📖Overview

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, The "last things" (eschata) refer to the realities that await each person and all of creation at the end of time: death, particular judgment, heaven, Purgatory, hell, the resurrection of the body, and the Last Judgment. Death is the end of earthly life, and each person's soul receives its eternal retribution in a particular judgment immediately after death. Those who die in God's grace and are perfectly purified enter heaven, where they enjoy the beatific vision, seeing God face to face. Those who die in God's grace but still need purification undergo Purgatory, a process of cleansing to attain the holiness necessary for heaven. Those who die in a state of mortal sin, freely and definitively rejecting God, suffer the eternal separation from God that is hell. At the end of time, Christ will come again in glory for the Last Judgment, when all the dead will rise with their bodies and appear before Him. The Last Judgment will reveal the ultimate meaning of all of creation and of the entire work of salvation, showing how God's justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by His creatures and that His love is stronger than death. After the Last Judgment, the righteous will reign forever with Christ, glorified in body and soul, and the material universe itself will be transformed. God will then be "all in all" (1 Cor 15:28), in eternal life.

💡Key Points