The man who eats my flesh and drinks my blood enjoys eternal life, and I will raise him
up on the last day.
Resurrection of our Lord, therefore, is the pledge of our own resurrection.
St. Paul tells us in rather a harsh...
And yet not stoical manner, that we have to die daily.
A happy death isn't a masterpiece, and no masterpiece was ever perfected in a day.
Dubois spent seven years in making the wax model for his celebrated statue Joan of Arc.
One day the model was finished and the bronze was poured into it.
The statue stands today as a ravishing perfection of the sculptor's art.
Like manor, our death at the end of our natural existence must appear as a ravishing perfection of the many years of labor we have given to it, given to its mold.
It is to say, by mortification.
The principal reason why we fear death is because we have never prepared for it.
Most of us die only once, when we should have died a thousand times.
Death is a terrible thing for him who dies only when he dies.
But it is a beautiful thing for him who dies before he dies.
Namely, by dying daily to the temptations of the world and the flesh and the devil.
There is a very interesting inscription over the tomb of Duns Scotus and Cologne which reads
Samel Sepultus Bismortuus. A double death preceded his burial.
There's not one traveler in a hunter who understands the mystery of love behind it.
Now once death comes, there's no remedy for an evil life.
But before it comes, there is a remedy.
namely by dying to ourselves, in which we follow the law of immolation, which is the law of the universe.
There's no other way of entering into a higher life except by dying to the Lord.
There's no possibility of a man enjoying an ennobled existence in Christ unless he's torn up from the old Adam.
To him who leads a modified life in Christ that death then never comes like a thief in the night
taking one by surprise. We die daily and thus we rehearse.
But, whether we rehearse or not, there is no escaping the truth.
It is appointed unto men once to die.
As relatives and friends gather around the dead person.
I often ask, how much did he leave?
The angels will ask, how much did he take with him?
The only thing that we can take with us from death is what we can take with us in the shipwreck.
be judged at the moment of death, which is the particular judgment, and we will be judged
on the last day, which is the general judgment.
The first judgment is because you are a person and therefore you are individually responsible
for your acts.
Your works follow you.
The second judgment will be because you worked out your salvation in the context of the social
order and the mystical body of Christ.
Therefore you must be judged.
How are we worried about this general judgment?
when we take upon ourselves our bodies.
would be accompanied, as we said, by the resurrection of the body.
At death, when the soul is separated from the body, it still retains its aptitude for the body.
The soul has made an imprint on it.
Very much as if you left your hand on warm wax.
One might almost say that at death the soul desires to have the body with it.
Now this is because when the soul leaves the body of death, it does not leave the body forever.
The soul does not become an angel. It remains a human soul.
It contains all of its experience.
all of its happenings, all of its thoughts, and all of its deeds.
And at the resurrection of the dead, the soul will have a body corresponding to the spiritual condition of the soul.
In other words, it will be glorious.
if the soul is saved and
miserable if the soul is lost
Our salvation, therefore, is not just the salvation of the soul, but of our entire personality.
Because our bodies have shared in the condition of our soul, they will also share in the glory or the shame of the soul.
If you pour water into a blue glass, it looks blue.
Pour it into a red glass and look red.
Like manner on the day of resurrections, our bodies will shine forth according to the virtues that are in the soul, or according to the foulness of Isis that are in our soul.
We've already spoken, at the times of the Particular General Judgment, hear another word about the Particular Judgment.
What will it be like?
It will be an evaluation of our ceremony, just as we really are.
As we live this life, there almost seem to be several persons in us.
But first of all, as the persons, others think we are.
Then there's the person we think we are.
And then there is the person we really are.
During this life, it is very easy for us to believe our press lotuses.
who take ourselves very seriously, who judge ourselves by public opinion rather than by
eternal truth. And hence we may and do think ourselves good, because we find neighbors
who are so wicked.
We sometimes judge our virtues by the vices from which we abstain.
If we made our money under a capitalistic system, we think labor organizations are wicked.
And if we made our money organizing labor unions, we think capitalism is wicked.
