THEOLOGY

The Four Last Things Reflections on Death, Judgment, Heaven & Hell

Regis Martin, S.T.D.

LECTURE GUIDE

Learn More www.CatholicCourses.com TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lecture Summaries

LECTURE 1 Introducing the Study of the Last Things...... 4

LECTURE 2 The Christian Conception of Time and Its Relation to the Last Things...8

Feature: The Sacrament of the Present Moment...... 12

LECTURE 3 Exploring the Nature and Dynamism of ...... 14

LECTURE 4 On First Opening the Door of Death...... 18

Feature: The Last Rites...... 22

LECTURE 5 On Seeing Death as a Christian and the Consolation It Brings...... 24

LECTURE 6 The Jig Is Up: On Judgment and the World to Come...... 28

Feature: Purgatory...... 32

LECTURE 7 On Going to Hell...... 34

LECTURE 8 On the Reality and Nature of Heaven...... 38

Suggested Reading from Regis Martin, S.T.D...... 42

2 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. THEOLOGY The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Reflections on Death, Judgment, Heaven & Hell

Regis Martin, S.T.D. Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Dr. Regis Martin is a longtime Professor of Systematic Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, where he teaches courses on God and Grace, Christ and the Church, and Mary and the Sacraments. Professor Martin holds both a Licentiate and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum—the Pontifical University of St. in Rome, Italy.

He is the author of several books, including - The Four Last Things (TAN Books, forthcoming) - The Suffering of Love: Christ’s Descent into the Hell of Human Hopelessness (Ignatius Press, 2007) - What is the Church? Confessions of a Cradle Catholic (Emmaus Road, 2003) - Flannery O’Connor: Unmasking the Devil (Sapientia Press, 2005)

Professor Martin has lectured across the country and his articles have been published by the National Review, Commonweal, Crisis, Lay Witness, and Magnificat Prayer Book. Professor Martin is currently featured on EWTN with Fr. Michael Scanlon and Dr. in a popular, long-running series titled Franciscan University Presents.

Learn More 3 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 1

Introducing the Study of the Last Things

Our likeness to God is not the result of our own doing, but of God’s generosity. Thus, our first obligation is gratitude for a gift we can never give ourselves. We have a universal call to prayer which should always begin with thanksgiving. When we do not pray, we deny our creaturely status and the recognition that from moment to moment, we exist entirely on sufferance. If God were to stop speaking our names, we would be vaporized at once. We must rely on prayer in order to find the The Our Father is the voice strength and necessary to face our end. and content of Christian The Our Father is the Lord’s Prayer—the most hope. powerful and efficacious prayer of the Church. It is the only prayer enjoined upon us by our Blessed Savior and thus the most perfect form of petitionary prayer. Additionally, the Our Father is the only prayer in which all the things for which we hope are given profound and lasting expression. Hope is the key virtue for understanding the Church’s doctrine of the end. The Our Father declares our hope that God will reach down into this fallen world in order to save us. With Hope, we can rest assured in all the promises of our Catholic faith, which include Heaven and the Face of God smiling upon us forever. With Hope, we can also face what imperils those promises and what might lead to the everlasting torments of Hell.

4 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. In our modern age, a perverse silence hovers on the air the moment the subject of death is brought up. Yes, certainly, Christ tells us: “I am the resurrection and the life” and “he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25-26). However, is anyone really interested in dying in order to discover what lies beyond the veil of human mortality, even if that should be Heaven? The Lord’s Prayer As it happens, we have no other point of entry into eternity apart from Our Father, Who art in Heaven, death. And yet, when we consider the hallowed be Thy Name. price to be paid, everlasting life seems Thy Kingdom come. to hold no appeal. For most people, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. looking to the end is exactly what they Give us this day our daily bread, wish to avoid. Ironically, when we do and forgive us our trespasses, finally turn our heads to face the end, as we forgive those who trespass against us. it will most likely be the end. Jesus And lead us not into temptation, urged his disciples to watch and pray, but deliver us from evil. Amen. to be mindful of the end: “Therefore you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44). We are so easily “distracted from distraction by distraction,” to recall Eliot’s image of modern man in fearful flight from death. It seems that our inborn hunger for God and an eternity spent in his com- pany has become a sort of vestigial organ which is no longer exercised.

Learn More 5 nothing more than an extended meditation on death; who carry their deaths before them; who live always on the edge of eternity. It makes all the difference in the world, as Pascal would say, “if it is certain that we shall not be here for long, and uncertain whether we shall be here even one hour.” After death begin the things that will go on forever and ever. “To those who live by faith,” writes Blessed John Henry Cardinal New- man, “everything they see speaks of that future world.... All that we see is destined one day to burst forth into a heavenly bloom. Heaven at Is it possible that the wings of the present is out of sight, but in due human spirit have grown atrophied time, as snow melts and discov- for want of use? ers what it lay upon, so will this To speak nowadays of man’s pil- visible creation fade away before grim state, of his promised home- those greater splendors which are land in Heaven, of the tribulations behind it, and on which at pres- of the world, and of the hope we ent it depends” (Plain & Parochial have for life beyond the grave, Sermons Vol. 4, sermon 14). invites a blank stare of stupefaction And so, as Christians, we do from the many for whom eternity have hope which sustains us in the has lost all attraction. But the price face of death. Our hope is to share paid for such silence about death in the glory of Heaven with Our is a heavy one. No one is exempt Blessed Lady, whose fiat—her “yes” from the final nightfall through to God—opened the door of the which we shall all one day pass. world to Christ, our salvation. We Why not then follow the can turn to her, asking through her example of Socrates, who famously intercession for the gift of Hope, in said that “the unexamined life order that we might both under- is not worth living?” Practice stand the Last Things and be given imitating those whose life is the courage to face them.

6 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. Introducing the Study of the Last Things Discussion Questions

1. When we are faced with the Four Last Things, what should be our atti- tude toward prayer? How does the Our Father relate to Hope—the virtue most necessary in facing the End? 2. How does it help us to understand life if we see it, not as a problem to be solved, but as a mystery to be endured? 3. Why is modern man so fearful of the presence of death? Why does our society have such a widespread resistance to eschatological inquiry?

