Sunday, August 23, 2020 –
As a final post on trip down death and the afterlife, let’s cover some stuff that does NOT happen in the four last things:
You cannot and do not become an angel when you die. No matter how hard you wish on crossed fingers with your favorite rabbit’s foot, your great Aunt Mildred is not and cannot become an angel. She does not have wings, and she is not flying around as your personal guardian.
Sorry to disappoint, but angels are pure spirit. They are a wholly different creature than humans, who are body and spirit. We cannot become angels, and angels cannot become human. Kind of like a dog cannot be a pig and a pig cannot be a dog, only us and angels are MORE different than pigs and dogs.
Judgment is not karma thing. It is only known to God how He will handle the whole judgment thing, but you can probably make a safe bet that when you stand before Christ for your particular judgment, He will not give you bonus points for your good deeds and count them against your demerits of bad deeds in order to give you a magic score that, if it is high enough, gets you a ticket to heaven.
Heaven is not some magical land where your every (earthly) desire is fulfilled. I cannot tell you precisely what heaven is like because I have not gone there (yet!), but it is not the fulfillment of earthly pleasures. So, if your dream day is sitting on the couch eating bon-bons while never gaining a pound with piles of money around you so you can purchase everything off of Amazon, then sorry to disappoint, but that is NOT what heaven will be like.
Again, I am no theologian, nor have I been to heaven, but if I had to wager a guess at what heaven **might** be like, then I would say it is utter and supreme joy at being at the foot of our Lord and adoring Him for all eternity. There is no need for fulfillment of earthly pleasures because He is our sole fulfillment. Again, not a theologian, and that is 100% my personal, uneducated guess.
Hell is something we CHOOSE. Just a reminder, in case you missed it the first time, hell is not something that happens to us. It is something we choose by turning away from God in sin. Keep in mind that you do not know when you will die, so get to Confession early and often! You definitely do NOT want to die with mortal sins under your belt.
Sorry, but your pets do not go to heaven…or hell…or purgatory…or cross the rainbow bridge. Yeah, this one is going to bum a lot of people out, but animals are not humans. They do not have an immortal soul, which means they do not go to heaven or hell when they die. God has a special love for them, and when we all get to the final judgment and see the glory of God’s creation laid out before us, we (hopefully) will understand what happened to Fido.
There is a lot more we could talk about, especially regarding proper disposal of bodies and whatnot (Spoiler Alert: do NOT make your loved one into jewelry!), but we will leave that for another time.
Heart of Jesus, victim for our sins, have mercy on us.
