"The Four Last Things" (Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell)
Homily #14
Version #1: 10am Mass
This video recording has poor audio quality and sounds muffled. The audio version above sounds better.
Version #2: 12pm Mass
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| St. Basil the Great Roman Catholic Church, Vallejo |
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HOMILY
Living with the End in
Mind: Christ the King & the 4 Last Things
Deacon
Dennis Purificacion
Solemnity
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
November
23, 2014
Two weeks ago, we celebrated Veteran’s Day and this
Thursday we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving Day.
I know that many of you here at Mass have served in the military. You may also have family members and friends
that have served. I’d like to take a
brief moment to start my homily by asking you to please stand. We want to say thank you for your sacrifices
as guardians of freedom and justice in the world. (We know that your service has not been
easy.)
In the military, there is one common purpose that
matters: the mission. The mission is the
central objective of what keeps the military focused and is all that matters.
Moving from the military to the business world, one
business model adopted can be taken from leadership speaker Stephen Covey from
his nationally best-selling book Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People.
One of those habits is to begin with the end in mind. When starting a project, one begins with the
end in mind.
So let us use the idea of a military “mission” or
the business world’s “beginning with the end in mind,” and let us reflect on our
end or our mission in the Church. How do
we begin with the end in mind?
Well, today, we celebrate the end of the current church
liturgical calendar 2014. (Next week, we
begin a new church liturgical calendar 2015 with Advent.)
Today, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King
of the Universe, the Church keeps our end in mind.
This is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. At the First Coming of Jesus Christ, which we
celebrate next week with Advent, we celebrate Jesus’s first coming into the
world as a cute little baby, PERSECUTED and in POVERTY.
But at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ at the end
of the world, he’s not going to return as a little helpless baby in obscurity,
in total weakness, where nobody knows about it.
Rather, he is going to return in POWER and GLORY,
and all of the world will know
about it.
As we see in the Word of God today, it is written in
the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, “As for you my sheep, says the Lord God, I
will judge between one sheep and another, between rams and goats.” The First Reading prepares us for the Gospel
where the Son of Man comes in GLORY, with all the angels with him, he will sit
upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before
him. This is also called the General
Judgment (Judgment Day).
Here, we see what are called the 4 Last Things:
Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell.
At the moment of DEATH, where the soul is separated
from the body, we experience what is called a Particular Judgment. Particular Judgment is different from General
Judgment. At Particular Judgment, each
soul enters into one of three states: heaven, purgatory, or hell.
Purgatory is a temporary state of the soul where it
is, in the words of St. Paul, purified like a burning fire. The souls there are both joyful and sad (in a
manner of speaking). Joyful because any
soul that goes to purgatory cannot go to hell anymore and is destined for
heaven, but sad in a sense in that they are not there yet. They still need to be purified, because
nothing unclean can enter heaven. At the
Second Coming of Christ, purgatory will end and souls there are resurrected to
eternal life.
But they desperately need and ask for our prayers
now in this life. This is why November
is the month to pray for departed souls of our family and friends. Having Mass
offered for the repose of their souls is the BEST way souls in purgatory
benefit from the prayers of those of us who are still living.
Souls that are in heaven await the resurrection of
their bodies. Souls that we know are
currently in heaven are those canonized by the Church, while those souls that
are in the state of eternal separation from God are part of the society of the
damned where they, too, await the resurrection not unto eternal life but unto
eternal death, as we see in the Gospel today.
Their bodies will not be gloried like the righteous.
There is a mistaken notion even in the Church –
among church members (not the teaching of the Church) – that somehow everyone
that dies automatically goes to heaven.
And this is not true.
Unfortunately, not everyone goes to heaven. And we must pray and make sacrifices for the
conversion of those, here on earth, who do not want to be with God in heaven.
The image of Jesus sitting on the throne returning
in glory can be seen in church art, such as on the wall of the church at St.
Basil’s here in Vallejo. Next time you
go there, look at the picture of Christ.
He doesn’t have a happy look on his face. He is not a happy camper. He is seated on a throne next to two angels,
St. Michael the Archangel and St. Uriel the Archangel, with a very strict
looking face. These images should remind
us of keeping the end in mind, that we have been entrusted with a mission by
Jesus Christ to share the message of salvation with everyone we can. Compare this image with the Sacred Heart of
Jesus or the Divine Mercy image of Jesus where his face is that of a loving
Savior. But in the Second Coming of
Christ image, the image conveys that He is returning in glory not
as a merciful
savior but as the JUST JUDGE.
That is why conversion is NOW. That is why mercy is NOW! The Kingdom of God is at hand.
When we die, it will be too late to convert, to tell
Jesus we are sorry, and to change our ways!
At the moment of our death, that’s it!
We already defined ourselves for all eternity. “Penance, penance, penance!”
If you’ve been away from God, and you’re listing to
this homily, make that moment right now.
Repent! And believe in the
Gospel.
Reflect on this when we say the Creed today. Two other great images of the Second Coming
of Christ can be seen at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland which
shows a very ancient image of Jesus returning in glory. At the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception
in Washington, D.C., Christ returns as the Judge of the Living and the
Dead. And his kingdom will have no end. All the injustices of the world will be
rectified on that day…Judgment Day.
And so, as we begin Advent next week, we begin with the
end in mind. Our mission is to spread
the name of the Good Shepherd. The Lord
is my Shepherd; there is no other Shepherd
I shall want. He is the only Savior of the world…no other world religious
figure can bring people to heaven. Jesus
is the King of the Universe, Our Savior, and of our lives.
[We have present here a group of folks who are on a
journey in their life of Faith. They are
part of the Church’s official process to receive the Sacraments called the Rite
of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA).
Over the next year, they will be dismissed after the Liturgy of the
Word.
Our mission as Catholics is to invite others into
our Catholic family to receive the fullness, the richness, the beauty and joy
of the Catholic Faith. Also, if you know
people who’ve been away from the Church – for whatever reason – this is a good
time to invite them back to the Church which is their home, and to let them
know that something is missing when they are not here at Mass.]
Together with Mary, the Mother of Mercy and the
Mother of Our Savior, the first and perfect disciple of Jesus Christ, let us
begin with the end in mind, so that one day, we will hear those blessed words
from our Savior, Shepherd, and Judge: “Come, you who are blessed by my
Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world.” Whatever
we did to the least of the Lord’s brothers and sisters, we did to Jesus. And let us fervently pray that we, too, will
inherit eternal life. And dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of our lives.
Amen!
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Purificacion, Dennis. "Homily #14: Living with the End in Mind: Christ the King and the Four Last Things" blogged on www.marysdeacon.blogspot.com on November 23, 2014 (Vallejo, CA: St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, November 23, 2014).