Notes:

Learn More 7 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 2

The Christian Conception of Time and Its Relation to the Last Things We can think of life as a journey that eventu- ates in death. At birth, we all enter upon the road along which we must travel in the course of living our lives. The road ends with death, which is fol- lowed by judgment and the prospect of an eternity of either Heaven or Hell. Three classifications can be made about this metaphor of life as a journey. First, life begins, and then it ends. Meanwhile, sandwiched in-between, there is time in each pass- ing moment, replete with all the promise and the possibility of human freedom. Time is the theater for our The Church in her wisdom and experience journey home to God. studies time in three distinct disciplines, each of which aims to throw light upon these great and seminal moments of time. Archeology studies the first things. The other end of the stick, Eschatology, studies the end—the Last Things. Finally, Kairology is the study of this present moment, which St. Paul calls kairos. It is not the same as chronos, which is mechanical, segmented time by which we mark off hours and days and weeks. Kairos is God’s time and is therefore free and gracious. Indeed, kairos is a gift given to us by God so that we can experience this present, passing moment as a means of grace, a sacrament even. The present moment is intended to lead us to the unending glory of the Kingdom, God, Heaven, the Beatific Vision. The poet T.S. Eliot, in his poem Burnt Norton, describes the present moment as an intersection with eternity—“the still point of

8 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. the turning world.” In that still point, that timeless moment, the blessed undergoes a transforming union like that rendered by Bernini in his depic- tion of St. Teresa of Avila’s Transver- beration. For most of us, this extraordinary and lofty moment in the life of the saint is so other-worldly that it does not apply to the ordinary human condition. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which the “still point” is meant to suffuse and penetrate our lives as well. We have been given the present moment by God to sanctify and to offer back to him. An Intersection with Eternity We are responsible for the moments of time that are not make-believe, but in In the New Testament, sometimes the fact real. We can’t do anything about the word used for time is the Greek kairos. The past: it’s gone. Nor can we do anything other Greek word for time, chronos, means about the future, because it doesn’t yet simply the time measured during the passing exist. The present moment is the only of a day. Kairos means “the appointed time in experience of time we can have and so the purpose of God.” For example, John the we should seize it, take creative posses- Baptist’s proclamation in Mark 1:15—“The sion of it and turn it all to glory. time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God Now the failure of those who seek is at hand”—uses kairos because it refers to to bypass the present, refusing God’s the coming of Christ in the fullness of time. invitation to bloom where they are During the Divine Liturgy of the Byzantine planted, will typically take one of two , the ritual exclamation of the forms. We often take flight into the deacon is “Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio”—“It is future, fixating on a time which will time for the Lord to act.” The Liturgy, in this never exist because it magically seems sense, is a moment pregnant with eternity—a to hold all the pleasure and satisfaction “still point” in our turning world during which we can’t get enough of in the present. we intimately encounter the physical presence of Christ.

Learn More 9 beginning or end. Inserted into the gap between these two eternal bookends of God’s being is only one thing: time. Because God is the author of time, he is entirely and unambiguously “pro-time.” Indeed, all the great events of salvation history— Incarnation, Cross, Resurrection— take place in time. As Bl. Pope John Paul II states in a breath-catching assertion in his Apostolic Letter preparing the world for the coming of the Third Millennium, “In Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, time becomes a dimension of God, who is himself eternal.” What is truly astonishing On the other hand is the temptation about Christ’s life is the sheer to take refuge in the past, which is authenticity with which he lives the an unreal place and time because it ordinary, non-miraculous side of it. never existed as we imagine it did, The Word of God does in fact really festooned with all sorts of romance become flesh and blood and bone. and sentimentality. Those who fall Fr. Lynch calls this Christ’s “resolute prey to either fixation miss their living and penetration into human opportunity to exploit this current t i m e .” moment, the moment of grace which Fr. Lynch concludes his book God is giving us right now. with this wonderful provocation: In a wonderful book called “It is not accurate to say that Christ Christ and Apollo, American Jesuit redeemed time. For time has never Fr. William Lynch points out that the needed redeeming; it only needed structure of belief in the Apostles’ someone to explore its inner Creed opens with a God who is resources fully, and add even further without beginning, and then closes resources to it, as he did. And so on a note of unending union and powerful and new is the exploration, intimacy with this very same God, in his case, that it is crowned not who is also without end. God’s very only with insight but with the nature of being is both without Resurrection.”

10 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. The Christian Conception of Time and Its Relation to the Last Things Discussion Questions

1. How does kairos differ from chronos, and how might a proper under- standing of time rescue us from the twin fixations with past and future? 2. The title of Fr. William Lynch’s book, Christ and Apollo, suggests two contrasting attitudes toward time. Apollo, god of the sun, symbolizes man’s longing to escape from the world. What attitude toward time does Christ represent, and how does he change our perspective of time? 3. What does it mean to say that “time has never needed redeeming?” What did Christ do, in time and to time, if he did not redeem it?

Notes:

Learn More 11 The Sacrament of the Present Moment

Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s Abandonment to Divine Providence is also sometimes titled The Sacrament of the Present Moment. The following excerpt from this spiritual classic captures the importance of the intersec- tion of the timeless in time–the kairos–of our everyday life. The “still point” of union with Divine Love can be grasped through the performance of our daily duties. We have no better example of how to live perfectly this sacra- mental present moment than in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

God continues to speak today grace, turned imperceptibly to each as He spoke in former times to our new duty that presented itself by the fathers. Then, for those who led a permission of God at different hours spiritual life, each moment brought of the day. Such were the hidden some duty to be faithfully accom- springs by which the conduct of Mary plished. Their whole attention was was actuated. thus concentrated consecutively like “The power of the most High a hand that marks the hours which, shall over-shadow thee,” said the angel at each moment, traverses the space to Mary. This shadow, beneath which allotted to it. Their minds, incessantly is hidden the power of God for the animated by the impulsion of divine purpose of bringing forth Jesus Christ in the soul, is the duty, the attraction, or the cross that is presented to us at each moment. These are, in fact, but shadows like those in the order of nature which, like a veil, cover sen- sible objects and hide them from us. Therefore in the moral and supernatural order the duties of each moment conceal, under the sem- blance of dark shadows, the truth of their divine character which alone should rivet the attention. It was in this light that Mary beheld them.

12 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. The Holy Spirit, who comes to take possession of her under the shadow of the angel’s words, will never abandon her.

