Death and Resurrection - Part I
Eternal life is certain because God’s love never ceases; it is eternal.
1. Different ways of looking at death
According to atheists, human death is a transition from accidental existence to nothingness. Whoever believes that he is a child of matter - and not a child of love - must therefore also believe that his death will be a return to unconscious, dead matter. Atheists believe that a man who can think and love comes from something less than himself, and therefore from something that he cannot think and love (matter, evolution, accident). As a result, they must also believe that they are aiming for something smaller than human beings, that is, to turn back into dead matter.
In turn, Buddhists believe that the individual existence of individual people is only a painful delusion. This illusion is painful because belief in an individual existence becomes a source of unnecessary suffering. Meanwhile, in reality there is only an impersonal, undefined cosmic whole of being. An enlightened person - following the example of the Buddha - discovers that the way to free himself from unnecessary suffering, associated with the illusory belief in his own existence, is nirvana, that is, achieving complete indifference to life and suffering, or rather to the illusion that someone is alive and suffering.
Another is the interpretation and attitude towards death in the culture currently dominant in Europe, known as post-modernity. In this perspective, on the one hand, it is increasingly "politically correct" to die "on demand" (euthanasia, abortion, suicide) and, on the other hand, patients in some hospitals are subjected to such persistent therapy that they are deprived of the right to natural death. In post-modernity, we observe an escape from the truth about man and, consequently, an escape from the question of the meaning of human dying. The very fact of death is usually trivialized. However, this does not surprise those who note that in a low culture of post-modernity, not only is the death of man trivialized, but that he is also trivialized his dignity and unusualness. If the Prime Minister of one European country is calling for the rights of monkeys to be granted, and the government of another country has allowed the creation of hybrids of humans and animals, then we can see how much some people have trivialized their dignity and the complete uniqueness of the human person in the impersonal world of objects, plants and animals.
2. The Christian View of Death
The first truth in this regard is the certainty that whoever begins life once, will live forever. Even if he only lived on this earth for a few hours or a few weeks inside his mother wombs. Human life has a beginning, but no end. This is why - unlike animals - we are like God! The certainty of eternal life was discovered by the chosen people of the Old Testament gradually, as they gradually recognized the surprising, unconditional, faithful love of God for men. Initially, the Israelites focused on getting to know the uniqueness of God, that is, admiring the fact that there really is He Who is the Creator, Lord of the universe, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Perfection. Only after this first delight with God came the turn of admiring God's attitude towards men. By observing the miraculous works of God guarding his chosen people, the Israelis began to make sure that God was not only an extraordinary Being, but that he was also someone who treated men in an extraordinary way! Eternal life is as certain for us as we are sure of the irrevocable love of the eternal God. On the cross, the Son of God assured us that his love for us is stronger than death.
3. Eternal Life on Earth?
God, who is Love, created us out of love and commanded the first people to remain in the love from which they were born. However, since only a person can live in love, that is, only someone aware and free, therefore the Creator has endowed us with rationality and the ability to make autonomous decisions. From the beginning, God treated us as persons, not as passive puppets. From the beginning, he also told us the truth that we are free and that this is why we can choose the path of blessing and life, but also the path of curse and death. Unfortunately, at the beginning of history, some people began to choose the second path. It was not God who cast us out of paradise. We, in part, have turned Paradise into a valley of darkness and a valley of tears. That is why eternal life on this earth after original sin and the sins of people of successive generations would be a misfortune for us and an unbearable burden. For some people - not necessarily throughtheir fault! - life has even become hell on earth. In our time, there are more and more people who, in a gesture of despair, take away their earthly lives. Eternal life on this earth would not be an eternal holiday for any of us. There is too little love, goodness, truth and beauty here… That is why God is preparing a new earth and a new heaven for those who choose to love and remain in love. Such people will no longer distort God's dreams of human happiness and will not spoil the new, eternal planet of our existence ...
4. When is the resurrection?
Jesus assures us that there will be no form of "waiting room" between mortal death and everlasting life! Mortal death is at the same time childbirth, that is, birth to eternity. In the process of dying, not only is our eternal fate decided, but we also immediately become participants in this form of eternal life, which is a consequence of our way of dealing withmortality. The fate of Mary and all the saints assures us of this. If in the process of dying they did not pass immediately to eternal life, the communion of the saints would be possible only after the final judgment, and our prayers for the intercession of the saints would now make no sense. The Catholic Church clearly distinguishes a particular judgment from a final judgment. Admittedly, "the New Testament speaks of judgment above all in the perspective of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but it also repeatedly affirms that, immediately after the death of every man, there will be a reward according to his deeds and faith" (CCC, 1021). This is clearly demonstrated by the parable of the poor Lazarus (cf. Lk 16:22) or the words of Christ addressed to the converting thief on the cross: "Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise!" (Luke 23:43).
5. Mortal life determines the eternal fate
The fundamental truth of faith in Christianity is that each of us, through our way of living on earth, decides in what form we will live forever: in the joy of the saved who love, or in the eternal loneliness of the egoist who does not love and who does not accept love. Man's eternal fate is not a matter of accident or destiny but is the result of man's attitude in mortal life. God dreams that everyone will live forever in the joy of the saints! In his account of the final judgment, Jesus assures us that we will all live forever! Also, the condemned people! (cf. Mt 25: 31-46). Our eternal life is not in danger, because God's love for men is irrevocable. But our salvation is at stake because we are so absolutely free that we can reject God's irrevocable love for man.
God made every effort that we will come out victorious from the trial of life on earth. He gives us a chance to be saved by irrevocably loving us, and we receive from Him the gift of salvation when we respond with our love to His love. Even God cannot help us more! After all, he cannot love us more than above life! Nor can He accompany us even more on the daily pilgrimage than by staying with us in the Eucharist and becoming a daily food for those who desire it. God cannot help us even more in preparing to meet Him at the threshold of eternity than by explaining in advance what he will ask us then. Well, he will ask us only one question! He will not ask us if we loved God or whether we loved ourselves. Nor will he ask us if we have suffered and whether we have carried a cross, for heaven is not a community of suffering people, but a community of loving people. At the end of our mortality, God will only ask if we loved our neighbor. And it was this neighbor who could not repay us because he was hungry, naked, abandoned, imprisoned, helpless. God will not ask us about love for Him, for a man who does not love can more easily convince himself that he loves God more than that he loves men. However, whoever selflessly loves his neighbor certainly loves God above all else, because only He can teach us to love ourselves and other people.
6. We will be judged according to the state of conscience
God will judge each of us according to the state of our conscience and our consciousness. Precisely because Jesus knows about everything that restricts and distorts our consciousness, and about everything that limits our freedom from the outside and inside, he will only hold usaccountable for what we were aware of and for what we were able to take responsibility for. At the end of mortality, God will judge me according to mine, not according to His knowledge and freedom. He will not "throw" in our face any surprising truth about our temporal behavior. God will not "crush" us with the truth about our weaknesses and faults, which was beyond our reach ...
We will continue Tomorrow
fr. george