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By Fr. Roy Cimagala *
“THE Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous.” (Mt 13,47-49)
With these words of Christ, we are made to understand that there is such thing as Judgment Day that comes after our death. And after Judgment Day, we either go to heaven or hell.
These are truths of our faith, the so-called Last Things, that should not scare us, but rather should urge us to go through the process of making the proper preparation. In fact, if we have to follow the example of Christ, we somehow should look forward to our death, followed by the Judgment Day, and intensely hope to be in heaven.
We know that Christ was clear from the start of his redemptive life on earth about his death. He was even predicting it a number of times. We too should somehow have the same mindset of Christ—sure that one day we will die, and that therefore we should prepare ourselves for it so as to be confident to face God on Judgment Day.
This is simply to be realistic about our whole life. We should know what our earthly life is all about, and how each event and circumstance of our life give us that confidence to face God on Judgment Day.
Thus, instead of shying away from the consideration of the Last Things, we should rather be always mindful of them, since they would imbue us with proper sense of purpose and direction at every moment of our life. We would, in fact, be reflecting Christ’s life in ours. And that, by the way, is the proper way to live our life.
In the same gospel cited above, there is also mention made about the need to know how to blend the new and the old things in our life. (cfr. Mt 13,52) It’s a clear reference to the fact that we live in time and that we go through stages of development. We should know how to be consistent and focused on what is truly essential in life as we go through varying conditions, circumstances and situations.
Truth is, our life here on earth is God’s time in his eternity to create and redeem us. In other words, we are still a work in progress. But it’s a divine work in which we have a big role to play, since we are supposed to knowingly and willingly correspond to his designs for us, to his will and ways. That’s because we have been created in God’s image and likeness, endowed with the power to know and to will and love.
Our proper correspondence to God’s ongoing creative and redemptive work on us depends to a large extent on our awareness of the Last Things, like our death and judgment, that would make us aware of the real purpose of our life and of what we ought to do to achieve that purpose.
May we develop the proper attitude toward the Last Things, even to the extent of looking forward to our death and judgment, so we would be keenly aware of what we need to do to achieve the ultimate purpose of our life!
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