Also these shadows diffused over her faculties, far from creating illu- sion, did but increase her faith in Him who is unchanging and unchange- able. The archangel may depart. He has delivered his message, and his moment has passed. Mary advances without ceasing, and is already far beyond him. The Holy Spirit, who comes to take possession of her under the shadow of the angel’s words, will never abandon her. There are remarkably few extraordinary characteristics in the nourishment Mary and Joseph outward events of the life of the most received from this daily bread for holy Virgin, at least there are none the strengthening of their faith! It is recorded in Holy Scripture. Her like a sacrament to sanctify all their exterior life is represented as very moments. ordinary and simple. She did and What treasures of grace lie suffered the same things that anyone concealed in these moments filled, in a similar state of life might do or apparently, by the most ordinary suffer. She goes to visit her cousin events. That which is visible might Elizabeth as her other relatives did. happen to anyone, but the invisible, She took shelter in a stable in conse- discerned by faith, is no less than God quence of her poverty. She returned operating very great things. O Bread to Nazareth from whence she had of Angels! heavenly manna! pearl of been driven by the persecution of the Gospel! Sacrament of the present Herod, and lived there with Jesus moment! thou givest God under as and Joseph, supporting themselves lowly a form as the manger, the hay, by the work of their hands. It was in or the straw. this way that the holy family gained their daily bread. But what a divine

Learn More 13 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 3

Exploring the Nature and Dynamism of Hope

To live well in the present moment, we must gird ourselves with hope, which is the operative virtue when facing the end. In paragraph 2090, the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes hope as “the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God.” If the purpose of life is to get to Heaven and there to look upon the face of God forever, then the exer- cise of hope will prove essential in the acquisi- tion of that divine blessing. Only those who are fortified by hope will see God in Heaven. The outcome of our hope We find the same words in all the Creeds of does not depend on us, but Christendom: “We look for the resurrection of on the grace of God. the dead, and the life of the world to come.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s sanctity was character- ized the sheer boundless audacity of her hope. “They are waiting to see,” she would exclaim speaking of God and his saints, “how far I will go in my trust, but not in vain was my heart pierced by that saying of Job’s: ‘Even if you kill me, I will have hope in you.’” St. Thérèse also made the astonishing claim that “we can never have too much trust in our dear Lord. One receives as much from him as one hopes for.” The end of the New Testament contains the whole content of the Church’s hope, distilled into three simple words: “Come Lord Jesus.” These words invite a real and lively expectation that Christ will come. Because he has gone to prepare a place for us in Paradise, he will surely come

14 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. back to fetch us and take us home with him. After all, Jesus made us two promises which bear directly upon our hope and the hope of the Church: “I go and prepare a place for you... that where I am you too may be,” and, “I shall not leave you orphans.” FROM THE (Douay-Rheims Bible, John 14:3, 18). The origin of man belongs at BALTIMORE the same time to the very goal and CATECHISM finality of man. We come from God, we go to God, and all the moments in between belong to God. Gerard Manley Hopkins, the 19th century The poet whose imagination was steeped with a Catholic sacramental vision, Those graces or gifts of God by which we captures our hope in a lovely phrase: believe in him, and hope in him, and love him are Thee, God, I come from, to thee go, called the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and All day long I like fountain flow . (Q. 462) From thy hand out, swayed about Faith is the theological virtue by which we Mote-like in thy mighty glow.” firmly believe the truths which God has revealed. Whatever else the virtue of hope may (Q. 465) be, it represents, from first to last, the Hope is the theological virtue by which we deepest possible desire of the human firmly trust that God will give us eternal life and heart; it is the chief and abiding the means to obtain it. (Q. 466) thirst we have. Charity is the theological virtue by which we We are in the grip of hope. It love God above all things for his own sake, and our is a drive so fundamental that it neighbor as ourselves for love of God. (Q. 467) defines who we are. Here, in a world characterized by scarcity and sin, the existence of hope presupposes this deep persisting hunger and thirst of the human heart for happiness, both

Learn More 15 perfect and unchanging, which “is one directed toward something we simply do not have, but long to that does not depend on us.” If possess. Heaven were an entitlement, then The German Bishops in their it would not be grace, not be free- 1989 Catechism state “hope is very dom, not be mercy. different from optimism, which But, Heaven is not anything imagines that things will somehow merited on one’s strength, charm, work out. Hope reaches deeper and wit, good looks, or even virtue. goes farther. It is an expectation In fact, the only merit we may lay that the bleak monotony and bur- claim to, to quote St. Bernard of den of everyday life, the inequal- Clairvaux, is God’s mercy, which ity and injustice in the world, the he tends to dispense to those who reality of evil and suffering, will don’t deserve any. The very first not have the last word, are not the thing the Christian must learn ultimate reality.” about himself is that he will never Indeed, St. Thomas Aquinas be good enough for Heaven and tells us that, “Before a thing can be will never be equal to God. Hope hoped for, it must first be desired. is the virtue that enables us to per- Things that are not desired are not severe in the teeth of all that would objects of hope; rather they are prevent our going to Heaven; to feared or even despised.” To be sure, continue to trust in God with that which is hoped for might be whom all things are possible, difficult to acquire. Aquinas teaches including even our own salvation. us that “hope necessarily implies the idea that the good hoped for is hard to get: trifles are the object of contempt rather than of hope.” Prayer is our language of hope. It is the recognition that what we ultimately desire, the source and finality of all our hope, does not finally depend on us but on God. We must turn with arms outstretched to God and ask for that which we cannot obtain on our own. “The only genuine hope,” writes philosopher Gabriel Marcel,

16 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. Exploring the Nature and Dynamism of Hope Discussion Questions

1. In addition to the Creed and the Catechism definition, in which other prayers or common expressions of the Church can we find expression of Christian hope? 2. Can you describe the distinction between desire and hope? How are they the same, and how are they different? Does the object of desire affect the difference? 3. What does Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, mean by saying that “a Christian is someone who knows that he lives first and foremost as the beneficiary of a bounty…?” How does knowledge of our depen- dence on God affect the genuineness of our hope?

