No one is ignorant that watchfulness is always and in all things wholesome, for in very truth to watch more is to live more. For what is so like death as the appearance of one asleep? What is so full of life as the form of one keeping watch? Sleep is to be indulged that it may restore the body, not dissolve it, and recall its strength, not enfeeble it. No one, therefore, is ignorant that watchfulness is always and in all things wholesome. What art, what work, what time, what power, what office does not seek the gains of life by keeping vigil? Hence it is that a king, ever-watchful when armed for battle, guards against and escapes the ambushes of a cunning foe; and then in the camp the soldier, by careful watching through the night, repels the sudden nocturnal assaults that come upon him.
Thus the sailor by watching enters the uncertain ways of a far-flung voyage, crosses trackless paths, and with stealthy step comes to the longed-for harbor of a gainful port. Hence the shepherd joins nights to days, and denies himself all time for sleeping, in which, with sleep abetting them, the wolves would be given occasion to prowl upon the flock. Thus the skilful traveler, journeying through the night air, forestalls the heat of the sun, and more providently reckons the fitting day for his lodging. Knowing this, the prophet cried to the Lord not by day alone but through the whole night: 'O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried in the day, and in the night before Thee' (Psalm LXXXVII). What more? The Lord Himself passes the night in the prayer of God (Luke VI), that He might free us by prayer before He redeems us by His passion.
And if the Lord watches for His servants, He rightly commands the servants to watch for their own sakes. 'Let your loins be girded,' He says, 'and your lamps burning in your hands, and be yourselves like men waiting for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding' (Luke XII). 'Let your loins be girded.' A new order of vigils, a new attire is commanded. 'Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning in your hands.' The watchful servants are admonished nothing about clothing, nothing about footwear, nothing about the outfit for the very meeting; but all their care is enjoined in the girding of the loins, all the force of the precept is placed in the binding of the loins, with only the solace of lamps added, without which neither is the darkness of night dispelled, nor does the aspect of the coming day grow bright.
'Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning in your hands.' The girdle indeed is properly a sign of servitude, which both renders one unencumbered in running and makes one obedient. But it would have sufficed to have said, 'Be girded'; why does He name the loins in particular? Why with such reverence does the One commanding make especial mention of the loins? Do you ask why? Because in the loins is the whole occasion of the body; from the loins all the business of the flesh is stirred up; in the loins is the whole occasion of man's fall and of human frailty. Thence comes that which renders men ignorant of virtue and makes them more sluggish.
Hence it is that the Lord principally commands our loins to be bound with the belt of chastity, and orders all that is drooping, flowing, and loosened in our flesh to be constrained by the continual girdle of virtue, so that, the flesh being girt up, the going of our mind may be rendered free, swift, and unencumbered for the meeting with the Lord. Yet hearing this, O man, you ought to know that the flesh does not hold you back from the meeting with God, since its meeting is the inseparable companion of that office, if you arrange its burdens, if you lighten its loads, if, as a provident traveler, you bind up its drooping and winding wrappings. What more?
It will be a wholesome companion to you, if you are not a slothful and dissolute governor of it. But how you ought to make its burdens even, and to moderate its unjust weights, the Apostle teaches, saying thus: 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols' (Colossians III, 5). The flesh, therefore, must be bound with the girdle of continence, lest, poured out in vices and weighed down with the whole burden of sins, it be unable to press on in the heavenly and celestial steps. Well, then, did the Lord add: 'And lamps burning in your hands.' For lamps are always carried in the night-time as a testimony to innocence;
and just as darkness is always the friend of vices, so lamps are always the enemies of crimes; lamps are always the companions of good work. But in the hands of the saints, the good works themselves are the lamps, as the Lord says: 'Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven' (Matthew V).
And they truly carry their lamps, they truly kindle their torches with the fuel of works, truly with the ointment of mercy, they who, though hidden in place, in purpose, in zealous study, gleam by their work, by their virtue, and shine throughout the whole world. And because the Lord knew the temper of those awaiting Him to be quite sorrowful, quite anxious, lest anyone be overcome by weariness, lest anyone grow faint at the delay, lest anyone sink under the fatigue of a long waiting, He promises heavenly service to those who persevere unto heavenly blessedness. 'Blessed,' He says, 'are those servants whom the Lord, when He comes, shall find watching.' And lest the quality of that blessedness be held uncertain, He at once added:
'Amen I say to you, that He will gird Himself, and make them recline at table, and passing by, will minister to them.' God will gird Himself, and make His servants recline, and will minister to them. O unheard-of change of things! O awesome reversal of dominion! Behold the fearful transformation of servitude: because for a little while the servant stood girt in expectation of his lord, and bore the fidelity of endurance with brief weariness, God — that He might repay him in kind — disguises Himself in His very Godhead. 'He will gird Himself and make them recline, and passing by will minister to them.' God stands beside the man reclining, and stands so in the heavens; the Lord serves the servant as he feasts.
And He serves girt up for His children, for His ministers; Christ performs the service, and He performs it now established in the glory of the Father. O man, do you still slander Christ, because He has deferred to the Father? He who, by washing your feet on earth, has represented the lowest service, and promises in the heavens the last of servitude? Believe, O heretic, and you too be zealous to repay Him in kind. He prepares for you in the heavens a banquet, with Himself as minister, and you on earth do not cease to heap up and beget continual blasphemies against Him. He too shall make His passings-by, for 'passing by He shall minister to them'; from dominion He shall pass and go over to the loving services of His faithful; but to you, from a Father of mercy, He shall pass over into a most severe judge.
'And passing by He shall minister to them.' To those confessing, to those waiting, He shall minister the feast; He shall minister to you also, but a sentence worthy of your denial. 'And if He come in the second watch, and if He come in the third watch, and so find them, blessed are those servants.' If He come in the second and third watch: the world knows more watches, but the expectation of the Trinity knows only three watches. Yet why did He begin from the second, and pass over the first in silence? Because the first watch had already passed in the dawn of the Lord's Nativity. The shepherds prove this, who, while they kept watch over their flock, were counted worthy to find, to see, to hold in the manger the very Shepherd and Author of the flock. But let us inquire what is the second and third watch.
As indeed the first watch is that of His own rising in the flesh, so the second watch is that in which our flesh returns and is raised up again. Then, that He may come to the one rising again, the year is stirred and the world awakens. The third watch is that in which the whole expectation is ended by the last coming of Him who comes; so that, as He rose again for us, so we may rise again for Him now to perpetual life.