Culture Lost, Culture Reclaimed: The Catholic Renewal #5 of 5: Death & the Afterlife

[Music] class five our last class for the summer program so good evening to everyone now I thought it was such a nice day outside that it would be wonderful and appropriate to talk about death and the afterlife well good let's return to our topic which is death in the afterlife the passage home you know over the course of this program we have examined five or six books written by Pope Benedict both as a theologian if you recall the book introduction to Christianity was written early on as a theologian tonight work that we'll look at is called eschatology death and eternal life and he wrote this in 1997 and that same year he became Archbishop of Munich and then was named a cardinal later the same year by Pope Paul the sixth then in 1981 he was named the Cardinal prefect for the congregation the doctrine of the faith and so a lot of things happened for the Pope Benedict in that year 1977 this was his last major work as a theologian before he was made an archbishop so it's also appropriate that he felt this was one of his more significant works that he had ever written and so the other one I mentioned here we had referred to before God is near us it's a wonderful book it's a wonderful book on liturgy and Eucharist and there's also a small chapter on last things as well so written some twenty four years later or so and it's a more mature reflection than just a private theologian it's someone who is Cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith so with that let's forge ahead two last things eschatology is just a Greek word study of less things so what we'll cover tonight is first setting up the topic what are we referring to and then marched through death and eternal life last things as the essence of Christianity it's an interesting perspective but if we were going to build a house what's last and execution has to be first an intention first and design anything significant like up building a house you better have a good architect and so what's last in execution is actually first top of mind from a design engineering standpoint then we'll talk about heaven hell purgatory people typically wake up at that point in the presentation so we've adjusted the AC up a little bit because it was too cold last time so I'm relying on the topics to keep you awake and then something about Catholic renewal from Pope Benedict's perspective which I think you'll be interesting some of you have heard this before is the benedict option and we'll spend just a little time on that and then open it up for questions and answers for as long as you'd like on not only tonight's topic but any topic across the five that we've covered so some of you might head for the brownies after a while but I'll keep I'll keep responding if you keep asking so with that let's jump in we say in the Creed every Sunday I look forward to the resurrection of the dead in the life of the world to come we say that at Mass every Sunday we would have to be profoundly unaware if we didn't realize that the sense of eternal life in our culture today is quite weak it's quite weak in our church you don't hear sermons anymore about heaven hell purgatory or if you do it might be a brief discussion of heaven but not the other aspects in a lot of ways our religion is still being talked about and reduced to politics or psychology or promoting well-being here and now without reference to what were truly about and what is the essence of our liberation which is from sin and death not from bad political or psychological systems when we talk about the virtue of hope it seems it's all on our shoulders instead of something that it's entirely rests in God's hands and so even the virtue of hope for last things has been transformed in our culture and in some preaching as a human act by itself to make the world better and the Pope at some length which I just make as a bullet point here talks about the three temptations of Christ in the desert as the temptations of the church today that again the liberation that Christ brings is turn these stones into bread be an economic Liberator do incredible wonders of throwing yourself off the top of a steeple make the crowd go oh or if you worship me I'll give you all the kingdoms of the earth and so to the extent that our leadership reduces the kingdom of God two political programs they fall into the trap of these three temptations of Christ which I will reference here but I encourage you to purchase any and all the books that I've referenced in the bibliography and in particular this one on eschatology keep in mind was written in 1977 perhaps the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and there was a certain malaise in the church an exhaustion and the Pope is trying Pope Benedict is trying to Curt correct certain excesses in clergy and bishops who think the kingdom of God is simply about better material conditions here and now eternal life in our culture today is seen as kind of a hopeful piety a something that's quite frankly disconnected from this life which is real here and now and kind of an afterthought in fact our happiness today seems to be disconnected from eater life there almost seemed to be in opposition in some superficial sense in our culture this comes from as we talked about in other classes that we view this world as horizontal only just the vision that science and the Natural Sciences present us there's no transcendental dimension or cosmic dimension that leads to God in world nature and so on in quite frankly an endless continuation of our existence as we experience it doesn't seem to be particularly attractive in eternity why would we want whatever this is for us to go on in eternity so there's a sense in which eternal life seems quite senseless to our common culture but as Pope Benedict quickly says eternal life is simply the other side of the coin of a belief in God as a living God who's active today right now in my life and that even with this sense of eternal life that we have as part of our faith even in our pagan culture today there is still a glimmer of what does my life mean what does suffering mean is it all nothing or is in fact there's some sense in which we can make of our life in our death and as I mentioned in last class as the church does not speak with a clear voice on key subjects and doctrines the world just finds solutions other ways to the meaning of death such as in reincarnation as the Pope says a kind of spiritual law of conservation of energy we it comes back in these pagan or Eastern misconceptions or Nirvana which is how should I deal with the slings and arrows of our outrageous fortune of this life well blow out the candle of desire extinguish expectations become unhuman as I mentioned another class renege on being human and abandoned desire and that's how you can deal with death and the extinguishing of your life eliminate desires so this is the landscape in which we currently operate and yet Pope Benedict quickly confronts that with the proclamation of Jesus with the imminent coming an arrival of the kingdom of God a definitive as I put it in breaking in history of God something new is on the stage as John the Baptist points to and as Jesus refers to directly it's here now thy kingdom come now starting now and even the early first century Christians understood this as it has arrived but in some sense not yet what is meant by that is after the death and resurrection of Jesus the early Christians were expecting the imminent end of the world the the cry in Hebrew maranatha come Lord Jesus come now or in the decay which is one of our earliest works of Christian literature and material probably around 50 ad probably precedes the letters of Paul you have direct reference to make grace come in this world pass away we even have in Paul's letters probably the first ones that we have from Paul first in second Thessalonians let me just read you what first Thessalonians says two verses so first Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 8 through 10 for from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedon Macedonia and okiya but in every place your faith in God has gone for us so that we may have no need to say anything for they themselves openly declare about us what sort of reception we've had among you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead Jesus now get this who delivers us from the coming wrath it's imminent it's gonna happen