Cornelius Lapide S.J., Prophetic Commentary on St. Luke 18:8

[Jean Carrier]

I was reading Lapide's commentary on St. Luke's gospel thus morning and couldn't help but notice how almost prophetic it was when he got to verse 18:8. Bear in mind it was written in the 16th century.

Ver. 8.—When the Son of man cometh. He comes to the universal judgment, when He will deliver His elect, whom He ordered to be always ready and eager; and to await that day patiently, preparing themselves for it by prayer and good works. For that day will be sudden and unexpected like lightning, as He Himself has said (chap. xvii. 24). Christ gives the reason why we should always pray, and persevere in prayer; because from His long absence, faith will fail even in many who believe, so that they will either lose all faith or believe very feebly, scarcely thinking that He will return at all. Secondly, Christ here gives the reason, why many are not heard in prayer. Their faith begins to fail and they do not continue steadfast in prayer, nor await the coming of the Lord with patience as they ought.

Thirdly, Theophylact says, "He rightly connected His words on prayer with those on faith, for the base and foundation of all prayer is faith. He declared at the same time that few would pray, for faith would be found in few."

Christ says this to add a fresh incentive to unceasing prayer, for by degrees faith is failing more and more, and offences and persecutions are therefore increasing.

Shall He find faith—perfect faith, that is; faith formed by certain confidence (fiducia) and love. "This," says S. Augustine (tract xxxvi), "is scarcely found on earth, for the Church of the faithful is full of imperfect faith, and is, as it were, half dead." Christ Him-self explains it so, S. Matt. xxiv. 12.

This will happen more especially; at the end of the world before the coming of Christ to judgment, when men shall eat and drink themselves over to pleasure and think not of the judgment, as Christ said, chap. xvii. 27; and S. Peter, 2 Pet. iii. 3. That is, Christians will deny that He is coming to judgment, even when that coming is near at hand (2 Peter iii. 4). As if they had said, "Nature has made the world: the same Nature continues its course in the same tenor, and always will continue it. There is no God to destroy it: no Deity to judge us and our works, and to punish them."