Notes:

Learn More 17 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 4

On First Opening the Door of Death

Leaving aside faith and hope for the moment, suppose we take note of our human predicament as if the promise of Revelation had never been made. Man is the only animal who contemplates death, and who ponders the neces- sary and inevitable extinction of all things. Only man is aware of his own death, and is free to meditate and reflect on its meaning. Man is the only one who see his death as the final cancella- tion of all that he might have been or become. As St. put it three centu- Man is alone in knowing ries ago, “What else is our life but a light vapor, he must die and that the which is driven away and disappears with the prospect fills him with wind—a blade of grass which is dried up in the dread. heat of the sun?” This is true of all contingent beings, but only man knows it and remains truly and deeply troubled by it. Death is the most commonplace and most banal of all events. Yet at the same time, death is the most painfully incomprehensible and the least welcome of all the things which conspire to overtake and destroy us. We are terrified by the face of death; it makes cowards of us all. When we confront the sheer annihilating fact of death itself, it induces a great and primal fear. Death, says philosopher Hans Urs von Balthasar, “crushes and scatters to the four winds the little bit of meaning that has been laboriously accumulated in a life.” Strangely enough, faced with such apparent meaninglessness, we humans

18 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. persist in hope, even apart from reli- gion. A man’s gaze remains fixed on all that might lie beyond the horizon of death, even though all the evidence of our senses reveals a very different picture. All that we are and all that we have; nothing, it seems, is meant to survive. The cosmos, ourselves— everything—is a mere interlude between two blank spaces of eternal nothingness. As another philosopher, Contemplating Death Jean Paul Sartre said, “Nothingness haunts being.” Much of the culture Two ancient Latin mottos recall death’s that surrounds us is characterized by imminent presence: respice finem—“consider this sense of overpowering, pulver- the end,” and memento mori—“remember, izing dread occasioned by man’s you must die.” These slogans appear encounter with death and his fear of frequently throughout Western literature nothingness which follows. and art. Often, a skull, wilting flowers, or a All of us, some sooner than later, timepiece will appear in paintings to serve are scheduled to go through the as a reminder of life’s temporality. In the door of death, taking our leave of liturgy of Ash Wednesday, Catholics receive a this life. Right from the beginning, physical memento mori as a cross of ashes on men have lamented their fate. the forehead while the priest reminds them: Dylan Thomas’ poem, Do Not Go “Remember man, you are dust, and to dust Gentle, is a powerful testament to you will return.” the tenacity of the human spirit, its determination to resist right to the very end the awful finality of fate. Most of the human race does not wish to “go gently into that good night,” preferring as it were to “rage against the dying of the light.”

Learn More 19 Man, alone among all the telephone calls stating: creatures of the universe, knows “Remember, you must die.” Few four things: first, that he must die; who receive the calls are thankful second, that he remains averse to for the salutary summons. Instead, dying; third, that he must bury his they are thrown into sudden dead; and finally, that it is fitting to panic and consternation. Retired mourn and remember those who Inspector Mortimer and Granny have died. In addition, man is the Taylor are two characters who only being who shows the least are unalarmed by Death’s ringing indication of doubt concerning the reminder. As Mortimer notes, “It apparent finality of death. What a is, you know, an excellent thing to curious paradox: on the one hand, remember, for it is nothing more only man knows he must die, yet than the truth.” this same “quintessence of dust,” to quote Shakespeare, strangely persists in believing death won’t “To remember one’s death is, in last, that it needn’t be forever. short, a way of life.” To take an example from literature, Muriel Spark wrote a very strange and prophetic novel Granny Taylor says “a good death in the 1950s called Memento Mori, doesn’t reside in the dignity of which from the Latin roughly bearing, but in the disposition of translates as “remember, you must t h e s ou l .” die.” Her novel is an unsparing, With such examples, we are utterly unsentimental account of reminded that we are Christians, death, which is the first of the Four wedded to all the promises of Last Things. If for the Victorians Christ. We should remember that sex was the little secret about death, which defines our mortal which men and women were not condition, is a result of the sinful even to whisper, then for us it is estate into which we have all fallen. death: the great unmentionable of With this in mind, let us liberate the modern world, which despite ourselves from the oppressions of every effort of modern science and secularity and recall the fact that technology to eradicate, stubbornly Christ, by his descent into all that persists in killing us. is human, has delivered us from In Spark’s novel, a series both sin and death. of characters receive ominous

20 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. On First Opening the Door of Death Discussion Questions

1. If death is so ordinary and unexciting an event, why do we live in such mortal terror of it? 2. Why does Dylan Thomas exhort us not to “go gently into that good night…?” What is the poet trying to tell us about death and our response to it? 3. How has our fear of death found expression in secular society?

Notes:

Learn More 21 The Last Rites

The “Last Rites” are actually confession and receive absolution a collection of three of the sacra- from the priest. At this point, if the ments: Reconciliation, Viaticum, person is near to death, it is pos- and Anointing of the Sick. In the sible to receive an Apostolic Pardon: Catholic Church, Reconciliation and a special indulgence given by the Holy Eucharist can be received at priest for the remission of temporal any time in a person’s life. However, punishment due to sin. He pro- Anointing of the Sick is especially nounces: “By the authority which reserved to bring spiritual and phys- the Apostolic See has given me, I ical strength to a person in danger of grant you a full pardon and the re- death due to illness or old age. mission of all your sins in the name During the Last Rites, the first of the Father, and of the Son, and of sacrament received is Reconcilia- the Holy Spirit.” tion, which can only be adminis- Second, the sick person receives tered by a priest. The sick person Viaticum, which is a Latin word has the opportunity to make a good meaning “provision for the journey.” It is reception of the Holy Eucha- rist, the “Last Sacrament of the Christian,” which conveys spiritual sustenance for departure from this life and travel into the next. With Viaticum, the Church encourages the dying, saying: Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for you, in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you. Go forth, faithful Christian!

22 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.

Lastly, according to paragraph 998 of the Code of Canon Law, “the Church commends to the suffer- ing and glorified Lord the faithful who are dangerously sick so that he relieve and save them” through the anointing “with oil and using the words prescribed in the liturgi- cal books.” The priest anoints the sick person’s head with the sign of the cross saying “Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace these oils is only used for its specific of the Holy Spirit.” Then, he anoints function. the hands, saying “May the Lord TheCatechism of the Catholic who frees you from sin save you and Church, in paragraph 1532, raise you up.” describes the effects of the Each year, during the Chrism Anointing of the Sick as “the Mass held during Holy Week, uniting of the sick person to the the local bishop blesses all the passion of Christ, for his own good oils used in the sacraments: holy and that of the whole Church; the chrism which is used for Baptism, strengthening, peace, and courage Confirmation, anointing churches to endure in a Christian manner and altars, and on the head and the sufferings of illness or old age; hands of priests during ordination; the forgiveness of sins, if the sick the oil of catechumens with which person was not able to obtain it candidates for entry into the through the sacrament of Penance; Church are anointed during their the restoration of health, if it is preparation; and the oil of the conducive to the salvation of his sick which is used by the priest soul; the preparation for passing in administering the sacrament over to eternal life.” of Anointing of the Sick. Each of