in every one's lifetime who's hearing that and that's thought to have been written around 51 AD or so so most of the Apostles if not all of them are still alive Peter and Paul will be beheaded in Rome under Nero perhaps around 64 65 ad so the Apostolic band is still together and then we read 2nd Thessalonians probably written around 55 ad or so some change circumstances a new communication from Paul so 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 we ask you brothers with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling with him not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly or to be alarmed either by a spirit or an oral statement or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand let no one deceive you in any way well that's interesting so the day of the Lord is in at hand and then he finishes in fact when we were with you we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work neither should that one eat so that context is interesting perhaps people thought the imminent return of the Lord was was happening the world was going to end so they stopped working it was kind of like a spiritual Woodstock gathering on a hilltop waiting and Paul is trying to come back a few years later saying you've completely misunderstood what I've been getting at and I have been misrepresented to you get back to work or you shouldn't eat so that's the context for these statements that the the Christians of that time were eagerly awaiting the return of Jesus they thought it would happen within their lifetimes as time went on the question of last things emerged more people were dying off apostles were dying off many of the followers of Jesus were dying off and so this gained greater importance and understanding in the early church and you have the rise of the cult of martyrs and the catacombs in Rome and other places that the martyrs have achieved the here not yet they've achieved the kingdom and they are now with Jesus and glory they point to in their martyrdom what the Christian life accomplishes and what it is namely that this world is passing away that this world is not the main event that it is a midterm and the final comes later and so this question of our death whether it is the early Christians of the first century or our pagan culture today this question of the meaning of our life and death even with what the Pope calls the messianic secular experiments and he has Marxism in mind and our modern day cult of self self worship and the appetites flounder on this question they offer nothing if you believed in the genius of history as a Marxist it was always in the future you were just consumed as part of someone else's future so the question does not go away and it doesn't get answered in Marxism or self worship so returning to this theme then of the kingdom of God Pope Benedict fundamentally declares this is the essence of Christianity but it's not exactly what we might have expected when he when he unpacks this idea it is certainly core fundamental to the preaching of Jesus in fact as the Pope notes he this occurs this phrase kingdom of God now happens 122 times in the New Testament ninety nine times alone just in the three Gospels Matthew Mark and Luke in ninety times from the lips of Jesus himself so the kingdom of God is the fundamental preaching of Jesus Christ and that fundamental preaching is Jesus is the kingdom of God among us here and now both when he appeared on earth and continuing the kingdom of God is Christ and in its expressions in the New Testament it does not fundamentally relate to an afterlife in its primary meaning its primary meeting is this in breaking in time of God the infinite is now temporal real contact with created being so that is the primary sense of the kingdom of God and our eternal life starts now is the insight that the Pope develops throughout this book on less things and it continues after death in a more intense and wonderful way but the kingdom of God in your life with God and the nature of that life with God starts now and so these are the themes that the Pope develops over several chapters that the kingdom of God certainly leads to paradise but we would be mistaken if we thought that paradise was this something other and disconnected from this life it would be an odd thing and the will touch on this more as we go tonight so the kingdom of God is fulfilled accomplished in Jesus Christ what does John the Baptist say when he's announcing Jesus repent and believe repent and believe and what's interesting is when the Pharisees approached Jesus and says well we would like a sign of this kingdom jesus said to them no sign will be given save the sign of Jonah a very cryptic mysterious comment the sign of Jonah what's the sign of Jonah well if you remember in Jonah which is an Old Testament book it's only four chapters you could probably read it in ten minutes it's actually in many ways a comedy if you remember Jonah is the reluctant prophet he doesn't want to be a prophet and he runs and hides from God who's called him to be a prophet to the people of Israel who are currently in bondage by the Assyrians that the Northern Kingdom is fighting it out with the Assyrians they're not in exile yet but they're in battles they're capitulating they're negotiating truces with the the kings of Assyria and Jonah is called by God to preach to the people of Israel reform and he doesn't want to do it so he runs away gets on a ship if you remember with the Pirates the Pirates realized when the storms come that it's Jonah so they throw him off he's in the belly of a whale for three days and that image was always used by the church fathers as twofold one just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days so to Jesus was in the belly of the earth for three days that's the sign of Jonah that's what Christ meant but the full unpacking of that story is that this sequence two last things goes through repentance morality because Jonah eventually preached repent and believe to the Israelites and to their masters the Assyrians and when they started to repent and believe he said to God well you should destroy them anyway he didn't want them to repent and believe and so you remember that story finishes it could have been written by Mel Brooks but Jonah is out on the beach and God creates a tree a gourd with a leaf to cover him from the Sun which was baking him and then the next day a worm eats the gourd and the leaf and Jonah is dying from heat exposure and he's complaining about it and God comes to him almost like again comedic action and says so you had no problem wanting to meet slaughter 120,000 people but you're complaining about not having any son or having no protection from the Sun and so that's how it ends but the point of this story amidst that humor is repent believe morality Christ's resurrection last things the door through all of that is repentance and this then mercy will be shown and you might recall in last class one of the questions that came up when we're talking about the Eucharist and the church was the reception of the Eucharist by non Catholics and there was a humorous comment made I won't mention who made it but everyone evidently wants the consumable of the Eucharist but are the same people lining up for the sacrament of confession so my point in our emphasis on mercy which we should emphasize the door to Mercy is true repentance that's the sign of Jonah that's what John the Baptist was starting to say repent and believe and mercy will be shown to you that is the kingdom of God there's a tendency to think well mercy has just offered the same way any consumable can be offered if I can grab it then I can have it that's not what's being got at here so and as I mentioned at the bottom the psalmist captures this sense of urgency if today you hear his voice harden not your hearts so in in wrapping up this portion what does the kingdom of God and its liberation consists in in Pope Benedict talks about it's our victory day so when World War two ended we had VJ day when the Japanese surrendered we have a victory Day two Catholics as Christians it's the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that's our victory day the kingdom has come the kingdom has broken in to time and in a sense as the Pope talks about this route Jesus offers us a homecoming back to God the rupture that was created by original sin has been healed that's the kingdom of God and it starts now but further what are we liberated from