From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Is it true that we will all die? If Jesus comes at this very moment many people will be alive. Do we die before going to hell or Heaven?
First, we don’t know exactly what is going to happen, the sequence of events, when the Lord returns. We know that, when the day of the Lord comes, “the heavens shall pass away with great violence and the elements shall be melted with heat and the earth and the works which are in it shall be burnt up” (2 Peter 3:10). So, you tell me what’s going to happen to you in the midst of that!
We don’t know what is going to happen.
However, if we are alive in the moment of the Lord’s return… and we should reflect on this constantly… it would help if we had wide-spread ad orientem worship… whether we are alive or not will not matter too much: everyone who has ever lived is judged by the King of Fearful Majesty in both an individual, or Particular Judgment, and in a General Judgement, when all things will be laid bare and weighed with each other.
The best plan for all of us is to reflect often, even daily, on the inevitability of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.
If we are prudent, we will think often about our death and think about where we would like to spend eternity.
One day, dear reader, your heart will cease its beating, you will draw your last breath, your soul will separate from your body, and you will die.
Most of us don’t know when that is going to happen.
Examine your conscience and…
GO TO CONFESSION.
Fathers, that goes double for you!
And pray pray pray that we are able to receive the last sacraments. This is the constant prayer of Christians for many centuries in the Litany:
A subitanea et improvisa morte… From a sudden and unprovided death, spare us O Lord.”
A sudden death can be a blessing. A sudden and unprovided death – unprovided in the sense of having no recourse to the sacraments when you are not in the state of grace – is a horrifying prospect. Make plans for, provide for, the needs of both body and soul for yourselves and those in your charge.
You don’t know when your death will come, natural or not.
