What Will Become Of Us ?

Your Room Is Ready...

There is no doubt that none of us will be leaving this world alive, in the classical sense of the word.  Our bodies will tire and wear out and eventually we will begin the dying process.  From the reading I have done, the process is about the same for all people.  As the time approaches we will reach out and try to mend fences, finish things that need to be finished, and eventually start to take leave of the things we can see relate to using our five senses.  Trudy Harris a registered nurse who has worked many years in hospice has seen the drama played out time and time again.  One thing that seems to permeate the process is that God spends some time preparing you.

He does not leave you to face it alone. Some who have been to the brink and have returned report different things.  They may find loved one who had died before waiting to escort them, some speak of a light at the end of a tunnel, some say Jesus or an angel is there. But in the end, life as we know it ends and the true life we are meant for begins. 

God is all good, all powerful, and especially all loving.  He has endowed his beloved humans with free will to love Him back or to reject him.  While we are on earth, the way we live our life will lead us to choose what path to take once we die.  I believe that God leaves it up to us. When presented with the ultimate love of God for us the sins we have committed, those things where during our life we turned away from him will cause us great pain because we will finally understand how very much God has loved us. For some of us we will have spent our lives very much apart from God, giving Him no thought or care.  Our lives would have been spent indulging ourselves to the maximum.  We would not have cared about those around us.  We may have preyed on the weak and vulnerable making their lives miserable.  We might have taken a life or lives.  For those who rejected God, living their life without Him, they will feel the pain of their failure and will choose to turn away from God.  God is a loving God and He will allow them their desires and these souls will choose Hell and be there forever. 

Some of us will have invested their lives in helping others, being absolutely selfless and doing the work of God not in the hope of any reward but because we have turned our whole soul and being towards the Father and His Son and followed the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  When people who have loved God their whole life and have done His will selflessly using their lives to better others, when their moment of decision comes, they will choose to go to God and the bliss of heaven.

This leaves us with the rest of us.  We are neither deserving of hell nor are we ready for heaven.  We have lived good lives, but our wills sometimes were turned away from God and we committed sins. But unlike those who threw their lives away we loved God and tried to do the things that Jesus asked us to do.  But we missed the mark.  We may have attachments to things of this earth or we may have unresolved conflicts with others where we have held onto jealousy, or bitterness, or perhaps we need to forgive the unforgivable wrong that was done to us.  Heaven is a place of bliss.  It is a place where love and only love is permitted.  There is no discord or disharmony among the souls there so for many of us who do not deserve hell there is a place, or process or whatever you want to call it called purgatory.  It is there that we will choose to go if we have any of the imperfections mentioned above.  You can liken it to cleaning yourself up before meeting a great personage.  You would not meet royalty here on earth wearing clothes that are tattered, a face that is smudged with dirt, or needing a shower would you?  Then how much more would you want to make sure you are presentable to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?  

Some say that purgatory does not exist, that it is a Catholic invention.  But there is Scripture that shows that God in His mercy has prepared a place or process for his children.  In later posts I will go over these passages.  You may want to review them yourself so I will list them here: 

• Matthew 12:32
• 1 Cor 3:15
• Rev 21:27
• Rom 6 : 3-5
• Heb 12:11

When I was a boy I was playing baseball one day and I hit a ball and it crashed through a neighbors window.  My friends vanished quickly as I stood there with my bat. I wish some of them ran as fast during our ballgames!  The resident of the house came out and to make a long story short he forgave me for breaking the window.  So he did not harbor a grudge for the accident but he still had to deal with the broken window.  I was forgiven but I had to repair the damage I did.  I went home which was right across the street from the field we were playing and my father gave me money to give to the neighbor who went to the hardware store, bought glass and made the repair.   So it is with sin.  Jesus by dying on the cross was able to secure forgiveness for the action but every sin, even those committed in secret, leave damage that needs to be repaired.  These repairs can be made in life by doing penance to repair the damage that was done.  If we do not make things right here, we will want to do so after death and we will choose Purgatory.  

Please watch this blog for more about purgatory.  I think at the end you will join me in thanking our most loving Father for it. Remember, I will answer any question about the Catholic Faith, Catholic Church or Christianity in general.  Hate mail will go unanswered.  God Bless you and yours and may Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God light your way today.  Amen.