If we come from the city, we look down on people from the country.
We think because a person speaks with an accent, he is unimportant.
And if he is black or brown or yellow, he is of less value.
Our very enthusiasm for the common man may be because...
We hate the rich, not because we love the common man.
We're not there for always seeing things straight.
If all implied that, we said we see now through a glass in a dark manner.
And I shall know
when that split-second of judgment comes.
We are what we are, not by our emotions, our feelings, our likes, and dislikes, and by our choices, or decisions.
We are all on the roadway of life in this world. We travel in different vehicles.
Some in trucks, some in jeeps, some in ambulances, others in 12-cylinder cars, others in broken-down old wrecks, and others in trucks.
But each of us is doing the driving.
Now the judgment is something like being stopped by a motor cop.
So when we are stopped, I go.
He does not say to us.
As the policeman doesn't say, what kind of a car are you driving?
God is no respecter of persons, he asks.
How well did you drive?
Would you obey the laws?
At death, we leave our vehicles behind.
Our emotions, prejudices, feelings, our state in life, our opportunities, the accidents
of talent, beauty, intelligence, and position.
Hence it will make no difference to God if we were crippled, ignored, or hated by the
world.
Our judgment will be based not on our social position.
But on the way we lived, on the choices we made, on the things we had.
Think not, therefore, that when you go before the judgment, see God, that you will argue a case?
You will plead no extenuating circumstances.
You will not ask for a new trial.
You will be your own judge.
You will be your own jury.
We will be condemned out of our own mouths.
God will merely see our judgment.
What then is judgment? First of all, from God's point of view, and then from our point of view.
First from God's point of view.
Judgment is recognition.
Two souls appear before the sight of God and then split second after him.
One is in the state of grace, the other is not.
Remember grace is a participation of divine nature.
Remember that justice by nature, you resemble your parents.
So by grace.
We partake of the nature of God.
Now the judge, blessed Lord, looks into the soul and the state of grace.
He sees there the resemblance of his nature.
And just as a mother knows her child, because that child shares her nature.
So to God knows his own children by resemblance of nature.
If we are born of him, he knows it.
Seeing in that soul, the divine lightness, the sovereign judge says to us.
Ye Blessed of my Father!
I have taught you to pray, powerful.
You, the Adopted Son, come into the kingdom I have prepared for you from all eternity.
Does not possess the family trait to the Trinity.
And as a mother knows that her neighbor's son is not her own because there's no sharing in her nature.
So to our Lord, seeing in the sinful soul, no likeness of his own can only say those words,
terrible words which signify non-recognition.
I know you not.
And it is a terrible thing.
Nothing to be known by God.
such as judgement from the...
Now let us take it out from the human point of view, from our own point of view.
Here, too, it is a recognition, but a recognition of unfitness or fitness.
Just suppose that a very distinguished visitor is announced one day at your door.
You are in working clothes in your hands and face, dirty.
You are in no condition but the one to resent yourself before such an august person.
And you refuse, therefore, to see you, until you can improve your appearance.
A soul that is stained with sin acts very much the same way when it goes before the
judging receipt of God.
It sees on the one hand, gets some vague glimpse, and least of his majesty, his purity, his brilliance.
And on the other.
It's sinfulness. It's unworthiness.
It does not entreat or argue or plead a case.
It sees.
And from out of the depths it says,
O Lord, I am not worthy.
The soul that is stained with venial sins says, give me time to clean up, goes into
purgatory to wash its baptismal robes. The soul that is remediably stained, dead to
divine life, casts itself into hell just as naturally as a stone which was
released from my hand falls to the ground.
And the soul that is full of divine love and without any temporal punishment, due to its sins,
is like a bird released from its cage. It flies to its medium, which is heaven.
Therefore three possible destinies await you at death and judgment. Hell, which is
pain without love.
Perpetree, pain with love.
Heaven, love without pain.
It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
And when he had sent these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud
took him out of their sight.
And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said,
Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?
This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven,
will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.