Contents:
Just as the world will be renewed and improved, so too will the spirits of the dead be reunited with a perfected body in the Resurrection. I go to prepare a place for you. But God dwells in the celestial kingdom, and only those whose lives prepared them to live in His presence can also dwell there. Through our choices on earth, we choose our eternal destiny. Those of us who want to claim the highest degree of exaltation and dwell with our Father are actively earning our place there now while we have earthly bodies and the agency to do so. We do this because we love Him and want to be with Him.
Our spirits—our individual characters—existed before we had bodies, and they will continue to exist after we die. We all lived before this life as spirits with our Heavenly Parents. We each accepted the challenge of receiving a physical body so that we might experience the good and the bad in a way we could not experience them before.
During our time on earth, we choose how to act, and in so doing we show whether we are willing to become better individuals, more like our Father in Heaven. But mortal life is just one necessary segment of our eternal journey. When our physical body dies, our spirit continues to live. As spirits we continue to be taught eternal truths, and we choose to accept or reject teachings and ordinances that will prepare us to live again with our Heavenly Father in happiness.
Mortal birth and death are steps along the eternal path. So is the Resurrection.
This reunion of spirit and body was made possible by our Savior, Jesus Christ. Because of His Resurrection, all who have lived on this earth can reclaim their physical bodies in perfected, immortal form. Never again will we experience pain, sickness, or death. Is everything conscious, as many mystics believe? This is one of the most ancient of all philosophical debates, and the question of what happens to consciousness after death is a recurring theme in my interviews. Death—what Terence McKenna called the black hole of biology— is, perhaps, the greatest mystery known to human beings.
While there is compelling evidence that there is life after death and that consciousness survives death, there is also compelling evidence that it does not and the truth is no one knows for sure what happens when we die. I would be highly suspect of anyone who tells you otherwise. Although the postbiological fate of human consciousness is a truly magnificent mystery, beliefs about what happens to consciousness after death generally fall into four traditional categories: This limited range of possibilities for life after death is likely due to our strong fear of death, which creates a powerful emotional charge and makes playful speculation on this topic difficult for most people.
But if our fears of the afterlife can be suspended or transcended, and we can set our hopes and expectations aside, how might we explore this mystery and come up with alternative possibilities for life after death? Is it possible, as some people claim, that altered or mystical states of consciousness can give us insight into what happens after death? How can I become good and stop this fatal cycle?
The promises of the living God are totally different. Yes, God our Father wants us to be good and perfect. But, He knows our weaknesses: God is love and forgiveness.
He does not force life after life on us. He sends his Son to forgive and purify us. He, the source of all goodness, makes goodness accessible to us. He gives us His own life and His own goodness. By His mercy, we are drawn away from evil and imperfection and given access to a true life.
God respects our freedom and He takes it seriously. He gave it to us so that we may love.
If we, freely, say 'yes' to his outstretched hand; if we say 'yes', to his love, it will be to enter into life for ever. Sometimes we imagine that life after death is like the cemetery: One day a five year old asked: His parents explained that in heaven there is neither sickness nor death and that we are more alive than before. Saint Theresa of Lisieux said on her death bed: At this point, I would like to share a personal story. My wife and I lost our little boy, Dominic, when he was six years old. My father, his grandfather, was very sad. A few days after the accident, he was awake at night overcome by his sorrow, and he was crying.
Suddenly, he heard a tiny voice saying: The same small voice, which he now recognized as Dominic's, comforted him. A third time this happened and the voice said: If you only knew how happy I am. Sometimes, with God's permission, a loved one who has died makes us feel his or her presence or intercession for us before God. Those who are in God's presence are not inactive. They are alive just as God is Alive. They unceasingly contemplate God's face, and they marvel at it.
And they pray constantly for those who are living here on earth.