Learn More 23 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 5

On Seeing Death as a Christian and the Consolation It Brings

A Christian perspective of death is radically different from prevailing secular views of human mortality. In his book, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Joseph Ratzinger states that the condi- tion of the modern mind in the face of death is “remarkably contradictory. On the one hand, death is placed under a taboo.... It must be hidden away, the thought of it repressed. On the other hand, there is a tendency to put death on show.” We either hide death under a bushel basket or we expose it in a way which is obscene. This is the paradox at The Christian view of the heart of our culture of death which constantly death relieves our fear and engages in a massive denial of death. encourages us to prepare There is something naturally, irrepressibly for the end. metaphysical about the encounter with death— something that draws us into a consideration of ultimate truth and meaning. Death spontaneously awakens a lively curiosity about our lives and about the origin and destiny of all human life. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Yet, in order to avoid facing these unsettling questions, our culture tries to deprive death of its metaphysical character and demote it to a merely pedestrian event. In contrast to this self-imposed blindness toward death is the Christian “Litany of the Saints.” The Litany petitions God to deliver us from a sudden and unprepared for death. Such a death, without benefit of the Sacraments and an interior recollection which fortifies the soul, is a real danger to the Christian. A Christian should

24 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. want to take ownership of his death. A Christian should desire to be fully alert and ready at the moment when God comes to take possession of his soul for all eternity. Unfortunately, so many people today want exactly the opposite. Their prayer is for a sudden death which leaves no time for suffering or reflec- Genesis 2:15-17 tion. They reject a spiritual perspec- And the Lord God [said]: Of every tree of tive of death and wish for life to cease paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of with as little discomfort as possible. knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. Ratzinger reminds us that “attitudes For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou to dying determine attitudes to living. shalt die the death. Death becomes the key to the question: what really is man?” Wisdom 2:23-24 Death makes life worth living, but For God created man incorruptible, and to can really only be understood theologi- the image of his own likeness he made him. But cally. The price we pay in rejecting the by the of the devil, death came into the metaphysical nature of death is very world: And they follow him that are of his side. high indeed; ignoring ultimate realities threatens to dehumanize life itself. Our Romans 5:12 lives, and deaths, are only meaningful Wherefore as by one man sin entered into in the light of divine revelation, in rela- this world, and by sin death; and so death tion to God, in relation to that whole passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. economy of nature and the cosmos. Death only exists as a punishment I Corinthians 15:25-26 for man’s sin. This penal aspect of the For [Christ] must reign, until he hath put experience of death is indispensable all his enemies under his feet. And the enemy to a Christian understanding of the death shall be destroyed last: For he hath put nature of death. All men simply by all things under his feet. virtue of having been conceived in are subject to death. Quoted from the Douay-Rheims Translation

Learn More 25 remote, he is responsible for the creation of a fallen world. God does not delight in the event of death; even his own Son sweated drops of blood in fear of the horror of death on the Cross. Death is the supreme enemy of life, of existence, which is simply another name for God. “I Am Who Am,” God told Moses in the great theophany of the Book of Exodus. There is no death in ME, says God, nor in the creatures I have fash- In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. Sin ioned in my own image, after the leads to death; what sin visited upon likeness of my own eternity. Death, the cosmos was death. therefore, is an entirely unnatural Yet, from the beginning, it was separation of the soul from the never God’s intention that we should body, a violent sundering of that die. We were created for eternal which God intended to remain life in the Garden, which we lost a composite unity of matter and through rebellion and sin. God is spirit, body and soul. not the author of death. From the Because we were created for life beginning, he never intended that eternal, if there is death, it can only man should suffer death. We didn’t have been the result of sin. The last have to fall; death is the result of a enemy to be destroyed is death, horrible catastrophe. It wasn’t a piece St. Paul tells us in the First Letter of determinism that God imposed to the Corinthians 1:15-26. Christ, on the play of our lives. because he is God himself, is so The evidence of human experi- intensely alive that he can afford to ence testifies to the sheer universality be dead. He freely entered into that of the fall—that “aboriginal calam- condition of death, taking on the ity,” according to Bl. John Henry whole sin of the world in order that Newman—in which we are all we may experience a definitive deliv- implicated. With that original sin, erance from that final and most fatal we brought to grief our entire world. consequence of sin, which is Hell, God is completely acquitted from and thus be joined to God forever in the charge that in any way, however Heaven.

26 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. On Seeing Death as a Christian and the Consolation It Brings Discussion Questions

1. In startling opposition to modern secular attitudes toward death, there stands the Christian view, which found expression early on in the “Litany of the Saints,” particularly the refrain, “from a death that is sud- den and unprepared for, deliver us, O Lord.” What is meant by that? 2. Can we vindicate God from the charge that he is responsible for death in the world? By extension, can we also lay to rest the charge that he is responsible for sin and suffering? 3. If God is not responsible for sin and death having entered the world, who exactly is? How can a good God allow death and suffering?

Notes:

Learn More 27 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 6

The Jig Is Up: On Judgment and the World to Come

Immediately after death, the soul, disembodied for the very first time, is delivered over to Almighty God for judgment. At the judgment, we will find ourselves thrown into the light of the total truth and reality of God’s absolute presence. In that moment, all worldly distraction will fall away and we will awaken from the sleep of death to see clearly the true and lasting characteristics of the self we have at last become. In his book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Blessed Pope John Paul II asks: “Can God who The coming judgment will has loved man so much, permit the man who be both definitive and rejects him to be condemned to eternal torment? comprehensive. And yet, the words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew’s Gospel he speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment.” The referenced text of Matthew 25:46 is terrifyingly plain about the eternal prospects of those who disdain the discipline of love. Christ says that those at his left hand—the men and women who have failed to recognize him in their thirsty, hungry, naked, and imprisoned brothers and sisters—“shall go into everlasting punishment.” Even though Christ’s words might cause us to recoil, a voice in the human heart asks whether God can tolerate the terrible crimes of humanity perpetrated against ourselves forever. Can the reckoning which history or public opinion has failed to provide be put off indefinitely? Doesn’t the sinner have to face up to his sin?

