For wherever the carcass is, there will the vultures be gathered together.
All Commentaries on Matthew 24:28 Go To Matthew 24
Jerome
AD 420
We are taught about the sacrament of Christ by the use of a natural example taken from daily life. Eagles and vultures are said to sense the presence of a carcass all the way across the sea and to gather their food in this way. If therefore these irrational creatures have the natural capacity to know where a small body lies, even though separated by so great a distance across land and sea, how much more ought we and the whole multitude of believers hasten to him whose splendor comes from the east and shines as far as the west! In Greek the body is called a pt&#;ma, but the Latin word for it, cadaver, is more illuminating because it comes from the word “to fall,” cadere, and implies that the body has fallen dead. We can understand this body to refer to the Passion of Christ because wherever Scripture says that we are gathered together, it is for the purpose of coming to the Word of God. For example, “A company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet,” “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” and in other passages like these. The eagles represent those saints whose youth is renewed like the eagle’s and who, according to Isaiah, shall mount up with wings to come to the passion of Christ. .
