For the person who unites their life with Christ, death is merely a passing through the door, out of this life into eternal life. Yesterday's meditation was about the moment of decision. There is also at the end of life such a final moment. Death marks end of the time we have to make the most fundamental of life's choices: to accept God's love or reject it.
Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness. (Catechism 1024)
But we must choose the path of love.
Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:15)
This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.” (Catechism,1033)
While we call it the last judgement. It is really less of a judgment and more the moment when God ratifies the choice we have made. Notice that the catechism refers to hell as a self-exclusion.
Does God will that all be saved? Yes. But he has also given us the freedom to choose, because love must be freely given or it is not love.
Each decision we make is a step toward eternal life or away from it. The gospel today puts before us the stark reality that our earthly existence will come to an end. And when it does, will we be facing toward God or have my back turned to him?