28 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. C.S. Lewis once preached a magnificent sermon on the theme of glory, Heaven, Hell, and damnation. “In the end,” he said, “that Face which is the delight or the terror of the uni- verse must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the FROM THE other, either conferring glory inex- pressible or inflicting shame that can BALTIMORE never be cured or disguised.” In the CATECHISM light of the awful majesty of Almighty God, we will either receive glory with him in Heaven or the unending gro- tesquerie of self-centeredness in Hell. The Last Judgment This is what the Church under- stands by the thing we call “judg- Christ will judge us immediately after our ment.” It is a profound, eschatological death, and on the last day. The Particular mystery of God’s final reckoning of Judgment will be held in the place where each the worth of a man, the definitive person dies, and the soul will go immediately moral weight of all that we’ve done to its reward or punishment. The sentence in this world, and thus what we’re given at the will not be destined to become in the next. changed at the General Judgment, but it will Yet, judgment cannot be be repeated and made public to all. (Q. 1371, understood apart from Christ who 1373, 1375) is the great Advocate of Love. The There is need of a General Judgment, Eternal Love is nothing like the though everyone is judged immediately after kind of counterfeit love we fallen death, that the Providence of God, which, on human beings often profess. What earth, often permits the good to suffer and the we call love is sometimes no more wicked to prosper, may in the end appear just than an attitude in which we remain before all men. (Q. 1387) fundamentally indifferent to our beloved. Real love is not self-seeking or self-centered.

Learn More 29 Love must surely be a mighty at the end of the world, is the and powerful thing. Dante calls General Judgment. love “a lord of terrible aspect” At the Particular Judgment, who “moves the heavens and the each of us will know himself earth and all the stars and planets.” exactly as he is known by God. The Russian novelist, Fyodor The soul will see how God judges Dostoevsky calls love “a harsh and and its conscience will confirm dreadful thing”—the very opposite the of its sentence. “For of the sentimental play-acting love those who die in mortal sin,” writes sold to us by popular culture which James T. O’Connor in his book masks deep indifference or even Land of the Living, “it will be a hostility for the beloved other. confirmation of all the horror of God, who is true Love, may death itself. For others it will be never reconcile himself to the the very beginning of their victory hideousness of sin. When we over the death they have just sin, we become less than human experienced.” and allow the negation of sin to The General Judgment undermine the integrity of our will demonstrate in the most God-created being. Even so, Love unmistakable terms both the may yet be reconciled to the sinner justice of God in condemning because he can always change sinners and the depth of his and be restored to innocence and mercy to those who are saved. The holiness. General Judgment will take place in the presence of the glorified Christ, amid all the resurrected The repentant sinner can be bodies at the very end of the perfected and made whole in his world. In the blazing presence of being and relation to God. Truth, Christ himself to whom all judgment has been given by the Father, every man who has ever As Catholics, we believe there lived will stand and the truth of are two separate judgments which his relationship to God will be laid face us after death. The first, the bare before the world. Because God immediate judgment after death, does exist, it will be made finally is called the Particular Judgment, and forever clear that Truth is the and the second, the public and absolutely last Word. comprehensive judgment of all

30 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. The Jig Is Up: On Judgment and the World to Come Discussion Questions

1. What are the two Judgments that no man may escape? Why must there be two? 2. If the Judgment is implicit in the event of Death, is there ever a time when we are not under Judgment? After all, isn’t the whole course of living simply a preparation for dying? 3. What does Joseph Ratzinger mean when he writes of the Judgment of God as follows: “The masquerade of living with its constant retreat behind posturing and fictions, is now over?”

Notes:

Learn More 31 Purgatory

Purgatory, from the Latin they undergo purification, so as to purgare—“to cleanse” or “to purify,” achieve the holiness necessary to is a state through which a soul enter the joy of Heaven.” We refer who dies in a state of grace, but to the souls in Purgatory as “holy is nonetheless still imperfect and souls” because we know that they flawed, is cleansed from all venial will eventually enjoy the Heavenly sins and the temporal punishment Banquet. due for already forgiven sins. We can compare Purgatory to “a According to paragraph 1030 of the refining fire” (Malachi 3:2), the heat Catechism of the Catholic Church, of which scours and burns away any “All who die in God’s grace and remaining impurities from a soul. friendship, but still imperfectly The pains suffered in Purgatory are purified, are indeed assured of their nothing at all like the punishments eternal salvation; but after death of damned souls in Hell. Purgatory is a process, a final refining which removes all the dross from the gold of a holy soul. The pains of Purgatory, accord- ing to St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, are twofold: “the pain of loss, namely the delay of the divine vision, and the pain of sense, namely punishment by corporeal fire.” Aquinas says that “the least pain of Purgatory surpasses the greatest pain of this life” because the holy souls’ desire for union with God is “the most intense longing— both because their longing is not held back by the weight of the body, and because, had there been no obstacle [of sins yet to be purified],

32 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. A great happiness is granted them which never fails; rather it grows as they draw nearer God.

they would already have gained any Catholic who visits a cemetery the goal of enjoying the Sovereign or church and prays for the dead Good—it follows that they grieve can obtain a plenary indulgence exceedingly for their delay.” and release from Purgatory for one According to St. Catherine of holy soul. A plenary indulgence Genoa in her “Treatise on Purga- is the remission of all temporal tory,” far from being unhappy or punishment due to sin. In order to bitter about their sufferings, the receive the grace of an indulgence, holy souls have “before their eyes a Catholic must make a good two works of God.” They “suffer confession within eight days, pain willingly… knowing that they worthily receive Holy Communion, most fully deserve it” for “it seems be free from attachment to sin, and to them that [God] has shown them pray for the intentions of the Pope. great mercy.” Despite the pangs of This is an important practice—souls loss and the ever-increasingly fiery released from Purgatory by the desire for the Beatific Vision, as prayers of the faithful on Earth the holy souls contemplate God’s are sure to return the favor by mercy, “a great happiness is granted interceding for us in God’s presence. them which never fails; rather it grows as they draw nearer God.” So For more information on while these souls suffer pains which Purgatory and the Holy Souls: destroy selfishness, , and all Hungry Souls remaining attachment to sin, they Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg do so both willingly and with great (TAN Books, 2009) joy because they draw ever closer to the resplendent Throne of God. Spiritual Doctrine of Every year on November 2nd, St. Catherine of Genoa the Catholic Church celebrates ed. Don Cattaneo Marabotto the Commemoration of All the (TAN Books, 1989) Faithful Departed, commonly called The Biblical Basis for Purgatory “All Souls Day.” On this day and John Salza during the eight days following, (Saint Benedict Press, 2009)

Learn More 33 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 7

On Going to Hell

The whole of Christian life and worship depends on three things being true: there is a God; he is gracious and good; and the world he created is worth redeeming. Because we all must die and face judgment as a result of Adam’s original sin, we should be curious about the two eternal possibilities that await us on the other side: Heaven and Hell. God is being, is life itself, and all creation shares in that same vibrant intensity of life. We must love, accept, and affirm this world simply The damned are unwilling because in its share of God’s life, it is good. After to be loved and so they all, we know that evil is the absence of the good. separate themselves from So if the world were bad or evil, there would be God eternally. nothing for grace and glory to build on and per- fect. God, out of an incomprehensible depth of love, has fashioned men and women for himself alone and invites them to eternal joy with him in Heaven. Hell is man’s refusal to countenance God’s joy. It is made from the contempt of those who say to God and their neighbors: “I don’t want to love. I don’t want to be loved. Just leave me to myself.” God will not stop any man from choosing not to love or to be loved. He has paid each of us the astonishing compliment of taking our liberty seriously, even when it carries us straight to Hell. When we say “no” to God, we succumb to nihilism: the notion that nothing, not even God’s offer of salvation, is of any value.

