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The Revolt of the Intellect Against God by Cardinal Manning

"But yet the Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth? St. Luke, 28.8.

By this question our Divine Lord intends us to understand that, when He comes, He shall find many who do not believe, many who have fallen from the faith. It foretells that there shall be apostasies; and if apostasies, therefore that He shall still find the truth; but He will find also those that have fallen from it. And this is what the Holy Ghost, speaking by the Apostle, has distinctly prophesied. St. Paul says, "Now the Spirit manifestly saith that, in the last times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils." And again, St. John says, "Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heart that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour." The meaning therefore of our Lord is this: not that when He comes He will not find the Church He founded in all the plenitude of its power, and the faith He revealed in all the fullness of its doctrine. "The city seated upon the hill cannot be hid." The Holy Catholic Church is the "light of the world," and so shall be to the end. It can never be separated from its Divine Head in heaven. The Spirit of Truth, who came on the day of Pentecost, according to our Divine Lord's promise, will abide with it forever: therefore when the Son of God shall come at the end of the world, there shall be His Church as in the beginning, in the amplitude of its Divine authority, in the fullness of its Divine faith, and the immutability of its teaching. He will find then the light shining in vain in the midst of many who will be willingly blind; the teacher in the midst of multitudes, of whom many will be willingly deaf: they will have eyes, and see not; and ears, and hear not; and hearts that will not understand. As it was at His first coming, so shall it be at His second. This, then is the plain meaning of our Lord's words."

Source: Catholic Oratory: A Compilation of Sacred and Sublime Orations by Card. James Gibbons