world?[1]  We must take good notice with S. Jerom, that three questions are here joined together.  1. Concerning the destruction of Jerusalem; 2. of the coming of Christ; 3. of the end of the world.  Christ's answers and predictions in this chapter, are to be expounded with a reference to the three questions.  This hath not been considered by those interpreters; who expound every thing here spoken by Christ of the destruction of Jerusalem; nor by others, who will have all understood of his coming to judgment, and of the end of the world.  Wi. — It is probable the apostles themselves did not understand that they were asking about two distinct events.  Being filled with the idea of a temporal kingdom, they thought that Christ's second coming would take place soon; and that Jerusalem, once destroyed, the Messias would begin his reign on earth.

Ver. 4.  And Jesus answering.  Various are the interpretations given here.  Some will have it refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place, A.D. 70; and others, to the end of the world.  That of S. Chrys. seems to be very conformable to the context, and is followed by many.  He explains all, to the 23d verse exclusively, of what shall precede the destruction of Jerusalem; nor is there any circumstance which cannot easily be referred to that event, as will appear from a careful and attentive observation of the history of the Jews, and of the Church at that time, in the writings of Josephus and Eusebius.  Even the preaching of the gospel to the whole world, which seems to favour the contrary explanation, is by the same father said to have taken place before the destruction of Jerusalem.  S. Paul tells the Colossians, that even in his time the faith was spread all over the world.  The abomination of desolation may be explained of the Roman soldiery, or, of the seditious zealots, who, by their murders and other atrocities, polluted the temple.  See Josephus, b. 4. and 5. of the Jewish war.  As deicide was a crime peculiar to the Jews and exceeded every other crime, their punishment was severe above measure.  Had the Almighty punished them to the full of what they had deserved, not one of the Jews would have escaped.  But as he formerly would have spared Sodom and Gomorrha, had there been found therein ten just men to avert the impending ruin; so shall these days of affliction be shortened for the sake of some who believe.  The verses subsequent to the 22d, are explained by S. Chrys. of the second coming of Christ, previous to the general judgment.  Jans. — Such as wish for a more particular explanation of every thing preceding the 23d verse, how it applies to the Jews, may consult the concordance of Jansenius, who thus concludes his observations: "Hitherto we have explained all things of the destruction of Jerusalem, which prophecies, though they principally regarded the times of the apostles, may be of use to us in two ways.  1. It will confirm our faith, when we see clearly fulfilled whatever was  distinctly foretold of this people; and may serve to increase our fears, when we reflect, that what is immediately added concerning the day of judgment, shall be fulfilled with the same rigorous exactitude and certainty.  It is another effect of divine Providence for the increase of our faith, that this prophecy, which was to take place with regard to Jerusalem, is not mentioned by S. John, who lived long enough to see it accomplished, but by the other evangelists, who died long before the event.  2. It should animate us in the practice of virtue, and gratitude to reflect, that whatever tribulations happen to the Church, or throughout the earth, all co-operate to the advantage of the elect.  Such as will be good, have nothing to fear."  Jans.

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. 6.  Shall hear of wars.  Most authors understand this second sign of the Jewish wars which preceded the ruin of Jerusalem; others of the wars of Antichrist, previous to the end of the world.  Both are very probable.  The first is proved from history, and from the events; the latter, from what we learn from the Apocalypse, will certainly happen.  M. — These things must happen, as is said of scandals and heresies, not absolutely, but considering the malice of man, and the decree of God, by which he had determined to punish the Jews.  Maldonatus.

Ver. 7.  And there shall be, according to the proverb, loimoV meta limon, plague after famine, both natural daughters of war, with intestine divisions, earthquakes, and other calamities; the third sign. . . .  As the bodies of men generally grow weak and faint previously to dissolution, so will it be with the earth before the destruction of the world; so that this inferior globe will be shaken with unusual convulsions, as if making its last effort for existence.  The air filled with destructive vapours will turn to the ruin of men, and the earth exhausted of its natural fertility, will refuse its accustomed support to the sons of Adam.  Hence will arise wars and famines, insurrections, rebellions, and mobs; some driven on by famine and want, others by ambition and avarice.  But if the corrupted heart of man shall refuse to depart from its evil ways, these calamities shall be increased; for all these are only the beginnings of more dreadful sorrows.  Origen.

