We Are All Immortals

We live in a mystical community: The way may be narrow, but the journey is not a solitary one. We approach God in community, as the first word of the Our Father reminds us. And, as citizens of heaven, we have a special obligation to tell others about this promised land and bring them back with us. “We must be saved together,” said the French poet, Charles Péguy. “We must come to God together. Together, we must present ourselves before him. …What would God say to us if some of us were to return without the others?”

This is illustrated in a story from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Once, there was a wicked woman who died without ever doing anything good. So she went into the lake of fire. Distressed, her guardian angel finally came up with one good deed she had done: she once gave an onion to a beggar. So, the story goes, God allows the angel to take the onion, using it as a sort of heavenly lifeline to pull her out. The angel extends the onion to the woman and she grabs on. But other sinners latch onto her and the woman kicks them away, saying, “I’m to be pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours.” At that moment, the onion breaks and she is swallowed up by the lake of fire. (This is a shortened version of the original tale. Click here to read the full version.)

Act now, think eternally: We all know that our actions have eternal consequences. We know that mortal sin, without confession and penance afterwards, costs us paradise. But the consequences of our works—good or bad—don’t stop there. In 1 Corinthians 4:5, we read of the Last Judgment that the Lord “will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God.” As Catholics accustomed to the privacy of the confessional, we can’t help but ask: Will all our works really be brought to light? Will this actually happen in the presence of everyone? In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas says yes to both. It’s certainly something to think about next time we are tempted to sin. Of course, the flip side to all this is our good works will be made manifest to all, most importantly to God. Moreover, Scripture tells us that we will be rewarded according to our merits in heaven, which is how St. Augustine interprets Jesus’ statement that there are many mansions in heaven. As the Gladiator put it, “what we do in life, echoes in eternity.”

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Stephen Beale is a freelance writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Raised as an evangelical Protestant, he is a convert to Catholicism. He is a former news editor at GoLocalProv.com and was a correspondent for the New Hampshire Union Leader, where he covered the 2008 presidential primary. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN and the Today Show and his writing has been published in the Washington Times, Providence Journal, the National Catholic Register and on MSNBC.com and ABCNews.com. A native of Topsfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Brown University in 2004 with a degree in classics and history. His areas of interest include Eastern Christianity, Marian and Eucharistic theology, medieval history, and the saints. He welcomes tips, suggestions, and any other feedback at bealenews at gmail dot com. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/StephenBeale1

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