At home with the ‘last things’

WE need to be familiar with the doctrine of the ‘last

things.’ In fact, we need to feel at home with it, since it would

certainly play an important role on how to arrange and direct our

life.

            The doctrine of the ‘last things’ refers to what would

happen to us at the end of our life here on earth. These ‘last things’

are death, judgment, hell and heaven, with purgatory as a transitory

state.

            With death, I suppose we cannot question that anymore. It

is a daily occurrence. But we may have to exert some effort to believe

in the Christian faith about judgment, hell and heaven.

            Yes, there are truly such things. Even if we are to go by

our human reasoning alone, we would find our life here on earth

completely useless and meaningless if there would be no judgment, hell

and heaven.

            But we have to be careful with tackling this matter with

our reason alone. Without the light of faith, our reason can give us

all sorts of explanations. It can lead us to some exciting insights

but in the end, it can lead us nowhere. It can only give us so much

light. It cannot capture everything.

            The gospel is full of references to these last things, and

we are always encouraged to be watchful in this life so that we tread

the right path to our destination. Yes, our life here is like a

journey, a pilgrimage to our definitive home which is actually in

heaven where God is, from whom we came and to whom we belong.

            Said in another way, our life here on earth is all about

the ongoing creation of our own selves with God as the Creator and us

as our own co-creator with God. That’s because God wants us to be like

him, to be his image and likeness, to be his children, meant to share

in his divine nature and life.

            In a sense, our creation is a joint venture between God

and us, and the completion of this venture would be at our death and

at the end of time when, hopefully, we can, with God’s grace and our

effort, truly become God’s image and likeness and the dignity of being

God’s children definitively achieved.

            Yes, our creation is still a work in the making. We are

still under construction. But we have to look forward to its

completion. Thus, St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans said: “For the

creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of

God.” (8,19)

            This should be the basic attitude to have in life. We are

still a work in progress, and we should be doing our part in our own

creation, fully cooperating as much as we can with God’s work of

creation of us. For his part, God has given us everything we need to

attain our definitive status.

            Even if we mess up his plan, he has given us means to

correct our mistakes. But we need to do our part as best as we can.

Thus, we have to be wary of how we use our time and the many things

that we have. It would be good that every moment of our life, we ask

ourselves if what we are doing is what God wants us to do.

            This can only happen if we seek to identify ourselves with

God through Christ in the Holy Spirit who now works in the Church. Let

us always remember that we are supposed to be patterned after God who

makes himself fully available in Christ, who in turn makes himself

alive in us through the Holy Spirit that now inspires the Church.

            Yes, we have to revisit regularly this important doctrine

about the ‘last things’ so we would be helped in know what we ought to

do at every moment of our life here on earth.