Ver. 9.  Then shall they deliver you up, &c.  The fourth sign, common to both these events, shall be the persecution raised against the Church, which will be two-fold; it will regard both body and soul.  See Luke xxi. 12.  Mark xiii. 9.  All this happened to the apostles previously to the siege of Jerusalem, as well as to the martyrs in subsequent times.  A similar persecution, attended probably with additional severity, will most probably be the lot of the faithful during the reign of Antichrist.  The calamities, bloodshed, and utter ruin which took place at the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, are a figure of the still more dreadful calamities, bloodshed, and ruin to be expected towards the end of the world; and which should be frequently present to our minds.  The late learned and venerable prelate Walmesly admonishes all parents to stand prepared for the bloody trial themselves, and to teach their children to be ever ready to meet, with Christian resignation, the awful and approaching event; for the rest of the world, as we learn from revelation, will be taken by surprise, as the people at the deluge.  Yes, this last may literally be styled a bloody trial; for the Church, which was purified with blood, began in blood, increased in blood, and will end in blood.
                        Sanguine mundata est ecclesia, sanguine cœpit,
                        Sanguine succrevit, sanguine finis erit.
The last chapter of the Apocalypse, which is the last communication of the divine will to man, is deserving our frequent and very attentive perusal.  In it Jesus Christ, by his repeated warnings, wishes to awaken us to a sense of that day of general retribution, saying: surely I come quickly: behold I come quickly: and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works.  (Behold the merit of good works proceeding from faith and charity.)  With what earnestness have the servants of God, in every age, prayed with S. John: (ibid) Come, Lord Jesus; come, put a final end to the reign of sin and Satan; come, admit thy elect, who have been purified in the waters of the great persecution, and in the blood of the Lamb, to thy heavenly bosom; to that happy sanctuary and asylum, where no hunger or thirst, no scorching heat of the sun, no fiery temptation will any more reach or molest them; where the sigh and the groan will not be heard; where all tears will be wiped away from every eye, and where they will be inebriated at the torrent of immortal delights, and will see and enjoy the Lord Jesus, without any apprehension of offending him, for ever and ever.  A.

Ver. 11.  And many false prophets shall rise, like those lying teachers mentioned by S. Peter, (2nd Ep. c. ii. v. 1) who shall bring in sects of perdition, (i.e. heresies destructive of salvation) bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Ver. 12.  And because iniquity hath (literally, shallabounded, shall arrive at its height, the charity of many, carried away by the force of bad example, will grow cold; and scarcely, even among Christians, will a person be found willing to assist Christians, lest he may be known for a Christian.  Of this we have an example, 2 Tim. iv. 16, At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all forsook me: may it not be laid to their charge; but the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me.  Maldonatus.

Ver. 13.  But he that shall persevere to the end, in the midst of this trying and afflicting scene, in faith and charity, (or as it is in the Greek; he that shall preserve his patience to the end, o upomeinaV, proof against heresies, persecutions, hatreds, or scandals) shall be saved.  To perseverance alone this promise is made; for, non quæruntur in Christianis initia sed finis.  Tert.  A part of this prediction was, beyond all doubt, accomplished with regard to the faithful, in the first persecutions raised by the Jews against the infant Christian Church; but the entire and literal completion of it is reserved for the latter times.

Ver. 14.  This gospel . . . shall be preached in the whole world, to serve as a testimony to all nations, of the solicitude of heaven in having the doctrine of salvation announced to them.  This then is a fifth sign, and not till then shall the consummation come. — And then shall the consummation come.  The end of the world, says S. Jerom.  The destruction of Jerusalem, says S. Chrys. and others.  Wi. — If the final destruction of Jerusalem be here meant, the gospel had been preached throughout the major part of the then known world.  See Rom. x. and Colos. i. 6, 23.  If the end of the world, there is the greatest probability that the true faith will have been announced to every part of the globe, before that period.

Ver. 15.  The abomination of desolation was first partly fulfilled by divers profanations of the temple, as when the image of Cæsar was set up in the temple by Pilate, and Adrian's statue in the holy of holies, and when the sacrifices were taken away; but will be more completely fulfilled by Antichrist and his precursors, when they shall attempt to abolish the holy sacrifice of the mass.  S. Hyppolitus, in his treatise de Anti-Christo, mentioned by Eusebius, S. Jerom, and Photius, thus writeth: "The churches shall lament with great lamentations, because there shall neither be made oblations, nor incense, nor worship grateful to God. . .  In those days the liturgy (or mass) shall be neglected, the psalmody shall cease, the reciting of Scripture shall not be heard." — The prophet Daniel (xii. 11.) calculates the reign of Antichrist, from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away; which, by able commentators, is understood of the sacrifice of the mass, which Antichrist will endeavour to suppress. — The abomination of desolation,[2] or the abominable desolation.  Instead of these words, we read in S. Luke,  (xxi. 20.) When you shall see Jerusalem surrounded by an army.  Christ said both the one and the other.  But the words in S. Luke, seem rather to give us a sign of the ruin of Jerusalem, than of the end of the world. — Spoken of by Daniel, the prophet.  The sense is, when you shall see that very prophecy of Daniel literally fulfilled hereafter.  What follows in the prophecy of Daniel, confirms this exposition; when the prophet adds, that the desolation shall continue to the end; that the Jews from that time, shall be no more the people of God, for denying their Messias; and that they shall put the Christ to death.  But what then was this desolation, which by the following verse, was to be a sign to the Christians to fly out of Judea?  Some expound it of the heathen Roman army, approaching and investing Jerusalem, called the holy city.  Others understand the profanation of the temple, made by the Jews themselves, a little before the siege under Vespasian; when the civil dissensions, those called the Zealots, had possessed themselves of the temple, and placed their warlike engines upon the pinnacles; and a part, at least, of the temple was defiled with the dead bodies of those killed there.  It was at that time that the Christians, according to Christ's admonition, left Jerusalem and Judea, and fled to Pella, beyond the river Jordan.  See Euseb. l. iii. Hist. c. v.  Wi.

