CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 3 Suppl:

• Penance (Continued)
• Extreme Unction
• Order (Holy Orders)
• Matrimony
• The General Resurrection
  • 69. The Place of Departed Souls
  • 70. Quality of a Separated Soul
  • 71. Suffrages for the Dead
  • 72. Prayers to the Saints
  • 73. Signs Preceding General Resurrection and Judgement
  • 74. The Fire of Judgment Day
  • 75. The Resurrection of the Body
  • 76. The Cause of the Resurrection of the Body
  • 77. Time and Manner of the Resurrection of the Body
  • 78. The Starting Point of the Bodily Resurrection
  • 79. The Risen Body
  • 80. The Integrity of the Risen Body
  • 81. The Quality of Those Risen from the Dead
  • 82. The Impassibility of Risen Bodies
  • 83. The Subtlety of Risen Bodies
  • 84. The Agility of Risen Bodies
  • 85. The Clarity of Risen Bodies
  • 86. The Risen Bodies of the Damned
• The Last Things
• Appendix I (The Innocents in Limbo)
• Appendix II (Two Notes on Purgatory)

74. The Fire of Judgment Day

1. At the end of time sin and all uncleanness on the earthshall cease. Those who are voluntarily and irrevocably given toevil will all be in hell. The earth where man has sinned will becleansed and purified.

2. It appears that the cleansing agency for the bodilyworld will be fire. We read in scripture (I Peter 3:12): "Theheavens being on fire will be dissolved, and the elements shallmelt with the burning heat."

3. The cleansing final fire will doubtless be the samekind of fire as the natural sort with which we are familiar. Asnatural water washedthe sinful world in the great flood, sonatural fire will cleanse it at the last day.

4. The heavenly bodies are not subject to contamination byman's sin. They need nothing to fit them for the state of glorybut to have their local movement set at rest by divine decree.

5. It seems that after the cleansing by fire, thesubstances of air, earth, fire, and water will remain, but aspurified, and no longer in natural conflict with oneanother.

6. Therefore, all earthly substances, including fireitself, will be purified and cleansed in the final fire.

7. The cleansing fire will precede the judgment: "Afire shall go before him" (Ps. 96). Yet the special action offire which will engulf the wicked will follow upon theirjudgment.

8. The final fire will act on men as the instrument ofdivine justice. It will reduce or change all bodies; but it willpain the wicked, and not the good, except in so far as temporalpunishment may still be needed for the cleansing of the good.

9. With the purifying of the world by fire, all that isevil and ugly will be cast into hell with the wicked; all that isbeautiful and noble will be taken up to heaven for the glory of theelect.

"It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come."
Thomas á Kempis

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"Obedience is the true holocaust which we sacrifice to God on the altar of our hearts."
St Philip Neri

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"The supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone."
St Albert the Great

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