We must prepare ourselves for the afterlife

These days, as I go for my daily walk through the trails, many runners pass me as they train for the upcoming Tely 10.

Training is what’s needed to win any race or other discipline in life. St. Paul said: “I have run the full distance and have kept the faith, and now there is waiting for me the prize of being right with God.”

So how can we be right with God so as to win the prize of heaven? What about the losers, those destined forever in hell?

Now we know the afterlife is all about heaven and hell, those who make it and those who don’t. The problem with the word forever is that it can run chills up and down the spine because our finite minds can’t grasp the concept of something never ending. We all think of something ending in this life: a day, a week a year, etc., but forever can drive the mind into turmoil.

Are we as prepared for the afterlife as was St. Paul? Back in the 1970s, there was a movie called “Death Wish,” in which actor Charles Bronson went on a tear hunting down those responsible for his wife’s murder. Sometime later, one of the murderers was now wearing a crucifix around his neck, and Bronson confronted him with a gun, and said, “Do you want to meet Jesus?”

Just before Bronson shot him dead, he said, “You are going to meet Him.”

Now, in all probability the murderer had undergone conversion and sought repentance after he killed Bronson’s wife, but he paid the ultimate price for his participation in her murder.

Before former Pope Paul VI passed away, he said, “The death of a Pope is the same as any other person, but others will learn from it.” He added: “I see the threshold of the beyond.”

He was prepared for the afterlife, but what about us? How prepared, or lack thereof, are we?

Are we really happy? Are we disguising true happiness for a false sense of utopia in this highly secular world? The afterlife is an area of concern where we need to focus our lives because it is everlasting, and we need to be following God’s laws and living lives according to the Holy Spirit, so that we can honestly say, “We are not afraid of death because we know we are going to heaven.”

After death there will be, in addition to a particular judgment, a general judgment, where the focus will be on how we loved our neighbour in life; here God will separate the just from the unjust. He will say: “I was hungry and you fed me; thirsty and you gave me drink.”

The just who made love blossom in life will live in heaven forever. The unjust will inherit hell forever.

Now, we need not have a reason to despair at this point, if we are not where we’d like to be in our lives. We have an opportunity to seek repentance and start anew in God’s favour.

We can make a concerted effort to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters in such places as South Sudan, Northern Nigeria, Somalia and Syria by contributing to registered charities, and then by setting up a monthly contribution system to help alleviate hunger, drought, the effects of war, etc., in places of the world that need our help.

Are we really happy? Are we disguising true happiness for a false sense of utopia in this highly secular world?

David Jones Mount Pearl