34 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. In its most serious expression, this rejection amounts to the sin against the Holy Ghost (final and resolute impenitence), which on the strength of its malice, will carry uninterrupted any unrepentant soul into Hell. Hell is filled with those who will not be reconciled with God. In the end, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, “every shutting up of the creature within The Number of Lost Souls the dungeon of its own mind is Hell.” As Lewis believes, the gates remain How many souls are damned to spend an locked and secured on the inside. eternity in Hell and who might they be? The inmates of Hell have no inclina- The Church has no information whatsoever tion to take flight from the torment and is forbidden to speculate. Neither the of being forever alone. Jean Paul number of the lost nor the names of any whom Sarte was wrong: Hell is not other we might imagine to be lost have ever been people, as depicted in his play “No or ever will be revealed. However infamous Exit.” Hell is being alone, absolutely the deeds of wicked men, it is not for other and forever. men to pronounce on their eternal destiny. The In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s great Church has elevated many, but determines as novel, The Brothers Karamozov, Fr. reprobate none. Zosima asks, “What is Hell?” and All the Church’s strictures on the subject are answers, “It is the suffering of being meant to remind the faithful that the distinct unable to love.” Hell depends on the possibility exists that we, ourselves, may go to anchoring of all one’s love to one’s Hell, not our neighbors or any of the rogues and own self instead of exercising one’s rascals who swell the ranks of human depravity. capacity to love another. “What is Thus, we are free to trust in God’s mercy that it Hell?” questions the loveless husband may yet, in the language of the Letter of in “Cocktail Party” by T.S. Eliot. He Saint James 2:13, “triumph over justice.” says: “Hell is oneself, Hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projec- tions. There is nothing to escape

Learn More 35 from and nothing to escape to. man can have the life and happi- One is always alone.” ness for which he was created and The unquenchable fire amid for which he longs.” There can the precincts of Hell spoken of in be neither misery nor sadness to the Scriptures is not a conflagra- equal the horror of the loss of God tion ignited by God. It is not the forever. wrath of Heaven whose torments God’s provision making man assail the damned, as if God took free to enter such a state of abso- delight in constructing a place of lute loneliness is precisely what everlasting torture. Hell is not his makes it Hell. There will never creation, but the result of the sins be a time when the damned will of angels and men who choose to even wish to be set free. A man go there. Hell’s fires are lit entirely will refuse forever Christ’s offer of by the flames of malice, deceit, and forgiving love because he exercises injustice committed against the his God-given free will. Man will order of divine love. not suffer himself to budge from We are not thrown by another the bastion of his pride, and so, into the sea of fire; it is our own insists on remaining aimless and sins that fill that seething cauldron alone always in an eternity of grief of self-imposed enmity and pain. which no creature was ever created “At a certain point,” writes Origen, by God to have to endure. Such is the great Church Father of the the power given to created man— early third century, “in a soul freedom to destroy every last that has accumulated all sorts of bridge to that beatitude for which evil... this mixture catches fire and he was made. begins, in punishment of the soul, to burn.... The soul that finds itself outside of the order and harmony for which it was created by God will itself suffer the pain and punishment of its transgressions.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 1057, is very plain about the sufferings of Hell. They chiefly involve the pain of loss caused by an eternal separa- tion from God “in whom alone

36 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. On Going to Hell Discussion Questions

1. How does our human experience lend credence to a belief in the existence of Hell? How is the experience of Hell described? Will it ever have an end for the damned souls? 2. In what sense does the existence of Hell ensure the operations of a healthy moral conscience? How is Hell a safeguard of man’s conscience? What is T.S. Eliot getting at when he says an aspect of man’s “glory is his capacity for damnation?” 3. How many souls are there in Hell? Why doesn’t the Church simply state the number of the damned, just as she has done for the canon- ized saints in Heaven?

Notes:

Learn More 37 The Four Last Things Regis Martin, S.T.D. Lecture 8

On the Reality and Nature of Heaven

The most sensible thing anyone could possi- bly say about Heaven is that it is certain to prove infinitely greater than any description of it. John Donne, the Elizabethan poet and preacher, refused to utter a single word concerning the nature of Heaven. We are reduced to silence, the blessed silence of those who have gone before us, because, very simply, it is impossible to fit an infinite reality into a finite mind. This must be why Lazarus, despite having died and come back from the grave, left very little evidence of Only the merest glints what he’d seen or experienced. of future glory may be The great pilgrim-poet Dante, who despite glimpsed amid the shadow every resource of language and metaphor, is world we inhabit. reduced to a kind of inspired babbling when he looks on the very face of God in the final Canto of the Paradiso. Lost in a swoon of perfect contemplative bliss, he tells us that at that high moment, his ability to describe what he sees utterly fails. The highest reaches of the imagina- tion, even when anointed by grace, are helpless to express the nature of ultimate reality. The point here is a Christological one: Jesus Christ came among us to announce that he himself is the way to Heaven. We therefore need to look to him to see what Heaven really is. “All the way to Heaven, is Heaven because Christ is the way,” St. tells us. Our proximity to Christ is the clearest sign of Heaven because Heaven is a Christological