exactly and I call out the four bullet points that the Pope talks about in several chapters that history is pointless the endless cycle of the strong over the weak that the cosmos the universe the multi verses are called empty and have no transcendental significance no single signature of God going from the very large to ourselves that the alienation we feel within ourselves that we don't do what we ought to do and do the things we should not do can be overcome that the alienation we may feel with others or with God that this life is not as the existentialist said just a mere episode between two Oblivion's of what went before and what comes after us that in fact suffering misery is not pointless I'm not a cosmic afterthought that in fact what breaks open when we are suffering or in exile is what I call the offer the offer which is real union with God and the communion of saints forever thus the full significance of liberation from sin and death are those points that were made full being full communion with God it's possible it can happen it has started the kingdom of God is now the Pope continues to note that over the last several centuries and I'm sure he has not only the French Revolution in mind that we touched on in class one or all of the secular experiments of the 18th 19th and 20th century the most horrific one being Marxist Leninist min Stalinism which as I say before I've said before made concentration camps out of most of Eastern Europe and Russia all of that has failed and the quote here I'd like to read to you quote the temptation of Jesus as described in Matthew and Luke expressed this expectation to perfection bred from soil so turn these stones into bread sensational signs and wonders throw yourself off the top of the steeple and not be hurt political power over the world the Messiah of the temptations in the wilderness the devil the Messiah of human expectation the devil is defined by his promises of consumer satisfaction and power over others all political propaganda lives off of such expectation as we know the story of the modern belief in progress and its transformation into Marxist messianism demonstrates that one cannot stop at this point eventually it turns in to a desire for emancipation so total that it is equivalent to asking that men become God the ultimate satanic offer made in the Garden of Eden you can be your own standard did God really say that you can't eat from this fruit you can become like God's knowing good and evil and every iteration of that through time to the Marxism of the political variety in the Soviet Union and now the cultural Marxism in the West in most major universities and major public institutions in our country so though we can applaud the the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall and what 1989 everything Karl Marx hoped for lives on in the West so the Pope though he wrote this in 1977 it's still very current today because we are in exile in our own country now to wrap up this section of last things as the essence of Christianity I wanted to read you a few quotes where the Pope intensifies now this in breaking of the kingdom of God quote it is here we may able to encounter the figure of Christ in a new way the kingdom of God which Christ promises does not mean does not consist in a modification of our earthly circumstances which in any case the judge from general human experience might not mean much anyway that kingdom is found in those persons whom the finger of God has touched and who have allowed themselves to be made God's sons and daughters clearly such a transformation can only take place through death for this reason the kingdom of God salvation in its fullness cannot be deprived of its connection with dying but man seeks total emancipation freedom without limitation of any kind he seeks an equality in which all alienation is eliminated in his own unity with himself with nature and with humanity at large is at last made real what this means is that man wants the Godhead the Trinity the New Testament tells him that he is right in this desire but wrong in his manner of looking for it so our fundamental aspirations that we experience and feel are correct but the history of the Old Testament is a history of how we have gone about it the wrong way and how even in New Testament times and to this very day we've gone about it the wrong way Jesus offers us the right way and the Pope quickly refers to letter of Paul to the Philippians chapter 2 and I'll just read a few passages from this letter which from the Pope's point of view summarizes this this entire drama of what we've been talking about through these first four classes so this will all be familiar to you but this is called the the Philippian him because it has such a different form than the rest of the letter quote though he was in the form of God Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped at clutched seized rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave coming in human likeness and found in human appearance he humbled himself becoming obedient to death even death on a cross because of this God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should Bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father the Pope sees in that passage the history of civilization at seeking power grasping and equality with God or through the humiliation of the cross of being dependent let's see how the Pope describes it but the thrilling part is that this triumph of Yahweh God whom all the nations now adore took place in the utter humiliation of the cross in order to explain how this could be so the him the Philippians opens up that perspective on humanity as a whole which has been our topic verse 6 alluding to a version of the Adam myth in the book of Job reminds us that man wishes to be God whether we're talking about the Garden of Eden or Marxist ideology nor is this desire of his entirely misconceived yet man pursues it in the style of Prometheus hunting the prey which is equality with God taking it by violence you remember the story of Prometheus the Greek story of when the Greek gods were fighting each other Prometheus was a Titan initially fighting against the other Titans on behalf of Zeus then he steals fire from the workshop of Zeus and gives it to humanity and then he tries to switch sides again at the end join with Zeus when he saw the battle was going but he he snatched this equality with the gods and gave it to humanity and it was that snatching that Paul was referring to both in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve snatched the Apple for the fruit from the tree and humanity in its secular experiments snatches equality with God and the Greeks capture this disturbance in the story of Prometheus as an aside that's why we break champagne bottles on boats that we launch into the ocean still goes back to the Greeks because the gods must be appeased Poseidon must be appeased it's why we have ribbon-cutting ceremonies to this day the earth Gaia must be appeased and so we retains semblances of this in our culture to this day and the snatching of equality with the Gods has been seen in all cultures in all societies what Paul is talking about is that is not the way of the kingdom of God snatching through power equality with God rather it comes through the humiliation of the cross obedience to the Father so that I can call him father and I can be a son that is the kingdom of God so continuing the actual god man does just the opposite he is God's Son his whole being a gesture of gratitude and self offering in reality the cross is but the definitive radicalization of that gesture which the son is not the grasping audacity of Prometheus but the sons obedience on the cross is where is the place where man's divinization is accomplished man can become God not by making himself God but by allowing himself to be made son here in the gesture of Jesus as the Sun and nowhere else the kingdom of God is realized but if the answer to the question of the kingdom is indeed the Sun then manifestly the message of Jesus cannot make its peace with any eschatology of merely changed living conditions our point of departure is a person not a program so the kingdom of God to wrap up this section as the essence of Christianity comes with the in breaking of Jesus in time it's now it's for all it's not later it starts now right now in the middle sections of the book he pivots to death and eternal life and he makes two observations on the