NOTES for Mat 24:32-51
Those who reflect on the times of the Second Coming and the Last Judgment for some reason pay more attention to the cataclysms that accompany times of crisis than to Jesus' perfectly clear words that at the expected moment normal everyday life will continue: ordinary work will not stop, nor weddings, and still less the eating of meals. The main shocks will take place not in the earth's crust or in the atmosphere, but in people's lives and souls. The choice the Lord offers us is already being made now, quietly and unnoticed by most people around us. People who look completely alike make the choice, but they make it differently. For a time they are side by side, but the hour of parting will come, when each will go where he has chosen.
It is interesting that here Jesus again mentions the fig tree, which He sets before the disciples as an example of one able to sense the change of seasons. These words once more make us remember the fig tree that bore no fruit. But we are called to be constantly ready, to bear fruit, and to hand it over to the Lord.