Ver. 16.  Then let those.  It is well known that this prophecy was verified to the letter, in the destruction of Jerusalem.  For, as the Roman army advanced, all the Christians who were in the province, forewarned by divine admonition, retired to a distance, and crossing the Jordan, took refuge in the city of Pella, situated in Trachonitis, and became subjects of king Agrippa, who was in amity with the Romans.  Remigius.

Ver. 17.  Not come down, into the house.  They had no occasion, as Mauduit and others seem to suppose, to throw themselves from the roof, for the Jews had usually stairs on the outside of their houses.  V.

Ver. 20.  In the winter: an inconvenient season for flying away. — Or on the sabbath, when it was lawful to travel only about a mile.  Wi. — Pray to God that you may be enabled to escape those evils, and that there may be no impediment to your flight.  Estius in dif. loca.

Ver. 22.  No flesh: a Hebraism for no person; denoting that no one would have escaped death, had the war continued.  Wi. — All the Jews would have been destroyed by the Romans, or all the Christians by Antichrist.  Maldonatus. — From this place, Jesus Christ foretells the coming of Antichrist, and forewarns Christians of latter ages, to guard all they can against seduction.

Ver. 23.  Lo, here is Christ.  These words are very aptly applied by Catholics to the conventicles of heretics; and would Christians attend to the injunctions of their divine Master, Go ye not out:believe it not, we should not see the miserable confusion occasioned in the Catholic Church [which, the Catholic Church, is not defined by "Rome" but by adherence to apostolic doctrine], by unsteady Christians; who are guilty of schism, in forsaking the one true fold, and one shepherd, to follow their blind and unauthorized leaders (typologically this refers to Gnostics and Judaizing heretics or those which blaspheme God with false doctrines such as Freemasonry and its embrace of Satan.).  E. MOST ESPECIALLY we are warned here not to have anything to do with the false shepherd(s) who will come at the end nor any with them nor those who follow them - see here: Concerning the false prophets and the False Prophet, i.e. the primary ones and the False Prophet himself, Huchede quotes the conclusion in accord with the full consensus of the Church Fathers, The Antichrist - Chapter 2 - ARTICLE II - 2.His Apostles  "...he will not be a king, nor a general of an army, but a clever apostate, fallen from the episcopal dignity. From being an apostle of the Gospel he will become the first preacher of the false messiah." These are the current Antipopes since 1958 (John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI), and all of the episcopal leaders with them (Episcopus meaning Bishop, especially the Bishops [Antipopes] of Rome fallen from the faith).

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. 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. The final destruction of Jerusalem shall come at the end of the age when Jerusalem shall have become the center of Antichrist's short lived empire; then shall Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ at His Second Coming raise and judge all men in the flesh here on earth at the general judgment of all men by the just judge, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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.
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[1]  V. 3.  S. Jer. on this place, says, Interrogant tria: quo tempore Jerusalem destruenda sit: quo venturus Christus: quo consummatio sæculi futura sit.

[2]  V. 15.  Abominationem desolationis. Bdelugma thV erhmwsewV.  The same words are in the Sept.  Dan. ix.  See S. Jerom on this place, and S. Chrys. hom. lxxvi. and lxxvii. in Matt.

[3]  V. 28.  Corpus; in most Greek copies, ptwma, cadaver.  See again S. Jerom, and S. Chrys. hom. lxxvii, p. 492.

[4]  V. 34.  Generatio hæc.  Theophylact, h genea twn cristianwn.

[5]  V. 36.  S. Aug. l. 83. QQ. quæst. 60. tom. 6, p. 33.  Ed. Ben. dicitur nescire filius, quia facit nescire homines, i.e. non prodit eis, quod inutiliter scirent.  See the same S. Aug. l. 1. de Trin. c. xii. tom. 8, p. 764 and 765. and lib. de Gen. cont. Manich. c. xxii. p. 659. tom. 1.




Note 1: Jesus said: John v. 43. "I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive." This is Jesus telling us that the Antichrist will be an Apostate Jew leading Apostate Jews.



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Consult the saints on the end of this age.






See this for the history of the world from creation to the Second Coming of Christ.