Keep watch
From a commentary on the Diatessaron by Saint Ephrem, deacon (306-373)
Keep watch; he is to come again
To prevent his disciples from asking the time of his coming, Christ said: About that hour no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son. It is not for you to know times or moments. He has kept those things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. If he had revealed the time of his coming, his coming would have lost its savor: it would no longer be an object of yearning for the nations and the age in which it will be revealed. He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations and ages await him eagerly.
Though the Lord has established the signs of his coming, the time of their fulfillment has not been plainly revealed. These signs have come and gone with a multiplicity of change; more than that, they are still present. His final coming is like his first. As holy men and prophets waited for him, thinking that he would reveal himself in their own day, so today each of the faithful longs to welcome him in his own day, because Christ has not made plain the day of his coming.
He has not made it plain for this reason especially, that no one may think that he whose power and dominion rule all numbers and times is ruled by fate and time. He described the signs of his coming; how could what he has himself decided be hidden from him? Therefore, he used these words to increase respect for the signs of his coming, so that from that day forward all generations and ages might think that he would come again in their own day.
Keep watch; when the body is asleep nature takes control of us, and what is done is not done by our will but by force, by the impulse of nature. When deep listlessness takes possession of the soul, for example, faintheartedness or melancholy, the enemy overpowers it and makes it do what it does not will. The force of nature, the enemy of the soul, is in control.
When the Lord commanded us to be vigilant, he meant vigilance in both parts of man: in the body, against the tendency to sleep; in the soul, against lethargy and timidity. As Scripture says: Wake up, you just, and I have risen, and am still with you; and again, Do not lose heart. Therefore, having this ministry, we do not lose heart.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Saint Ephrem was born at Nisibis, Mesopotamia of Christian parents. He served under St. James of Nisibis and became head of his school. He probably attended the Council of Nicaea in 325. Syrian sources attribute the deliverance of Nisibis from the Persians in 350 to his prayers. Thirteen years later when the city was ceded to the Persians by Emperor Jovian, he took residence in a cave near Edessa in Roman territory and preached to the Christians. It was here that he did most of his writing. He visited St. Basil at Caesarea in 370 and on his return helped victims of the famine in 372-73 by distributing food and money to the stricken and helping the poor.
Ephrem wrote volumes in Syriac on dogmatic and ascetical themes using scriptural sources. He also wrote against the heresies of the Arians and the Gnostics and on the Last Judgment. He was especially devoted to the Blessed Virgin and was absolutely certain of her sinlessness. He introduced hymns in public worship. Particularly outstanding are his Nisibeian hymns and the canticles for the seasons giving him the surname “the Harp of the Holy Spirit.” He died at Edessa around 373 and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. He was the only Syrian to be so honored.