Ryan Tristan O.

Digan Philo 2 Fundamental Liturgy September 20, 2019

Reflection on:
World Without End – The Lasting Things

In summary:

Bishop Barron introduced the video by citing the work of St. Thomas Aquinas saying that we have
to recover what St. Thomas termed as the Sacri Scienscia referring to the Theology. It is the Holy Science;
a way of knowing. In this video, the good bishop from New York discussed the teachings of the Catholic
Church regarding the last things. Here, he shed light on our belief about hell, purgatory, and heaven. He
said that this is the most fascinating and at the same time, the most objectionable doctrine of all the
Catholic Church’s teachings.

The doctrine regarding heaven as the place of perfect happiness after we die is not a classic case
of wishful thinking or childish fantasizing, according to Bishop Barron. He said that, this has also been used,
according to Karl Marx as the opium for the masses to simply mollify people to endure the agonies of life.
Other Christians find this teaching of heaven and hell and purgatory as bizarre and arbitrary and lacking in
any biblical foundation.

But everyone, believers and non-believers alike wonders and worries at some point in their life of
what would happen after we die. Bishop Barron said that if God is just, then it seems that there has to be
some state of being, some place in which case, these injustices are set right.

So, what does the Catholic Church teach regarding Heaven, Hell and Purgatory?

He begins with Dante and Shakespeare, two of the great figures in Western literature. Bishop
Barron cited Dante’s masterpiece, The Divine Comedy as a work of creative imagination, but is filled with
sound theology. This work was a product of Dante’s meditation on the next world. Dante was informed by
Virgil that his suffering would end but it will only happen after he has seen the dimensions of the next
world, beginning with hell. So in that vision, he was accompanied by Vergel and they went to hell and there
they saw Satan seated on ice and being frozen by it. Satan has great wings like a bat and he could
supposedly fly by virtue of his being an angel, but a fallen one at that. When Dante inquired from Vergel
why Satan could not use his wings to fly, Vergel responded that the angels could fly because they take
themselves so lightly while Satan could not because of sin; sin is described as heaviness and it weighs
down the spirit – the angels that are supposed to fly. God has made his creatures for joy, and this is why
turning away from God invariably results in sadness – and this is also how Satan was being described in
the novel.

Bishop Barron said that Dante had learned that like heaven, hell can be anticipated now.
Accordingly, this gives us an understanding of the two more fundamental convictions that we are free and
that God is love. God’s very nature and essence is love and we do not just simply attribute it to Him. Hence,
it says that God doesn’t love in response to our goodness; instead, whatever goodness we have is a
consequence of God’s love.

Human freedom is very important. As human beings who are endowed with intellect, we can
respond to the Divine love or we can reject it. God wants all people to be saved, but people has been given
freedom to choose. “Hell,” is the rejection of God’s love. God “sends” no one to hell; rather people freely
choose to go there. Bishop Barron said, “Indeed, since the liturgy compels us to pray for all of the dead,
and since the law of prayer is the law of belief, we must hold out at least the hope that all people will be
saved. Furthermore, since Christ went to the very limits of godforsakenness in order to establish solidarity
even with those who are furthest from grace, we may, as Hans Urs von Balthasar insisted, reasonably hope
that all will find salvation. Again, this has nothing to do with our perfectibility; it has to do with God’s
amazing grace.”

The teaching about purgatory holds second to hell as objectionable article of faith of the Catholic
Church. It is objectionable in the sense that it has no biblical basis, as the protestants would say. They
claim that the notion on purgatory has been used as fund-raising for Catholic Church for buying and selling
indulgences. However, the teaching of the Catholic Church is clear. As it is stated in the Catechism of
Catholic Church numbers 1030 to 1031, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly
purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to
achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The church gives the name Purgatory to this
final purification of the elect.” Bishop Barron mentioned about the theology behind mortal and venial sins.
According to him, mortal sins involve a definitive rupture in one’s friendship with God; it kills the divine life
in the one who commits it. He set an example of this here the commission of adultery as mortal sin. On
the other hand, venial sins are those that negatively affect but do not break one’s friendship with God. This
sort of sin needs correction, the wounds that it leaves need healing, and the negative tendency it inculcates
needs redirecting. How? By means of penance, self-denial, fasting, and prayer – this can effectively help a
person to go back to the right direction.

Bishop Barron uses the analogy of a worldly person who suddenly experiences conversion to God.
As this person leaves his former life and tries to live a new life with Christ, definitely it would not be easy
for him to adopt to such a new life for he is used to the old practices; the old behavior and attitude. But if
he so decides to continue giving up himself to the experience and if he remains open to the new life, even
if he still has resistances, it would eventually fade away and he would feel that his faults are being purged
along the process. The word “purgatory” is not in the Scripture as the Protestants would claim. However,
the seeds of the idea of purgatory definitely can be found in the Scripture. In 2 Maccabees, Judas
Maccabeus urges the Israelites to offer a prayer on behalf of the dead in atonement of their sins.