culture today death as taboo I think I may have told you this story but an acquaintance of mine runs several funeral homes on the northwest side of Chicago he's a fairly large operator he's got half a dozen funeral homes and I asked him maybe six months ago how's business and and he said his business is down almost 55 over cent and the reason he and he can't get his kids to join and and I asked him why is that and he said people aren't having funerals anymore either with a body or with ashes they're just having their own private ceremonies and I said well is it your charming bedside manner and he said no they just the demand is down and so it reinforced empirically the point that the Pope was making and I'm sure he saw from his own pastoral experience is that death here and now is not an attractive subject on a good day even for us but imagine for a pagan it's also even more distasteful and you really don't want to focus on it you don't want to certainly don't want to celebrate it and so death as taboo death as distasteful as unseemly has to be something to be hidden and then there's this other schizophrenic odd quality in our culture where death is front and center in our movies in TV it's salacious you get eyeballs you look at the YouTube videos that have their violence they'll have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views we like it there's this odd lust and bloodthirsty aspect to our culture where we like it and it's entertaining and as the Pope notes it's part of kind of an overall program to lower what he calls shame barriers by which these things are available to us and therefore perhaps easier and allows for more wide-ranging conduct he makes one more point when he's talking about death which is our culture wants to hide death in real life because it's met offense and what he means by metaphysical in this context is whether it's the birth of a baby or the death of someone we touch the infinite the birth of a baby is something beautiful because they are fresh they pure possibility and our death touches the infinite because we're now gawking through a door to the infinite we're touching it on the other side of the house and the culture doesn't want to think about that the culture doesn't want those kinds of reflections and so in this quote he touches on this in the context of euthanasia and the the death culture the issue of euthanasia is becoming increasingly important because people wish to avoid death as something which happens to me and replace it with a technical cessation of a function which I do not need to carry out myself the purpose is to slam the door on metaphysics before it has a chance to come in particularly suffering unto death the dehumanization of death necessarily brings with it the dehumanizing of life as well when human sickness and dying are reduced to the level of technological activity so as man himself where it becomes too dangerous to accept death in a human way being human itself has become too dangerous oddly enough it is in this attempt to renege on being human that the most contrary present-day positions find their common ground this sense of metaphysics and I'll put it this way of ordered dependence on God our culture is obviously rejecting and doesn't want to hear about it death knocks on that door it breaks it down and thus we have to hide it just as our first parents hid from the Lord when they disobeyed so on to more pleasant subject suffering unto death on such a beautiful day - but we should feel good about this because believe it or not we will navigate through all this and come to a happy place so fear not a a vatican artist once painted a portrait of pope leo xiii and it was a very bad painting and he presents it to pope leo xiii and says what do you think will you sign this you know and dedicate it and so hopefully oh the thirteenth wrote Noli to marry a go soon which in latin meant have no fear its me so have no fear we will get through this this quote is suffering and death unto death pain and disease can paralyze one as a human being they can shatter one to pieces not only physically but also psychologically and spiritually however they can also smash down complacency and spiritual lethargy and lead one to find oneself for the first time the struggle was suffering is the place of human decision-making par excellence here the human project becomes flesh and blood here man is forced to face the fact that existence is not at his disposal nor is his life his own property so when we confront death this core component of being human is faced though there's an interesting parallel he touches on the same thing happens our life not being our own in the central region of the human landscape our intimate ordination towards being loved love is the soul's true nourishment yet this food which of all substances we most need is not something we can produce for ourselves one must wait for it the only way to make absolutely certain that one will not receive it is to insist on procure by oneself and once again this essential dependence can generate anger conversely we can accept the situation of dependence and keep ourselves trustingly open to the future in the confidence that that power which is so determined us will not deceive us and it turns out that the confrontation with physical death is actually a confrontation with the basic Constitution of human existence it places before us a choice to accept either the pattern of love or the pattern of power so I'll stop there it's in facing death our own death and perhaps by extension the death of loved ones as well as our experience of being loved that opens up the core Constitution of being human and what does it reveal dependency on God dependency we are this ordered creation of God and he mentioned some people don't like that in fact some people get angry at being dependent and rejected I'd rather reign in Hell than serve in heaven I got it right so that is an interesting side comedy makes it in some people it can generate anger at God it can lead to a denial of God's existence continuing the God who personally died in Jesus Christ fulfilled the pattern of love beyond all expectation and in doing so justified that human confidence which in the last resort is the only alternative to self-destruction the Christian dies into the death of Christ himself the uncontrollable power that everywhere sets limits to life is not a blind law of nature it is a love that puts itself at our disposal by dying for us and with us Christ becomes dependent on the cross to the father's love so we die with Christ and share that splendid dependency man's enemy death that would waylay him to steal his life is conquered at the point where one meets the thievery of death with the attitude of trusting love and so transforms the theft into an a crease of life the sting of death is extinguished in Christ in whom the victory was gained through the plenary power of love unlimited hair we have reached a point at which the innermost unity and simplicity of Christianity shows themselves for what they are I may declare that the heart of Christianity is the Paschal mystery of death and resurrection not a beautiful deep understanding of how death and love mirror and show what it means to be human and in particular how the deepest expression of our humanity is being dependent in the hands of God in his love and his power so pivoting from that just doing a quick time check the Pope then further develops in the book ok death and eternal life what is eternal life and he comes out very loudly death or rather eternal life is not a long time it's not an endless continuation of our sense of time I can remember many years ago in RCA a candidate asking me what are we doing in all eternity think about it what are we doing because that comes from an understanding of well eternity is just lots of more of the same that would be dreadful wouldn't it so quote it may have been relatively easy in earlier periods to imagine heaven as a place of perfect beauty joy and peace but the modern world view has mercilessly removed these aids to our imagination but where there is no picture at all the expectation evaporates as well because human thought requires some kind of graphic form that's perhaps why there's been a withering of our sense of eternal life in the culture finally there is the fact that an endless continuation of our existence does not actually seem desirable it is already arduous enough but but even if everything went well