And before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left Now what the catechism explains about this Last Judgment notice it has two parts here: the resurrection of the dead and then the final judgment ; It says, in paragraph and this is the real point :.
And if you continue, in paragraph it says a little more:. So see, it's tied to the second coming. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming.
Then through his Son Jesus Christ this is great he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end.
The Last Judgment will reveal that God's justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God's love is stronger than death. Because when you look around the world now, what do you see?
It spreads invisibly through the lump of dough and it makes it rise. Or the kingdom of God is like a little mustard seed that is planted. It starts out the smallest of seeds but what does it grow into? The Particular Judgment.
Author: Rev. William G. Related Q and A. The Baltimore Catechism, no. Irondale, AL viewer ewtn. Irondale, Alabama. All rights reserved. We call this the particular judgment because it is particular to each person.
If we are free of all sin and the hurt caused by sin, we immediately will be welcomed into Heaven, where we will enjoy the beatific vision, seeing God face to face. If we have died with venial sins or the hurt caused by sin, our Lord in His love and mercy will first purge and heal the soul in the place called Purgatory; after this purgation and healing, our soul will then be welcomed into Heaven. Early Christian writers also refer to a purgatorial fire in which souls not perfectly just are purified after death.
Some of the early Fathers, misled by Millennarian errors , believed that the essential beatitude of Heaven is not enjoyed until the end of time. They supposed that during the interval between death and the resurrection the souls of the just dwell happily in a delightful abode, awaiting their final glorification.
This was apparently the opinion of Sts. Justin and Irenaeus , Tertullian , St. Clement of Alexandria , and St.
According to others, only the martyrs and some other classes of saints are admitted at once to the supreme joys of heaven. It cannot, however, be inferred from these passages that all of the Fathers quoted believed that the vision of God is in most cases delayed till the day of judgment. Many of them in other parts of their works profess the Catholic doctrine either expressly or by implication through the acknowledgment of other dogmas in which it is contained, for instance, in that of the descent of Christ into Limbo, an article of the Creed which loses all significance unless it be admitted that the saints of the Old Testament were thereby liberated from this temporal penalty of loss and admitted to the vision of God.
As to the passages which state that the supreme happiness of Heaven is not enjoyed till after the resurrection , they refer in many instances to an increase in the accidental joy of the blessed through the union of the soul with its glorified body, and do not signify that the essential happiness of heaven is not enjoyed till then.
Notwithstanding the aberrations of some writers and the hesitation of others, the belief that since the death of Christ souls which are free from sin enter at once into the vision of God was always firmly held by the great body of Christians cf.
Cyprian , De exhort. As the earliest Acts of the Martyrs and Liturgies attest, the martyrs were persuaded of the prompt reward of their devotion. This belief is also evidenced by the ancient practice of honouring and invoking the saints , even those who were not martyrs.
But the opposite error found adherents from time to time, and in the Middle Ages was warmly defended. The Second Council of Lyons declared that souls free from sin are at once received into heaven mox in caelum recipi , but did not decide in what their state of beatitude consisted.
A number of theologians maintained the opinion that until the resurrection the just do not enjoy the intuitive or facial vision of God , but are under the protection and consolation of the Humanity of Jesus Christ. Pope John XXII at Avignon , as a private theologian , seems to have supported this view, but that he gave it any official sanction is a fable invented by the Fallibilists. Circumstances of particular judgment according to theologians Theologians suppose that the particular judgment will be instantaneous, that in the moment of death the separated soul is internally illuminated as to its own guilt or innocence and of its own initiation takes its course either to hell , or to purgatory , or to heaven Summa Theologica, Supplement ,
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