St Joan Of Arc Catholic Church | Catholic Church Farnham | Catholic Church Farnham Surrey | Mass times at St Joan of Arc Farnham

Fr Simon gave a talk on "The Paschal Mystery – a reflection on Jesus Christ as the wounded healer” recently in Guildford. Take the time to Read Fr Simon's Talk

5th Sunday of Easter C

“I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.”

At the end of time, at the Resurrection and the coming of the Kingdom, there is the General Judgement of both the ‘Just’ and the ‘Unjust’. The good experience a ‘resurrection of life’ and the evil a ‘resurrection of judgement’. Then, as St John says, there will be a ‘new heaven and the new earth’, when God lives with his people, the final realisation of what He willed from the beginning. From time to time, then, we ponder the ‘four last things’:

• Death & Particular Judgement: As individuals, the quality of our faith, hope, and love for Christ and neighbour is judged, and is the measure for where our soul goes next:
• Heaven: those who die in God’s friendship and are already perfectly purified go to heaven, ready to see God who is love and share in his divine life. These are the Saints!
• Purgatory: those who die in God’s friendship, but are still imperfectly purified, are assured of their salvation; but undergo a purification to achieve the holiness necessary for heaven; they are commemorated on All Souls Day and in Masses offered for the faithful departed (our families) throughout the year.
• Hell: God forbid! By our free choice to sin gravely and our obstinate refusal to repent, we have wilfully separated ourselves from God. Dying in a state of ‘mortal sin’ risks separation from God forever. The image of eternal fire is, perhaps, the only suitable way of expressing the intensity of feeling of not having God for eternity.

Do not presume, do not despair! Christ gave us the Church to nourish us in Word and Sacrament, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Our Confession anticipates our judgement and Holy Communion, when received in a ‘state of grace’, perfects our baptism and our friendship with God. In the Mass, we pray ‘graciously accept this oblation of our service… order our days in your peace, and command we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those you have chosen (EP I).’
Further reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraphs 1020 - 1045).