Second Coming?

[brewintim]

It occured to me that when Jesus spoke of the second coming, and the kingdom of God being at hand, could He have been speaking literally for each and every man and woman from that date forward? We all face our own mortality, and rather than wait till some date in the distant future (really distant future for folks 2000 years ago), could He have meant that He would return, at the time of the person’s death, to sift the wheat from the chaff, so to speak?

 

[Jim_Blackburn]

The Church teaches that, at death, there is a “particular judgment”: “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a purification or immediately,—or immediate and everlasting damnation.” (CCC 1022) This is not the same thing as the “last judgment” which will occur when Jesus comes again.