It is like a strong support chain. Because they are with God and have their hearts turned towards God, they receive from Him, out of love, the possibility of praying for us: At times they show us a sign, by the grace of God, to guide us towards the path of Life, towards Jesus Christ, who is "the way, the truth and the life". We will, by no means, begin questioning the dead, using them to turn us away from God and from heaven, to practise, for example, divination or prediction.
This type of contact with the dead to 'use their spirit' is a form of idolatrous worship, that is a turning away from the true God. And it is dangerous. It can distort our qualities and abilities and lead us to do regrettable and even evil things. On the other hand, for those who are with God, everything that was beautiful and good in their feelings and capacities while on earth, is transfigured and intensified in the divine life.
What was not good is purified and transformed into good. They love all those they have known with a perfect love. Like God, they want their happiness and ask God, in prayer, to give those who they know on earth the same happiness into which they have entered. Our bodies will be resurrected.
The fullness of life is promised for those who have died. In the Gospel, Jesus announces the resurrection of the body: Christ is resurrected with his body. His disciples saw the wounds on his hands and feet and side. He ate and drank with them. But He did not resume his earthly life. He is resurrected with his body into glory. For years, Christians have testified to this.
We, too, at the end of time, will be resurrected with a transfigured and glorified body. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 15, verses 35 to 53 , explains that it will be the same body - the same person - but, as a seed that grows is indeed the same life as the plant which it becomes, our body, reunited with our soul, will no longer live the life on earth, but it will be transfigured to live in the Life of God, which is called ' Heaven '.
There is no disintegration into the universe; into the great all, as proclaim reincarnationists, because they do not know the promises of God. God gives us a perfect life anew and in it, we are the same person with the same identity. We are truly partners of God, invited to his table as to a banquet. He will wipe away all the tears from our eyes as it is says in the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
We can begin to live this eternal life, to a certain extent, right away. Because God makes himself known in this life. This is why we can discover Him, listen to Him and welcome Him. By reading the Gospel, the Word of God, by the life of the 'sacraments': Baptism, by which we are born into divine life. In the Eucharist, or mass, we receive God in the blessed host. God wants to nourish us with His own life and with the vivifying love of his Holy Spirit. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we ask for forgiveness for our faults and our 'sins' against the love of God and others.
This is a question that everyone asks. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for past wrongs. For years, Christians have testified to this. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us: She'ol , in the Hebrew Bible , is a place of darkness to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, a place of stillness and darkness cut off from life and from God. During our time on earth, we choose how to act, and in so doing we show whether we are willing to become better individuals, more like our Father in Heaven.
God, through the priest, gives us his forgiveness and purifies us. Even now, in our present life, prayer gives us the means of welcoming eternal life.
If we give Him some of our precious time, God will come and dwell in our heart and dispose us to receive gifts from above. We find our marriage transformed: Our relationships with others change: God comes to us and it is we who do the works of love. We experience joy because we now have hope.
In the Creed, the summary of the faith of Christians for the past years, we say: The 'saints' are not only those declared saints by the Church and canonized-the saints on the liturgical calendar. The saints are also all those who died saying 'yes' to the love of God, and, who, after a time of purification, live with Him. For to enter into the fire of love, we need to be burning with love. This is why, if we need 'warming-up', this purification takes place in what is called 'Purgatory'.
Our prayers for those in purgatory can speed up their walk towards love. Time does not count for God. If we think of a deceased loved one today, and if we pray for him or her, God has already heard our prayer. The best prayer is to offer a mass for the deceased person and to attend it, if at all possible. But all our poor words have a major impact for our beloved dead: Father, accept this offering from your whole family. Grant us peace in this life, same us from final damnation, and count us among those you have chosen.
Prayer at mass It is important to pray a lot for the dying. Because death is the moment that we answer yes or no to love. A short prayer to the Virgin Mary. Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. In the Gospel, Jesus warns us, specifically, in the parable about the beggar Lazarus and the cruel rich man. Jesus speaks about it again in the parable of the final judgement. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us: Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
Gospel according to St.