Death and Beyond

END OF THE WORLD

 The Catholic priest called his parishioners
together and urged them to go to confession
 The protestant minister told his people to ask
forgiveness of those they had wronged and to make
amends.
 The Jewish rabbi on the other hand, with typical
practicality said to his people “You have three days
to learn to live under water!”
 Is there afterlife?
What happens after death?
Will it makes any difference if man lived a
life like a saint or like a scoundrel
(good-for-nothing)?
 If the real life and true life is
yet to come, why bother about
this one; why struggle with the
daily reality we face?
Why try to improve this life,
particularly for those who
suffer so much want and
injustice?
Is all the gospel teaching
about trying to establish about
the reign of God on earth just
so much wishful thinking?
 A religion which sees
this world merely a
place of passage,
something to be
endured for the sake of
the future,
is NOT a Christian
religion.
 If we look at the
present as having
relevance only in view
of the future, we shall
have missed the
significance of the life
of Jesus Christ.
 We are faced here
with Christian
paradox.
 What is a paradox?
 a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition
that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or
true.

The reign of God is both the

PRESENT and the future.
 Karl Marx was a German
philosopher during the 19th
century. He worked primarily in the
realm of political philosophy and
was a famous advocate
for communism.

 Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939)

was the founding father of
psychoanalysis, a method for
treating mental illness and also
a theory which explains human
behavior.
Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud called attention
to the falsity of this kind of religion, the latter
describing it as the
“opium of the people”.
A drug that assuages the pain of
living a full human life.
If the focus of our
attention should be on
this life , then how do we
deal with what we have
called the end things:
DEATH, JUDGEMENT,
HEAVEN AND HELL?
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
But as it is written:
"What eye has not seen, and
ear has not heard,
and what has not entered
the human heart,
what God has prepared for
those who love him," this
God has revealed to us
through the Spirit.

Note: This verse is from the prophet Isaiah . Paul

used it to point out that we do know something
about what God has prepared for us.
 1 Corinthians 2:15-16

The spiritual person, however, can

judge everything but is not subject
to judgment by anyone.
For "who has known the mind of
the Lord,
so as to counsel him?"
But we have the mind of Christ.

Note: The spirit of Jesus Christ has been given to us at the heart
of our real Christian life. It is this spirit that enables us to look
into our lives and to discern from our own present earthly
experience “the mind of the Lord”.
The spirit of Jesus Christ
has been given us at the
heart of our real
Christian Life.
It is this spirit that enables
us to look into our lives and
to discern from our own
present earthly experience
“the mind of the Lord”.
What is in the mind of the Lord?
 Jesus commission his
apostles to establish the
kingdom of God on earth as
Jesus did.

"This is the time of

fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at
hand. Repent, and believe in
the gospel."
Mark 1:15
As we carry out this commission from God, our
daily experience will give us some glimpse of
the future, even though,
For we now see in a mirror dimly…
(1Cor 13:12)

We see dimly, partially, with a certain

fuzziness, for we do not have direct revelation
about heaven, or hell, or judgment. In such
passion that we know exactly what they will be
like.
Private Revelations

The Three Children of Fatima

Between May and October of 1917 three
shepherd children, Lucia Santos and her
cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto,
reported visions of a luminous lady
believed to be the Virgin Mary. She
appeared to the children in the Cova da
Iria fields outside the hamlet of Aljustrel
near Fatima, Portugal. She appeared to
them on the 13th day of each month at
approximately noon, for six straight
months. The only exception was the
month of August, when the children were
arrested by the local administrator.
Sister Faustina's Vision of Hell

 "I, Sister Faustina Kowalska, by

the order of God, have visited the
Abysses of Hell so that I might tell
souls about it and testify to its
existence...the devils were full of
hatred for me, but they had to
obey me at the command of God,
What I have written is but a pale
shadow of the things I saw. But I
noticed one thing: That most of
the souls there are those who
disbelieved that there is a hell."
(Diary 741)
At the age of 4, Akiane, who
was born in Morris, Illinois,
began seeing visions of
Jesus, heaven, and
creation. She started
sketching the images she
saw and write poetry at age
four, eventually advancing
to oil paints and acrylics to
create stunning, religious-
themed images.

"I am a self-taught painter,"

she told Children's
Digest. "God is my teacher."
We only can speak about God in
analogical or metaphorical
language because all human
language is based on human
experience.
Metaphors should not, and cannot
be taken literally
In our insatiable curiosity to know
about the future, the mysterious, the
not yet, we tend to take the metaphors
about the last things literally true. If we
do, we bound to end up with
misunderstanding and false ideas.
We can only say what things are
“like” (analogy) if we already know
some aspect of the reality,
however vague and incomplete.
Therefore, when we speak of the “last
things”, we must be able to call on our
human experience.