Watch · 1
Stay Awake: Vigilance Without Fear
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Near the end of his public ministry, sitting on the Mount of Olives, Jesus told his disciples what would come before the end. He finished with a command: “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” And so that no one would think the command was meant only for the apostles, he added: “What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:33, 37).
To watch is not to be anxious, and it is not to calculate. It is to be awake to what God is doing, so that his coming, and every trial before it, finds us ready.
Blessed are the vigilant
The Lord describes the watchful disciple as a servant waiting up for his master: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival” (Luke 12:35–37).
Notice what follows. The master who finds his servants awake “will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them” (Luke 12:37). The reward for watching is not a reward for being right about the timing. It is the Lord himself, serving those who loved him enough to stay awake for him. Revelation repeats the blessing near its climax: “Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who watches” (Revelation 16:15).
Why God tells us in advance
Jesus told his disciples hard things before they happened, and he told them why: “And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe” (John 14:29). Of the trials of the last days he said simply, “Behold, I have told it to you beforehand” (Matthew 24:25).
Fr. Charles Arminjon draws the lesson. God, he writes, “desired to announce it to us so that we might prepare ourselves even now to sustain it, by having recourse to Him through prayer, and by providing ourselves with the spiritual weapons of charity and faith” (The End of the Present World, p. 48). He notes that the Apostles followed an old maxim when they wrote of the final trial: “evils foreseen do less harm” (p. 50). A blow we were warned of does not throw us down the way a surprise does.
This is the whole reason this site exists. The test of Revelation 13 is a test of worship, and a choice about worship should not be made for the first time in a moment of fear.
No one knows the day
The same Lord who commands us to watch also tells us that we cannot know when: “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matthew 24:36). After his resurrection he told the apostles again, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority” (Acts 1:7).
The Catechism holds both truths together: “Since the Ascension Christ's coming in glory has been imminent,” even though it is not for us to know the times or seasons (CCC 673). The present is “a time of waiting and watching” (CCC 672).
So watching is not date-setting. Arminjon, who wrote at length about the final trial, still warned that every attempt to fix the time has been “no more than personal, private sentiments,” and that events have shown their error “more than once” (p. 39). That is why my page on the timing only tests a theory against what has already happened, and never counts forward.
Watching without fear
In St. Paul's day some Christians became so sure the end had come that they neglected their duties and unsettled everyone around them (compare 2 Thessalonians 3:11). Arminjon describes how they drew people “away from the fulfillment of their civil and religious duties” (p. 40). St. Paul corrected them: “We ask you, brothers, … not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed” (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2). Panic is not vigilance. It is another way of being asleep.
Christ's command to watch comes with his command not to fear. “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12:7). “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me” (John 14:1). A disciple who watches with the Lord has nothing to fear from what he sees.
How to keep watch
- Pray. In Gethsemane the Lord joined the two commands: “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).
- Stay sober. “Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9).
- Keep doing your work. In the parable, the master leaves each servant “with his work” (Mark 13:34). The watchful servant is found doing what he was given to do.
- Stay close to the sacraments. The Mass, confession and adoration are where the lamp is kept burning. Preparing now goes into this in detail.
- Read the signs with the Church. Test what you hear against Scripture and the Church's teaching, not against rumor. The next page explains how I try to do that.
“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come” (Matthew 24:42).