the idea of eternity appears to us like being condemned to boredom as simply too much for me but what do we actually experiment of expectation within man which cannot be taken away from him finds expression in many in various ways one of its most important manifestations is that we expect justice we simply cannot come to terms with the idea of stronger people always winning the argument and being able to oppress the weaker ones we cannot come to terms with the way that innocent people suffer often in appalling fashion and that all the luck in the world seems to drop into the laps of those who are guilty the longing for justice which has been so forcefully expressed in the struggles of those who have thought and suffered in every age cannot be taken from us we long for justice and that is why we also long for truth we see how lies spread out impose themselves and that it becomes quite impossible to oppose them we look for it not to continue that way for the truth to be accorded its due we long for senseless gossip for cruelty and misery to come to an end we long for the darkness of misunderstanding that divides us our incapacity to love and to have an end to all heaven end and for true love to be really possible freeing our life from its dungeon of loneliness opening the door to others opening the door to the infinity without destroying us we could even say we long for true happiness all of us he then contrasts eternal life properly understood with the earthly utopias so he goes back to that theme to contrast them present and Eternity are not like present and future located side-by-side and separated rather they are interwoven that is the real difference between utopia and eschatology last things for a long time we have been offered utopia that is the hope of a better world in the future in the place of eternal life eternal life is supposedly unreal this is said to alienate us from real time but utopia is a real goal toward which we can work with all our powers and abilities yet this idea is a misapprehension that leads us to the destruction of our our hopes for this future world for the sake of which the present is being used up never comes to ourselves utopia inherently is true to the Greek no place top boss means place ech nope you know place means out of place the you means no place it it's a dream and it's being used today so what does the Pope say about eternal life it's a glorified quality of existence or state stripped of our current physical limitations we are glorified in that sense duration is no longer a sequential series of time but an intensified now face to face with the living true God so quote eternal life is a new quality of existence in which everything flows together into the now of love into that new quality of being that is freed from the fragmentation of existence in the accelerating flights moments in our immortal life on one hand every moment is too short because life itself seems to pass away with the moment before we can catch hold of it and I think we would agree when we're having a wonderful time family friends on a great vacation or a wonderful experience it all passes too quickly but then there's the other side of it that he points out at the same time each moment is too long for us because the great number of moments each always the same as the others becomes too laborious for us and I think we all can identify that as well that if we think of loved ones who have passed away or people we have been with in hospital rooms who are dying slowly thus it becomes clear that eternal life is not simply what comes afterward something about which we can form no notion at all because it is a new quality of existence it can be already present in the midst of this earth earthly life in its fleeting temporality as something new and different and greater albeit an imperfect and fragmentary fashion but here's the point he's making the dividing line between eternal and temporal life is by no means simply a chronological order so that the years before death would be temporal life the endless time afterward would be eternal life eternity is not just endless time but another level of being eternal life is there in the midst of time right now whenever we come face to face with God so his point here is that our eternal life the resurrection of the body a glorified existence body and soul is not just a lot of more of the same in eternity but rather it is a quality of existence a glorified state of this now with God face to face he uses the expression face to face all throughout the book our experience of God will be face to face what does that mean more deeply and I'm pulling from other works of his every experience you have in this life every experience you have in this life is mediated by mediated I mean if you love someone that your love is still mediated by physical presence if you know something it's mediated by the concept by what you know it and the words by which you express it every experience we have is mediated by physical reality for a spiritual reality of some kind that is incarnated everything is mediated it's a technical term but it's also the basis for our sacraments how well every sacrament has a physical substrate water for baptism bread for the Eucharist oil for confirmation this mediates and makes present God's grace which is spiritual and invisible so every experience we have not just in the spiritual life but in the natural world is mediated the first one being most obviously our knowledge if you eat food you're the food to nourish you has to be broken down in your stomach that's a form of mediation you don't cram an apple the vitamins or proteins don't I'm not a helped nut not that you have to be helped not to know there's maybe no proteins and apples but those ingredients that are useful to you aren't crammed into you they're broken down by your stomach and acids and so forth and digest it it's mediated so any experience you have is mediated so now you begin to see the significance of the face-to-face comment it's not mediated there's no more an intermediary in our life that's why we experience our life as fragmented by the way there's no one moment that can capture it why not because it's always mediated by material reality so seeing God face-to-face for the first time unmediated is heaven provided you're in the state of grace we'll get the purgatory and hell but that's the point of the common face-to-face unmediated direct access to God all human love is still me mediated okay so continuing I do have a last comment there but we've covered it so you can see if the kingdom of God starts right now an eternal life in its fragmentary form starts right now then to view eternal life as a disconnected extra as he calls it tacked on to the end of this life is a misconception and that's part of the problem today I think is why many in our culture view eternal life is something unreal because that we haven't connected it because we thought of it as a an extra at the end verses starting right now quote we look for the resurrection of the Dead and the life of the world to come this statement is not a further demand for faith set up beside faith in God it is simply the unpacking of what it means to believe in God Father Son and Holy Spirit it is not by analysis of our own existence by looking at ourselves that our hopes and needs that we discover eternal life eternal life steadily withdraws from a person whose attention is fixed on himself in turning toward God it becomes obvious that any one upon whom God has looked and whom he loves shares in his eternity so by not thinking of eternal life is just simply an extra at the end of this chronological life we cut off the possibility of understanding the kingdom of God is now it also gives us an insight into why some of the great Saints st. Teresa of Avila Saint Teresa lassoo st. mother Teresa of Calcutta talked about if Jesus wants to send me to hell I will go because for them the kingdom of God is Jesus and saw these statements which are so mystifying to us and contrary we're missing what those Saints are really getting at that if they possess Jesus they possess everything now there's a poetic conception to how they've expressed that of course I don't think they want to be in hell which is the absence of God the absence of Christ but do you see what they're poking at what they're getting at in the sense as well in these radical statements they've made okay now we get to we finally get there but if we