In this chapter of the video, Bishop Barron also discussed about the presence of beings who
transcend the world of ordinary experience – the angels. They are created beings that are not visible to
the senses of human beings. St. Thomas Aquinas described these angels as a “separated intelligence” – a
creature endowed with intelligence and will but independent of matter.

Everything about our belief conduce to heaven. Heaven, according to Bishop Barron is love in the
fullest sense – love completed. Everything will fade away including faith and hope, but what will remain is
love. Heaven is the “place” where everything that is not love has been burned away and hence heaven is
the fulfillment of the deepest longing of the human heart. The Catechism of Catholic Church tells us that
there could be different images for heaven in the Bible but the reality itself lies beyond all our imagining,
since it is equivalent to the very life of God, that which “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of
man conceived.”

He associates the image of heaven into a new city, the new Jerusalem where there is bustling of
energy, life and creativity – a city just like that of Paris, New York, San Francisco, or Rio de Janeiro. In that
city on high, when we are already perfected and when the self-absorption of sin has been burned away,
we will rejoice in one another’s accomplishments and delight in the harmony that we can achieve together.

Bishop Barron said that, “neither declaration of Christian faith speaks of the conviction that the
soul will escape from the body and live forever in a disincarnate state; both speak of resurrection, which
involves not the leaving behind of the body but the transfiguration of the body. The risen Jesus appeared
very much in an embodied state to his disciples: “touch me and see that I have flesh and bones.” The God
revealed in the Bible made the physical universe and took infinite delight in it: “he found it all very good.”
Furthermore, he said that the biblical God who made the good earth has no intention of giving up on it,
but rather wants to save it and redeem it. Thus, he said that this is precisely what the language of the
resurrection of the body is all about: not an escape from matter but a renewal of it.
As a Reflection:

Are there really such things as heaven, hell and purgatory? This are the questions we usually hear
especially from children and I myself also asked the same questions when I was a child. Now that I am an
adult, and a Seminarian, can I say to myself now that heaven, hell and purgatory are real? Who knows?
Nobody has gone there yet and has returned to this earthly state who would tell us that definitely heaven,
hell and purgatory do really exist. What our faith is teaching us are approximations of how they look like
based on how it is described in the Scripture. As Bishop Barron said in the last part of the video, “…the
best way to prepare ourselves for life in the world to come is to cultivate our capacity for surprise.”

Yes, there could be surprises in the world to come. But we are certain in the love of God to us that
He will never allow His creatures to suffer forever in eternal damnation. Because of that great love for us,
He has given us a second chance to renew our life and be united with Him through His Son. However,
because we are also given the liberty to choose, we are free to decide on how we live our life here on
earth. This decision is ours to make. While there are temptations anywhere and the evil spirit in anytime
could tease us to commit things that are against the will of God, but it is up to us if we will allow ourselves
to give in to the evil thoughts and desires. We know that if we do that, it will only separate us from God to
whom we truly belong.

The video only affirms my conviction as taught to me by my grandparents and my catechists before.
The conviction that the souls of our loved ones who has gone ahead of us need our prayers. That is the
reason why I always include them in my prayers, whether personal or communal and especially during the
Mass. I am forever thankful to my faith because it teaches me how wonderful and how big the love of God
for us is. I cannot imagine if there is no purgatory, where would the souls go to since all of us have
committed sin in our life. If heaven is a place for the pure, definitely, the souls will not be found there. And
if there are only heaven and hell, would that mean that all the souls are in hell because of the stain of sin?
I doubt such belief. God is loving and forgiving, His mercy endures forever as it is written in the Scripture.
Thus, there is purgatory for all of us so that when the time comes for us to leave this earth, there would
still be a place for us where we can be purified of our sinfulness and thus, merit us to enter the heavenly
kingdom of our God.

Reflecting on heaven, hell and purgatory, I was brought to the realization of the need to revisit my
life here on earth; on how I have lived it throughout the 36 years of my existence. Then I realized that
even if I am already a seminarian now who is desiring to follow the footsteps of Christ, it does not make it
automatic or it is not a guarantee that I am already save. As a seminarian, I still continue to commit sins
and I think, even if I become a priest, there would still be occasions that I could commit things that will
not find favor in the eyes of God. But how about those things that I have committed in the past? Yes, even
those things I think I still need to revisit and ask God for pardon and mercy. While I go to confessions
regularly as a seminarian and even before as one of the active leaders of our parish, I know that I have
not fully recalled all the sins that I have committed in the past and I have not asked God for forgiveness
of all those things. For me, the grace of God will be completed if I go for a good confession; meaning, if I
will try to recall of the sins that I have committed and narrate them to the confessor one by one. I will not
wait for the time when I cannot do anything for my salvation except on relying from the prayers of those
who are still alive. The invitation for me now is to develop a constant prayerful attitude so that whatever I
think or do, it would always be in accordance to His will.