When is a soul judged: at death or end of time?

[PassingSoul]

Is a Soul judged on the day hhis body takes his last breath to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory or is the soul judged on the “Last Day” on the Second Coming of Christ and the end of mankind.

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

** I. THE PARTICULAR JUDGMENT**

**1021 **Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ. The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. The parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul–a destiny which can be different for some and for others.

**1022 **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.

V. THE LAST JUDGMENT

**1038 **The resurrection of all the dead, “of both the just and the unjust,” will precede the Last Judgment. This will be “the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man’s] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.” Then Christ will come “in his glory, and all the angels with him. . . . Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. . . . And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Baltimore Catechism:

Q. 1387. If every one is judged immediately after death, what need is there of a general judgment?

A. There is need of a general judgment, though every one is judged immediately after death, that the providence of God, which, on earth, often permits the good to suffer and the wicked to prosper, may in the end appear just before all men.

The particular judgment at our death rewards us for our faith and good works or causes us to endure the consequences of our rejection of God and lack of love for our neighbor.

The general judgment lays bare before us all the justice and mercy of God and enables us to understand His judgments.