38 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. place. The God who became Man creates a space for us in the very being which is God. In his book, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Joseph Ratzinger says that in our being with Christ, “we find the true location of our existence as human beings in God. Heaven is thus primarily a personal reality, and one that remains forever shaped by its historical origin in the paschal mystery of death and resurrection.” Christ, in other words, as the temple of the final age, as the The Nature of Heaven very enfleshment of eternity in time, is Heaven and the New Jerusalem. He that asks me what Heaven is means Heaven is a relationship with not to hear me, but to silence me; he knows I Christ in God, and we can hardly cannot tell him; when I meet him there, I shall begin to imagine the intensity and be able to tell him, and then he will be as able joy of it. We don’t get Heaven as to tell me; yet then we shall be but able to tell something owed to us; it is not a one another this, this that we enjoy is Heaven, function of justice, but of grace, of but the tongues of angels, the tongues of mercy. We could never produce that glorified saints, shall not be able to express relationship or bliss on our own. what that heaven is; for even in Heaven our Even though we desire it more than faculties shall be finite. any other thing in the universe, only –John Donne, Sermon XXIII, Folio of 1640 God can lavish Heaven upon us. The human heart is a kind of God-shaped vacuum, a divinely hollowed out space that only Christ can fill. As St. Augustine tells us, our hearts will remain forever restless until they find rest in God. It is the

Learn More 39 whole paradox of man that he the sunsets or ardent and deep our should long for what is ordained friendships, nothing in this world beyond the strength and power of will finally satisfy our perpetual his own nature. Even though we longing for God, who mysteriously were created by God for God, we plants this desire deep within the are unable to take ourselves home soul of every created being. to God. “Without Me, you can do It may well be, as George nothing,” says Jesus. We are like Macdonald reminds the young beggars in a ditch, free to look up visionary who finds himself at the stars, but utterly unable to mysteriously on board the bus reach even the closest one. Only bound for glory in C.S. Lewis’ The grace can give us the ultimate Great Divorce, that “Heaven is fulfillment of Heaven. reality itself. All that is fully real is To be in Heaven is to be in soli- Heavenly.” Hans Urs von Balthasar darity with God and our neighbor, tells us that for “anyone who is to achieve the complete integration permitted to step out of his own of self and community. In other narrow and finalized life, and into words, when we find ourselves this life of God’s, it seems as if vast forever in the company of Christ spaces are opened up before one, and all the blessed souls whom taking one’s breath away... Life in God has called home, we will have God becomes an absolute miracle.” achieved the greatest possible actu- alization of the self. The rapture of the soul redeemed by Christ will overflow into its glorified body; and together, in the very resplen- dence of the Paradisal state, we shall shine like the sun. In his great masterpiece, The City of God, St. Augustine gives stirring expression of what the joys of Heaven will finally consist: “There we shall rest and we shall see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what shall be in the end and shall not end.” However gorgeous

40 The Four Last Things / Regis Martin, S.T.D. On the Reality and Nature of Heaven Discussion Questions

1. Why must the exercise in enumerating the joys of Heaven always end in exhaustion? Will it even be possible to adequately describe Heaven when, please God, we arrive there? 2. Despite our difficulty describing it, much less getting there, why does humankind still long for Heaven? How can we defend the statement that God made us to be with him? 3. In what sense will Heaven be a community and why do we not go alone to God? How does the isolated, self-centered self ensure his own damnation?

Notes:

Learn More 41 Suggested READING If you would like to read the works referenced in this course or would like to learn more about the Four Last Things, Professor Regis Martin, S.T.D. recommends: Eliot, T.S. Four Quartets. Harcourt, Brace and World, 1943.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Oxford University Press, 1948.

John Paul II. Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Knopf, 1994.

Lewis, C.S. The Great Divorce. Macmillan, 1946.

Newman, John Henry, ed. Erich Pryzwara, S.J. The Heart of Newman. Ignatius Press, 1997.

Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. Penguin Books, 1966.

Péguy, Charles, trans. Julian Green. God Speaks. Pantheon, 1943.

Pieper, Josef. On Hope. Ignatius Press, 1986.

Ratzinger, Joseph, trans. Michael Waldstein. Escha- tology—Death and Eternal Life. Catholic University of America Press, 1988.

Ulanov, Barry, ed. Death: A Book of Preparation and Consolation. Sheed and Ward, 1959.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Cat- echism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America Copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. –Libreria Editrice Vati- cana. Used with Permission. ABOUT CATHOLIC COURSES Catholic Courses produces college-level courses on the Learn More most important topics from the Catholic intellectual tradition. Through an extensive selection process, we find the Church’s most distinguished professors to teach relevant, faithful, and engaging lectures. Catholic Courses feeds your mind and your soul, helping you Learn More about Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Professor: Dr. Regis Martin Graphic Design: Christopher Pelicano, Abby Pelicano Editor: Sarah Laurell Special thanks to Belmont Abbey College and Dr. William K. Thierfelder, Kevin Gallagher, Zachery Brakefield, Jonathan Torres, Eliana Gallagher, and McKenzie Armstrong

IMAGE CREDITS Pgs. 15 & 29: Baltimore Catechism No. 3 cover courtesy TAN Books.

All copyrighted images, video, and text are used with the expressed written consent of the owner(s) or have been deemed fair use for the specific instances used. Other images, video, and text are from public domain sources. All trademarks are used with the permission of their owners or have been deemed nominative fair use for the specific instances used. Use of trademarked or copyrighted material in no way implies endorsement by the owner(s) or source. For comments about the copyright or trademark status of any image, video, or text used in this course, please contact Catholic Courses at [email protected].

Catholic Courses . 1-800-437-5876 Contact us for more P.O. Box 410487, Charlotte, NC 28241 Catholic Courses!

www.CatholicCourses.com ©2011 Saint Benedict Press, LLC. All rights reserved. Learn More

The Four Last Things Reflections on Death, Judgment, Heaven & Hell

A lively interest in death and the life to come is necessary to our identity and vocation as Christians. How will we face the end? On whom does our hope finally depend? In short, what are the last things ever to be remembered? “Nothing is more certain than death,” declares St. Anselm, “nothing more uncertain than its hour.” While others recoil from the prospect of death, we who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ remain serene in the practice of hope, which enables us to face the end with joy and gratitude. In this course, Professor Regis Martin identifies the Last Things each of us is destined to face—namely, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell—reviewing them in the context of Christian hope, which is the virtue most necessary to the happy outcome of our journey home to God.

Regis Martin, S.T.D. Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH Dr. Regis Martin holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy. He is a Professor of Systematic Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and the author of more than a half-dozen books, including The Four Last Things (TAN Books, forthcoming) and The Suffering of Love (Ignatius Press, 2007). His articles have been published by the National Review, Commonweal, Crisis, Lay Witness, and Magnificat Prayer Book.

Catholic Courses offers trusted content in high quality Catholic Courses video & audio formats on discs or digital downloads. P.O. Box 410487 Visit us online at Charlotte, NC 28241 www.CatholicCourses.com ©2011 Saint Benedict Press, LLC. or call us toll-free at 1-800-437-5876. All rights reserved.