got there without talking about the kingdom of God as starting now you see how reduced our understanding would be that heaven and hell and purgatory actually start right now and the universe you make for yourself right now God merely continues that after you die obviously in a more intense and perfect way so last things both Pope Benedict and John Paul the second spoke about as more like states of being than locations if you have time I did this recently but if you look at the Catholic Encyclopedia from 1910 there are reflections on where is hell and some of the reflections are well hell is deep in the earth and that was part of the piety of the time and it's been part of church art for a thousand years and there's a sense in which that's very scriptural which will get to people we have more slides on Hell than on heaven and purgatory so I'll put that to the side for the moment but last things heaven purgatory hell our states of being with God after death not necessarily locations of up and down for way down heaven is a state of standing before God in full communion truth love life without limit face to face with God where as we read in the Gospels and in the New Testament and in some parts of the Old Testament where every tears wiped away I has not seen ear has not heard what God has ready for those who love Him we can think of the words of Jesus himself in my home there are many mansions which my father is prepared for the in paradise so there is this wonderful sense of heaven being a place of pure joy life truth and love in communion with the Saints I should add and the Pope doesn't talk much about this but there are different capacities I might as well talk about this because it anticipates questions Thomas Aquinas spoke of and the church has taught that we our ability to experience love joy and happiness in heaven is based upon our capacity to do so which has worked out in this life so some of us if you think of the Saints they're they're like oceans that can contain the water and grace and love of God if you're like me you might be more like a thimble some people are swimming pools some people are lakes but everyone is perfectly happy in heaven according to their capacity so if if a mass-murderer repented in his jail cell before he was executed to the priests and he repented and was sincerely sorry for what he did that person certainly has the possibility of salvation perhaps an extended time in purgatory as we'll see but that person quote/unquote made it because he repented of all the evil he did what's his capacity for receiving love in heaven it might be less than Mother Teresa's is that unfair no it's not unfair but you see there are real consequences to how we live this life so sometimes the question comes up if I can get forgiveness by walking on the beach or in the forest and I don't have to go to confession to be forgiven what's the difference well going to confession you earn sacramental graces which deepen your capacity for love in a way that kind of ephemeral forgiveness walking on the beach you don't achieve sacramental Grace's so you're forgiven but this is about building capacity power for love so if you switch out of your mind the audit trail approach to Christian living and those who are not and into I'm actually creating myself into something you'll see the power of sacramental Grace's the other analogy that's used and talking about heaven is the saints talk about this of when you are wrapped by Jesus Christ through the graces of the church or the sacramental Grace's in the church it's like being molded you are assured of being molded whereas if you try to live life without God perhaps not through your own faults it's more like God is working on you with a chisel one bad stroke and the whole statue breaks that's the difference between Grace's that come generally and graces that are sacramental now some of you are frowning about this this hasn't been taught by the church but it's the spiritual reflections of saints who talked about the different vivifying effect of sacramental Grace's versus when they were not Catholic and lost one stroke of the chisel and they're lost even further so God reaches out to all of us and calls us all to heaven and seeks every human person ever created to be in heaven but you see living a life of grace explicitly in the Catholic Church or as a Christian available to sacramental Grace's is about building up the type of soul you are and will be you can either be molded assuredly or you can have the chisel okay now don't email me say where is that in the Catechism it's not in the Catechism it's from reflections of Saint John of the Cross for example who knew a thing or two okay purgatory you see how this quite logically flows purgatory is the state of standing before God but in pain that requires purification in order to be in full communion with God quote ultimately the place of purification is Christ himself when we encounter him without disguise then as a matter of course everything that is wretched and guilty in our lives which we have for the most part kept carefully hidden in that moment of truth will stand before our soul in flames of fire the effect of the presence of the Lord upon everything within us that is inner woven within justice with hate and with lies will be as a burning flame it will become a purifying pain which will burn away from within us everything that cannot be reconciled with eternity with the Living cycle of Christ's love when you are out of the Sun for a long time no in darkness and someone turns the lights on real fast your eyes hurt purgatory is an act of mercy of God we couldn't stand it stand before God face to face without mediation if we brought all of the baggage of our sins in front of God so purgatory is an act of mercy to purify us so that we can have the face-to-face encounter with God it's preparation its purification so you see it's a state just like heaven is a state and we'll develop that a bit more hell it comes from an English word as I mentioned here it can mean cavern and some usages or hole or hollow or even hiding place in some of the old English works that the word hell comes from you can think of you've heard the expression Hades that's that's the Greek expression for it or Inferno which is the Latin Vulgate expression for it Gehenna that Jesus refers to in the Gospel actually referred to a valley of Moloch where pagan gods were worshipped so the place of hell is where the demons are and we know is a dogma of our faith that the evil angels Satan and his angels are in hell so we know as a matter of faith hell exists and some people the bad angels are there that's all we know from a perspective of faith and the quote about Judas that always comes up better that he did not live than betray the Son of Man is a reference to Judas in hell there's no doctrinal commitment the church has ever made in regard to the status of Judas so we're not required to believe that but as you can see from this manner of thinking of last things hell is the self-imposed state of exclusion and as all the Pope's have mentioned no one is forced into Hell against their will we jump in with both feet as I put it here there is no gosh it's warm in here how did that happen we choose it with gusto we jump into it we want it let me continue by quoting john paul ii in one of his wednesday audiences that many of these were written by cardinal ratzinger everyone thinks the Pope writes all the speeches he does I can tell you he writes almost none of what he speaks in public you might look at it make some edits but the Wednesday audiences are often he gets them in the morning and reads them and makes sure he likes them and maybe makes a few edits of his own but they're written for him so let's read this one and this was from 1999 July 28 so almost exactly 19 years ago the images of hell that sacred scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted they show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God rather than a place hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God the source of all life and joy this is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject to die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice this state of definitive self exclusion from communion with God and the Blessed is called hell eternal damnation therefore is not attributed to God's initiative because in his merciful love he can only desire the salvation of the beings he created in reality