Matthew 25:31-46
Douay-Rheims
31 And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty.
32 And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.
34 Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
One of the great evils of our time is the denial of the final judgement. Those who do not believe in a hell, or that anyone is in hell, are denying this passage; that sheep and goats find themselves on opposite sides. To deny a moment of separation, leading to reward or punishment, is to deny objective truth as spoken by God Himself.
To deny the separation of those who follow Christ and those who do not is a denial of objective truth.
At death, we stand before Innocence Himself, Purity Himself, Beauty Himself, Truth Himself, Goodness Himself.
The particular judgement leads to the final judgement. That the Church teaches we endure both is a mystery of privacy vs. publicity. The particular judgement is our private judgement and the final judgement is our public judgement. All will see our sins and our merit, the latter gained through the grace of Christ and His Church.
To be continued....
