Matthew 10:36

Verse 36. A man's foes shall be they of his own household.] Our Lord refers here to their own traditions. So Sota, fol. 49. "A little before the coming of the Messiah, the son shall insult the father, the daughter rebel against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and each man shall have his own household fur his enemies." Again, in Sanhedrin, fol. 97, it is said: "In the age in which the Messiah shall come, the young men shall turn the elders into ridicule; the elders shall rise up against the youth, the daughter against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and the man of that age shall be excessively impudent; nor shall the son reverence his father." These are most remarkable sayings, and, by them, our Lord shows them that he was the Messiah, for all these things literally took place shortly after their final rejection of Christ. See the terrible account, given by Josephus, relative to the desolations of those times. Through the just judgment of God, they who rejected the Lord that bought them became abandoned to every species of iniquity; they rejected the salvation of God, and fell into the condemnation of the devil.

Father Quesnel's note on this place is worthy of deep attention. "The father (says he) is the enemy of his son, when, through a bad education, an irregular love, and a cruel indulgence, he leaves him to take a wrong bias, instructs him not in his duty, and fills his mind with ambitious views. The son is the father's enemy, when he is the occasion of his doing injustice, in order to heap up an estate for him, and to make his fortune. The mother is the daughter's enemy, when she instructs her to please the world, breeds her up in excess and vanity, and suffers any thing scandalous or unseemly in her dress. The daughter is the mother's enemy, when she becomes her idol, when she engages her to comply with her own irregular inclinations, and to permit her to frequent balls and plays. The master is the enemy of his servant, and the servant that of his master, when the one takes no care of the other's salvation, and the latter is subservient to his master's passions."