From the bulletin for The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Aug 25, 2024)
The Eschatological Adventure, Part 7: Some Will Rise to the Resurrection of Condemnation…
Final Judgment was absolutely awesome. It left its subjects so utterly impressed that even if there had been nothing else to occupy them, both the celebrating in Heaven and the howling in hell would need the remainder of eternity to give the “Amen” to all that God had accomplished in Christ on that Last Day.
“Day,” of course, was relative here. As to the content of what was brought to light–nothing less than the whole meaning of God’s plan for creation, including the intended purpose of each individual and the actual part it played in the drama of salvation–should have required much more time than the whole run of history. Yet it had all unfolded with such a oneness, such a simultaneity, that it seemed but a single moment. It was both “a day” and “a thousand years.” It was the Great Day of the Lord.
Christ Jesus was the magnificent protagonist throughout, judging the nations with His truth. He had ever “done all things well;” how well He presided now over this most solemn of liturgies! Even the wicked (though without the joy of the just) found themselves confessing the acclamations of the Book of Revelation: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are your ways, King of the nations!” Truly, the time had come for the judging of the dead, and for rewarding all who had revered God’s name, both the great and the small… and also for destroying those who had destroyed the earth.
That Day, words which had never passed away were all fulfilled. The weeds were separated from the wheat; the bad fish segregated from the good; the sheep and the goats found themselves in their respective places. The apostles took part. The queen of the south and the men of Sodom had their moment. The righteous passed judgment on fallen angels and the thoughts of men’s hearts were laid bare. Not one thing that had been spoken in the darkness did not come to light, except what had already been forgiven. And each was held accountable for the fruits of his exercise of freedom, according to the measure of the truth that each had been granted.
As the full picture came into focus, Eager found his mind reeling in amazement. It was as if God was “putting eternity into his heart” and he still found himself “unable to find out, from beginning to end, the work which God had done.” He would in fact need an eternity to contemplate it. How all had been summed up in Christ. How all had worked out for the good of those whom He had called. The unity of the human race in Adam and the far greater unity of the Church with Christ. Like a good detective story, everything fit together. God’s eternal designs accomplished through the free acts of His creatures. Like a masterpiece of art, it demanded patient admiration. Like your class photo, each one could find his place.
What most impressed Eager was the abundance of mercy that God had proffered to each soul during life and the strictness of His justice towards all. The rightness of each sentence provoked a chorus crying, “For His mercy endures forever.” In the end, each was left only with motives for giving thanks and praise to God or begging pardon.
As a matter of fact, those who had done so with sufficient sincerity in life were already pardoned and were now free to thank and praise God together forever. Those who hadn’t never would. These Louis had seen flee from before the somber face of Christ once the terrible “Depart from Me” was uttered into eternity. At that, they were released from the place to which they had been riveted. Immediately, like Gerasene swine, they rushed into the gaping caverns that had opened in the earth, praying the mountains to cover them and the hills to separate them from the God whose mercy they had so proudly spurned. Impelling them from within were the unclean spirits that their bodies were now home to, on account of the sins from which they had refused to repent.
Eager intuited the restless eternity that awaited those who were in perpetual flight from the truth. Their very existence was an irremediable failure. God was permitting them to abide in the contradiction after which they had lusted: the greatest degree of independence from the One upon whom they totally depended. They would dwell at the furthest distance from the heat of His love, abstaining from the nuptial dance of the children of Light. Their “outer darkness” would forever frame the light of Heaven, a memorial of God’s goodness towards the ungrateful.
The wrongness of what the damned had done was painfully evident to all. They had refused to recognize their Creator, loving better the lesser. They had embraced the Lie. They would never be sorry. Eternal misery was not too much for them. No, it was well-deserved. “Amen,” Eager concurred as the damned fled from view. “Your judgments are honest and true.”
When the last of these had disappeared into the depths of the earth, there was silence in Heaven for a half an hour. Then came a great shout: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out. So rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell therein!” Then, Eager looked up.
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