it is the creature who closes himself to his love damnation consists precisely in definitive separation from God freely chosen by the human person and confirmed with death that seals his choice forever God's judgment ratifies this state Christian faith teaches that in taking the risk of saying yes or no which marks the human creatures freedom some have already said no they are the spiritual creatures that rebelled against God's love and are called demons what happened to them is a warning to us it is a continuous call to avoid the tragedy which leads to sin and to conform our life to that of Jesus who live his life with a yes to God damnation remains a real possibility but it is not granted to us without special divine revelation to know which human beings are effectively involved in it the thought of Hell and even less the improper use of biblical images must not create anxiety or despair but is the necessary and healthy reminder of freedom within the proclamation that the risen Jesus has conquered Satan giving us the Spirit of God who makes who makes us cry Abba Father this prospect rich and hope prevails in Christian Proclamation it is effectively reflected in the liturgical tradition of the church as the words of the Roman canon attest this is at the end or in the in the Eucharistic prayer I should say Father accept this offering for you from your whole family save us from final damnation and count us among those you have chosen as I put here hell is the eternal guarantee of human freedom God will not override a human will now this is troubling to some people but the image I think of often is the Sun the Sun shines on wax it softens it the Sun shines on mud it hardens it the difference is not in the Sun but in which it shines you and I right now are choosing to make ourselves more like God or more like not God and when we die God merely gives us what we chose this is the point of talking about the kingdom of God is starting right now and the fragmentary beginning of eternal life starts right now you and I right now are making ourselves into that which will stand in front of God and either enjoy full communion face to face feel some purifying fire which hopefully ends or something worse the difference wasn't God the difference is in what I made myself into under the impulse of God's grace something heavenly or if I reject that grace on my own terms something that's not heavenly that's the extent of which we can say about it and as the John Paul's one day Wednesday audience indicates we don't know besides the bad angels who is in hell we do know who is in heaven by the Saints we proclaim those four keep those keeping score are infallible acts of the Magisterium when they proclaim a saint to be a saint we know asserted to the Saints are in heaven we know in the case of Mary she's in heaven beyond even the general judgment so the Saints are in heaven but still have to go through a general judgment Mary has completed the full life of Christ and has no need of the general judgment either just as Jesus did not so those are the reflections on last things I hope that is helpful if you wanted to take one thing from this is the kingdom of God starts right now eternal life starts right now in a fragmentary way but it starts right now you are choosing to be a disciple of Jesus or not right now okay so with that let's pivot to the renewal part so we have a little time left and I think I can get through this concisely and then we can open up for questions that you may have on this material or anything in the class what I found fascinating is is a couple of things here there is a story in the Old Testament in the first book of Kings chapter 18 the story of Elisha and King Ahab and you might be thinking Charles when you're talking about Catholic renewal ye starting in the first book of Kings chapter 18 but the story is and you might remember this if you read the Old Testament King Ahab was described as one of the worst kings if not the worst king of the northern kingdoms worse than all of them combined by the way Herman Melville selected a hab for his story of Moby Dick that's how bad King Ahab was why well King Ahab was married to Jezebel you remember Jezebel now people said pop-ups she introduced polytheism into the northern kingdoms of Israel and King Ahab and the people of Israel started worshipping Baal ba ll one of the balls ba al thank you nut balls ba ba al and there were several balls and in fact in Biblical Archaeology when they dig up burial sites of ancient Jewish princes they find Canaanites and Baal statues in those graves so there was dabbling in polytheism in the northern kingdoms elijah comes on the scene this is around 850 BC and he confronts a hab and he says call out these 450 priests of Baal into the valley and let's go up to Mount Carmel and we're gonna have a contest we're gonna have two bowls on a weber grill and I want those priests of Baal to light the grill and if they can't do it then the Lord God will light it as an offering and he says I challenge them and so King Ahab goes out to Mount Carmel with the 450 priests of Baal and he says okay light the Bulls and so they start their chants they start their incensing nothing happens so Elijah starts mocking them maybe your gods are asleep maybe they're busy maybe they can't hear you keep going and so the priests start dancing more crazily and screaming and yelling and Elijah keeps taunting them maybe he can't hear you maybe he's busy maybe your gods are not attending to you so the priests start cutting themselves and bleeding and doing all kinds of mutilations to themselves still nothing happens so Elijah says and he makes a prayer to God Yahweh please come down and show your power and glory and immediately fire comes up from the altar and the Bulls are sacrificed what's interesting is that is pagan polytheism then and now leads to greater and greater forms of self abuse and self-destruction GK Chesterton now I fast forward the tape how do you connect Chesterton and the first book of kings so let me now read to you from GK Chesterton in the work the everlasting man quote try that experiment of seeing history from the inside there comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of pretending when he is weary of being a robber or a red Indian it is then that he torments the cat there comes a time in the routine of an ordered civilization when the man is tired of playing at mythology and pretending that a tree is a maiden or that the moon made love to a man The effect of staleness is the same everywhere it is seen in all drug-taking and DRAM drinking and every form of the tendency to increase the dose men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense they seek after Mad Oriental religions for the same reason they try to stab their nerves to life if it were with the knives of the priests of Baal they are walking in their sleep and they try to wake themselves up with nightmares what a very interesting quote and it characterizes our culture we've become bored with our freedom we become bored with our prosperity we've become bored with our staleness and so we seek to increase the dose we seek as Chesterton says and others greater obscenities to stimulate our dead jaded sense so we are stale disordered and in rebellion in a rebellion from what as I mentioned in past classes and now write worship of God versus versus worship of the self discuss with being dependent on God we want to cancel and exchange that for a godless misplaced sense of our own autonomy and of course relativism no sense of what is true good or beautiful just my will just my appetites is my truth which is why Chesterton said in pagan societies he feared the virtues more than the vices what did he mean by that so the vices were killing people and stealing and cheating and that's common to all societies everywhere and those are vices what he feared was godless charity that would make death camps of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union out of a sense of history with a capital H the sense of of generosity that Lee to Seoul numbing socialism health care for all that creates health care for no one or unaffordable health so G K Chesterton feared the virtues in godless societies more than devices and of course like a lot of things just suits and roadies absolutely correct so strategies for renewing this is the waiting for st. Benedict the Benedict option and I won't read this extended quote to you but it is from L