The Four Last Things

Last Thursday, we talked a little about speculative Theology and what happens after we die. Enjoy this summary! Hopefully you'll find some new ideas to think about!

Death

When we talk about death from a theological perspective, we are talking about the separation of body and soul. As human people, we are a union of body and soul. The soul is understood as the unifying or organizing principle of the body. It is the source of life in all living things. The human soul is immortal - it survives death. So, what does the Church understand about what happens to our soul after it separates from our body (death)?

Judgment

 The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1022) tells us that the individual's soul receives its particular judgment at the moment of death. The soul either enters into the eternal blessedness of Heaven, the purification phase of purgatory (to eventually enter Heaven), or is condemned to the eternal damnation of hell.

How does God judge our soul? Well, that's a bit complicated. Here are general rules:

     - Heaven: your soul is entirely free of all sin and all attachment to sin

     - Purgatory: your soul still bears the weight of venial sins and/or attachment to sins

     - Hell: your soul rejects God, is in the state of unrepented mortal sin at death, and/or there is no remorse for sins

Heaven

Again, a lot of what we talk about when it comes to heaven is speculative. Now, some of the speculation is highly intelligent and entirely reasonable. However, when it comes to these kinds of topics it is important to remember the beauty of delighting in the MYSTERY of God and faith. Here are a couple ideas to consider...

   - When we share in God's eternal life, we share in the Divine life, but we don't actually become Divine. We don't become a different KIND of thing; we are still humans. So, while our knowledge in Heaven will likely be far more impressive than human knowledge on earth (I mean, for one thing, it's perfect), we cannot know everything. We are finite beings; we cannot possibly have infinite knowledge. It's human knowledge perfected, not total knowledge.

  - God is infinite and eternal, and He is love. We share in all of those when we taste the blessedness of Heaven. Because He is infinite, we will never come to the end of exploration of Him. Every "day" will be as new and as incompletely complete as the "previous one." (Remember: time in Heaven is not like time on earth). Because He is eternal, all of time is PRESENT TIME in Heaven. There is nothing to wait for, nothing to lack. (But, remember, He is infinite, so along with not lacking anything, we are also constantly exploring the infinite ... confused yet?)

Hell

In the Gospels, when Jesus refers to "hell" he calls it "Gehenna." Gehenna was a valley outside of Jerusalem that was used for the perpetual burning of trash.  That land was chosen because it had been defiled by the human sacrifice of heathen tribes.

Although the Church does not judge a particular soul, declaring a specific person is in hell (because God is the judge, not man, not even "Church"), it does seem that Judas (the apostle who betrayed Jesus) is there. Jesus says of him, it would have been "good for that man if he'd not been born." It sounds like there's no redemption left.

When Jesus was asked if many are saved, He responded with, "Strive to enter in." Peter Kreeft (linked below) says that, "The most important question about hell, as about Heaven, is the practical one: What roads lead there?"




So, all of this leaves us with an important question about our own lives/souls. Blessed Fulton Sheen once said, "For when the curtain goes down on the last day, and we respond to the curtain call of judgment, we will not be asked what part we played, but how well we played the part that was assigned to us."

God, our loving Father, calls us each to Himself. It is a call that costs our human wills something, but it is also a call that draws us to the source of our very existence - to Love itself, the love for which each soul was created.

What path leads to Heaven? Because of God's intelligent plan for human salvation, we don't have to guess. In the Incarnation, God Himself took on human flesh to show us the path. Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, not only opened the gates of Heaven by His death on the cross, but also, by His LIFE and death, taught us about the way to the Father. The way to the Father is through the Son. While on earth, Christ founded the Church and ensured that through the Sacraments offered to man through the Church, our path to Heaven would be known.

Unite yourself to Christ's saving works by uniting yourself to the life of the Church. Go to Mass. Receive the Eucharist worthily. Confess your sins. Dedicate yourself to a life of prayer, and make your days on earth a self-offering of love and life for the Father.

"Strive to enter in."





(View the Peter Kreeft article mentioned and quoted above here.)