Where do we come from? Why are we on earth? Where are we going?
Since the earliest days of the world, for thousands of years, humanity has asked itself these three great questions with the same anxiety and the same thirst for truth.
For unbelievers – that is, for those unfortunate ones who do not believe in God – the question remains unanswered. Certain scholars, called philosophers, have tried to solve these mysteries, but they have only succeeded in confusing them further – since they contradict one another – and in revealing either their ignorance or their bad faith. Modern thinkers only add confusion upon confusion; their contradictory doctrines collapse one upon another.
Only the religion of Jesus Christ sheds light on this mystery.
God created us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, so as to be happy with Him in Heaven for all eternity. God, who is our origin, is also our ultimate end.
The Last Ends of man are: death, judgment, Heaven, and hell.
Drawn from the earth by the almighty power of God, man must one day return to it. Since Adam sinned, death entered the world as the just punishment for original sin. If our first parents had not disobeyed God, they would have been immortal, and we would have been so with them.
Death is the punishment for sin. We must therefore accept it, with all the sufferings that accompany it, as an expiation for our faults. It is always near us and, sooner or later, it knocks at our door. Yet for the one who has lived well, death is a blessed passage – for to die is to go to Heaven, to the house of God.
Immediately after death, our soul appears before the tribunal of Jesus Christ. Nothing escapes His gaze: thoughts, words, actions, omissions – everything is weighed in the balance of justice and mercy. Let us remember well: each of our actions echoes into eternity.
Besides the particular judgment, there will also be, at the end of the world, a general judgment, very solemn, where all human beings will give an account of their actions before Almighty God, the supreme Judge of good and evil. Addressing the righteous and opening His arms to them, Jesus Christ will say with tenderness: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” Then His terrible voice will call out to the wicked: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire.”
Judgment, whether particular or general, has only two possible outcomes: Heaven or hell – that is, an eternity of love and happiness, or an eternity of hatred and suffering.
If the soul appears before God in a perfect state of grace, with no fault left to expiate – something exceedingly rare – it rises at once to Paradise. If, while in grace, it still has debts to be purified, it first passes through Purgatory before entering eternal glory. But if, by a dreadful misfortune, it dies in a state of mortal sin, without sincere repentance, it plunges into hell.
What, then, is hell? It is a place of horror where the wicked – called the damned – separated forever from God, suffer with the demons a punishment proportioned to their sins. The Church teaches that hell exists, and the Gospel affirms it many times; therefore, it must be believed.
The greatest suffering of the damned is the loss of God – the hatred of the Supreme Good for which they were created. Before being cast into hell, they glimpsed God, His infinite love, His beauty – and this God, so good, they rejected. Never forget: a single mortal sin is enough to cast us into that abyss, and once in hell, one never leaves – never, never.
Between Heaven and hell, there is an intermediate place: Purgatory.
What is Purgatory? It is a place of purification, a kind of prison where the souls of the just, still indebted to divine justice, complete in suffering the expiation of their sins. Those who die with venial sins on their conscience, or who have not made sufficient penance for forgiven sins, go to Purgatory.
There is no doubt that one suffers greatly in this place of expiation, but since these sufferings last only for a time, hope softens their bitterness. Each day, we should pray to God, through the merits of His Son Jesus Christ, to have mercy on the poor souls in Purgatory, especially the souls of our relatives and friends.
Heaven is more than a place: it is the very life of God shared with us – the eternal happiness of seeing and possessing the One who created us out of love.
Here below, we can only glimpse this mystery. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him,” says Sacred Scripture. All the joys, beauties, and consolations of earth are only a faint reflection of the perfect joy that awaits us in God.
In Heaven, we will see God face to face, in the unveiled light of His glory. We will contemplate His majesty, admire His infinite perfections, and love Him with all the power of our being, for He is the supreme Good, the source of all beauty and joy. In God, with Him, and for Him, we will love the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Angels, the Saints, and all those – our parents, our friends – who have been faithful to His grace.
There, all true joys of the soul, the heart, and even of the glorified body will be ours. In Heaven, there will be no more tears, no more mourning, no more ignorance, no more hunger, no more thirst, no more labor, no more sin, no more death. We will be perfectly happy – and this happiness, unlike the fleeting joys of earth, will last forever.
And now, let us ask: who among you wishes to obtain a place in Heaven? All? Very well. God invites you all, without exception, to take your place in Paradise. You know what must be done to reach it: flee sin, practice goodness – or, in a single word, love God above all things. When one truly loves someone, one fears causing offense. Thus, if you love the Lord, you will avoid all that offends Him.
Love God greatly in this life, so that you may obtain the grace to love Him forever in the beautiful kingdom of Heaven.
One day, a bold navigator, Christopher Columbus, set sail with a few companions in search of new lands beyond the horizon – lands his genius had foreseen. The journey was by sail: day after day passed the same upon the endless ocean, where nothing could be seen but the monotonous rolling of the waves and the unchanging line of the sky.
Little by little, the courage of the sailors began to falter. Worn out, shaken by storms, and frightened by the unknown, they murmured, rebelled, and cursed their leader. Some even refused to go any farther.
Columbus, however, did not yield. Again and again, he lifted their failing spirits:
“Three more days,” he said to them, “three days, and I will give you a new world. There, your sufferings will end; there you will find rest and happiness.”
At last, on the morning of October 12, 1492, a cry rang out from the top of a mast: “Land! Land!” In the distance, a dark line appeared; then shores came into view, covered with greenery and flowers. It was an unknown world rising before them – it was America.
Joy overflowed aboard the ships. They embraced and wept; they forgot their fatigue, their dangers, and their discouragement. Everything was transformed by that single word: “Land!”
And so it is with us. We too are embarked upon an ocean – the ocean of life. Each day, we must face storms: our passions rising within us, the devil who tempts us, the world that seeks to draw us away. To keep one’s heart pure requires great struggle and constant effort. But effort is love. When one loves, work becomes lighter, and the burden less heavy.
Let us never be discouraged by trials. God has promised Heaven to the brave soldiers of Christ – and God does not deceive. At the evening of our life, when we finally reach the longed-for harbor of salvation, our cry will be that of Columbus’s sailors – but infinitely more joyful:
“Heaven! Heaven! Oh, what happiness! Heaven is mine, forever!”
A few moments of effort, a few years of sacrifice, will have gained for us an eternity of happiness.