The outcome (meaning admission to the Beatific Vision after death) is a result of our decisions as to whether or not we reach for the graces that God sets within our reach. It is a result of whether we do the will of the Father or not. It is a result of whether or not we love God with all our heart and our neighbor like ourselves. It is a result of every word we say. It is a result of how we treat the poor, the sick, the unclothed, the prisoners, the persecuted. It is a result of whether we put Christ above all else and give up self, even at the price of tribulation and yes, even death.
If we do not do these things, we can undo what the Lord our God has done, and condemn ourselves to death. The place of righteousness is our soul, which comes to life when we receive Baptism, and which dies - yes, dies - when we commit what orthodox Christian doctrine calls a mortal sin, meaning one of the sins (as the evangelist John teaches us) that lead to death - not physical, of course, but spiritual.
It is true that righteousness and sinfulness cannot coexist. This is why grave sin done with full knowledge and deliberate consent suffices to remove righteousness. What then? Shall we believe that a baptized soul cannot sin gravely? That would contradict - as I tried to show you - both what Christ Himself taught and what His holy Apostles taught under the light of the Holy Spirit!
In all sincerity, there is one doctrine which is consistent throughout the centuries, and all the while many novelties that have come into existence ever since the days of the Apostles. Why, Paul already admonishes and warns the Church about such “Christian” communities that preached a different Gospel, warning them to hold on to the tradition passed down whether in writing or by word of mouth (catechism), and it was the third bishop of Rome, disciple of Peter, who wrote in the year 90 AD:
teachers pervert Scripture and try to get into Heaven with a false key, for they have formed their human assemblies later than the Catholic Church. From this previously-existing and most true Church, it is very clear that these later [errors], and others which have come into being since then, are counterfeit and novel inventions.
Look, everyone is free to do as they please. Christ does not impose Himself. It is a most enticing idea that all it takes is to believe really hard that I am saved in order to be saved. Sure, sounds good. I no longer fear damnation, or hell. Never mind that Scripture and Christ Himself teach otherwise. Never mind that all the greatest Christians we know of (beginning by the Church Fathers and Church Doctors and going down through the martyrs and saints) teach us very clearly throughout the centuries that it doesn’t work that way. Never mind the countless times that our Lord has appeared to His disciples ever since Emmaus until this very century, asking them to share in a bit of his sorrows in order to obtain mercy and grace for unrepentant sinners, whose repentance He who is God asks with such intensity, giving them such graces that astonish even the sweetest of all parents, and yet sees them, especially those who are His brothers by baptism, reject them all and condemn themselves to eternal damnation. Never mind!
Last year, someone handed me a card that reads as follows: “This gift card is a reminder to me that I have received the gift of eternal life which was paid for with the life of God’s Son. I couldn’t earn it on my own, but God thought I was so worth it that He gave it to me as a gift.” Some other pamphlets I find around read: “Can you say this prayer? If you are sincere, God will immediately save you and give you everlasting life. …] I am now placing my trust in You alone for my salvation and I accept your free gift of eternal life.”
How
sad will the day be for those brothers who, having been deceived by such
nonsense, will not strive to live the Christian life as it is meant to be lived - with the faith formed by charity that becomes the formal cause of our own salvation (along with the efficient and meritory causes that are God’s free gift) - and thus realize on the day of their personal judgment that it is true, God had indeed freely given them eternal life (given by God, merited by Christ) but that the place where we spend that eternal life depended on our own work, on how we ran the race…for “those who have done what is good will rise to the resurrection that leads to life, and those who have practiced what is evil will rise to the resurrection that ends in condemnation”, “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”.
Those who have seen that horrible lake of fire by God’s grace have told us how terrible is the cry of the damned, unable to love God, a cry of hatred towards themselves for their vanity and lack of mortification, a cry of hatred towards their parents for not teaching them about Christ, about how to attain salvation, about Hell, a cry of hatred towards Christians, that they may be snatched and brought into damnation with them, a cry of hatred towards Christ, who being God lowered Himself to become man and now is so humble as to obey to the call of His consecrated ones to bless, forgive sins, and be present in the Eucharist, that Christ who begs sinners to return to Him rather than - as they wish - immediately sending them unto damnation as it was done for the fallen angels. Such is the hatred for that Christ who so loved the world as to take penance and death upon His own shoulders so that those who turn their eyes to Him can - as St. Paul writes in Philippians 2:12 - work out their own salvation with fear. Not servile fear, nor fear of damnation…but the fear of the bride that longs to see the bridegroom and looks for Him and is afraid of not seeing Him, of being separated from Him…