star McIntyre's book after virtue where he basically is comparing our time with an earlier time the time of classical Rome and that we need a new way of approaching renewing culture and it's a lengthy quote I would encourage you to get the book if you are interested it's somewhat technical heavy going but L star McIntyre was making some similar points and oddly predicted you know odd way benedict because in 1981 he mentions here toward the end that we are waiting not for Godot but for another doubtlessly very different st. Benedict because he was comparing the time of classic Rome with our time and urging our leaders to think of the culture as pagan and our engagement with it as pagan because it's not we shouldn't want to harken back and think well it's just 1950 we just have to use those strategies of what would have been appropriate in 1950 pope benedict's points in l star with McIntyre's pointed it's 150 AD it's not 1950 and our church leaders have acted as if it is 1950 as i mentioned here and again i don't want to do a whole negative thing here but the truth is from my perspective that our church leadership particularly in the West took a timeout in the 1960s which continues frankly up to our time they didn't take on the sexual revolution or the general attacks on legitimate Authority when it occurred where we are about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of himani vitae this month do you know probably almost every bishop conference in the West when that encyclical came out either ignored it or modified it didn't have the courage to defend it maybe they didn't believe it so the crisis in our culture is actually a crisis of leadership which is getting better in pockets I think we would acknowledge that there are great bishops and priests out there and there are great laypeople working as well but what has occurred over the last 50 years is a lack of courage in a lack of leadership so to wrap up strategies and tactics engagement without assimilation present the truth with clarity and compassion in the normal circumstances of our lives be prepared for some negative consequences but the truth is by engaging corrupt culture the church is always advanced go back to the 1st century Marcion a heretic force the church to clarify the books in the New Testament why because he started promoting books that he thought were inspired they were the wrong books so the church said hey wait a minute these are the books of the New Testament the Council of Chalcedon in 451 which clarified who Christ is God and man came out of conflict with heresy up to that point think of Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation produced the clarification of the Council of Trent or think of in our time john paul ii producing the wonderful work of theology of the body in response to the inability of pastors and bishops to present the Church's teaching on married so the church has always it's almost like being hit with a shot a flu shot you're injected with all kinds of garbage and virus to provoke a reaction in your body to fight a virus the church is suffering now and we are in exile now and we will produce that which we need to fight future viruses and diseases local communities Pope Benedict was very high on this don't give me utopian grand programs about global warming rather promote education in your area hospitals families these local wonderful institutions are how you change the culture the original swamp drainer st. Benedict / a work study the rule of Saint Benedict cultivate a sense of the transcendent God both in creation that points to God it's not just a dead cold cosmos and the mass which we presented at length in class three of what are we doing at mass what what is accomplished and this sense of the transcendent of God on our altars can be promoted by priests who have Eucharistic piety and by Latin now we see the significance of Latin in the mass not as a museum piece but as something that promotes the transcendent so the last slide is is tactics or the to-do list I promise it's the last slide it's not in your deck but if you're wondering what should what do I do Charles so this has been wonderful theology but what how do we touch ground these lists are helpful to me and they are the spiritual and corporal works of mercy and a helpful technique that I have found useful and I think others have to is to pick one and say this month I'm going to focus on this next month I will you just walk the list and you might say to yourself well how on earth can I visit those in prison do you know that there is a prison ministry that Mike Phillips leads here at st. Mary's and Mike Phillips who also works on the our CIA with me does prison ministry throughout the year so all of these are possible and the spiritual ones in some way are even harder but if you're wondering how do I renew culture it starts with how you treat those around you and it expands to the stranger so these are in the old and new Testament and called out specifically as well but they're organized by the church and you'll see them for example on the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops website USCCB dot org and they list the spiritual and corporal works of mercy so with that you see that we are in exile and how do we were a new culture while in exile it's by these actions and knowing how we promote the transcendent in our life at Mass in creation the rule of st. Benedict of work pray study but know what time it is it is not 1950 and the strategies of 1950 won't work it is 150 AD and we are living in a pagan culture so let's renew it so with that thank you for listening and well look thank you now we do have time if you like for questions about either tonight or the entire program sure so the question was several but what is the state of what is the quality of grace between a Christian and a non-christian at the time of their death what's the quality grace is Grace so I wouldn't attempt to distinguish the grace in the soul as qualitatively different one versus the other at death sanctifying grace is sanctifying grace how it is obtained can be different and at the moment of your death we believe as Christians that itself is a grace to die in the state of grace so if a person who doesn't even know the name of Jesus never heard of it in a third world country dies in the state of grace that is sanctifying grace so you wouldn't say that is a qualitatively different grace than a Christian the question then becomes what is their state their capacity before God and that's where there are differences between people now your other question was at the moment of death what is my condition or very good so so in the Catechism bill as you recall there is the particular judgment at the moment of our death and then there's the general judgment at the end of the world so at our death we experience a particular judgment this face-to-face with God and that is determinative of our condition of our status there is then a final general judgment when the world ends and the Pope's have talked about how the full significance of my life actually is finally fully accounted for at the end of the world and as some mysterious sense those who might have done good for others who might be in purgatory get the full credit so to speak of those that they helped throughout life and that rippled across space and time and that can be helpful to finally ending purgatory as well at the general judgment but in a sense it's a way of keeping the books open until the general judgement when the world ends so at my death individually there's the particular judgment and my status is determined and then the general judgment when the world ends and all statuses are accounted for so to speak was there okay so thanks again and we hope to see you next summer [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Church of St. Mary Summer School of Faith

Views: 1,106

Rating: 4.6363635 out of 5

Keywords: benedict option, alisdair macintyre, after virtue, eschatology, death and eternal life, god is near us, joseph ratzinger, cardinal ratzinger, pope benedict xvi, four last things, death, heaven, hell, judgement, purgatory, dogma of hell, everlasting man, g k chesterton, charles craigmile, lake forest illinois, summer school of faith, catholic, catholicism, crisis of culture, crisis of modernity, what happens when you die, what is heaven like

Id: tGEXlsNjPlk

Length: 93min 39sec (5619 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2018