The Particular Judgment
by Rev. Francis A. Baker
A Mission Sermon
“It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Hebrews 10:21
I
There is a moment, my brethren, in the history of each immortal soul, which, of all others that precede or follow it, is the fullest of experience: the moment after death. The moment of death is indeed the decisive moment of our history. Then the question is settled, once for all, whether we are to be happy or miserable for all eternity; but, for the most part, we do not know that decision. Many men die insensible. By far the largest part of those I have seen die, have died insensible. And even when the power of the mind remains to the last, it is extremely difficult to form any true conception of that state of things into which the soul is about to be ushered. It is difficult to conceive aright beforehand of anything to which we are unaccustomed. Did it ever happen to you to visit a strange country, and to form anticipations of what it would seem like, and did not the reality falsify all your anticipations? Well, how much more difficult to realize those things which the soul sees immediately after death, and which are so much farther removed from our former experience! According to Catholic theology, immediately after death, the soul appears in the presence of Jesus Christ to be judged – to receive an unalterable sentence to heaven or to hell. If to hell, no prayers can benefit it; if to heaven, it goes there immediately or not, according to the degree of its goodness. But it is judged unalterably to heaven or hell, the moment after death. And Catholic theologians teach that this judgment takes place in the very chamber of death itself. There, in that room, while they are dressing the body for the grave, closing the eyes, bandaging the mouth, arranging the limbs in order, that soul has already learned the secrets of the eternal world. Naked and alone, it had stood before its Judge, and heard its doom pronounced. To everyone, in doubt, even the most pious, to those who have meditated on the truths of faith, there will be something alarming in this moment; but, oh! What will it be to the sinful Catholic? What will be the thoughts and feelings of that large class of Catholics, now careless about their salvation, who are obeying every impulse of passion, and breaking every commandment of God? This, indeed, is a difficult question to answer. There is but little in this world that can help us to portray the emotions of the lost Catholic, the moment after death; but I will not on this account desist from attempting to describe it. I will consider your advantage rather than my own satisfaction, and though I feel deeply that I shall not be able to describe the scene I undertake in anything like the colors of truth, I will undertake to do what I can.
II
First, then, following the soul beyond the limits of this world, I see her overwhelmed with a conviction of the reality and truth of the objects of her faith. Now, in saying that this soul obtains a conviction of the truths of faith, I do not mean to suppose the case of one who has been a skeptic in this world. The truth is, faith is so strong a principle in the heart of a Catholic, that it is exceedingly difficult to put it out or shake it. And although it sometimes happens that a Catholic; from reading bad books, or frequenting the society of those who blaspheme his religion, or from becoming acquainted suddenly with some of the difficulties which science seems to present to faith, and not knowing the answer to them, or from the petty pride of seeming wiser than his neighbors, and making objections which unlearned Catholics cannot answer, may use the language of a skeptic; yet such cases are very rare, and the skepticism is not very deep. A little guidance from one who knows better, and a little humility on the part of such an objector, will set all right. But there is a kind of infidelity not so easily cured, and far more common among Catholics – a practical infidelity, an insensibility and indifference to the truths of faith. The truths of faith – I mean, heaven and hell, God and the soul – not seen by the eye – it requires reflection to realize them; but the world, and the objects which it presents, are visible and tangible. The former are lost sight of, while the latter absorb all our thoughts. The body clamors for necessities and pleasures, and the soul, and things of eternity, are simply forgotten. It is almost the same to many men as if there were no God, no eternity, no heaven, or no hell. Really, one hardly sees in what the lives of many Catholics would differ from what they are now if there were no God, no heaven or hell. I do not mean to say that they have no faith at all, for even the heathens have some faith; or that they never think of God, for then they would be brutes; but that these things have no real hold on their minds or influence over their hearts. They never reflect. They stay away from the sacraments. They do not listen to sermons. They have no correct idea at all of the advantage they enjoy in being Catholics; in a word, they break the commandments of God on the slightest temptation, are children of this world and immersed in its cares and enjoyments. Now, one of these meets with a sudden death. He goes out in the morning – perhaps he is a mechanic – and he falls from a height. He is taken up and put in a litter hastily made, and carried home. It is apparent that life is ebbing fast. In a few minutes he becomes speechless. He has lost his sight. Ah! Does he breathe at all? It is hard to say. The doctor comes in great haste. He feels his pulse, looks at him and says, “It is all over. He has received an injury in a vital part. He is dead.” Yes, he is dead. This morning he was alive and well, he was making his plans, he was talking of the weather – now he is dead. All his old thoughts and experiences are all rolled back by a new set of things that are forcing themselves on his vision. He is dead. He died suddenly; but not without warning. Others had died in his home before – he is not young. He has seen wife and children die. It made him weep for a while but he forgot it, and now his turn is come – he is dead. I will not stop to notice the grief of the friends he leaves behind. No; I will follow his soul, as it enters eternity. The voice of his friends dies of his ear – he begins to hear other voices. As he ceases to see the people in his room he begins to see other objects. Who is that, that is standing at the foot of his bed? A neighbor was standing there but just now; but this is another form, a form beautiful, indeed, but majestic and terrible. No; it is not anyone he has ever seen before, and yet, he ought to know that face. He has seen it before; it is the face his mother looked on as she was dying – the face he had often seen in Catholic churches. Yes, it is Jesus Christ. He knows it; it is the same, and yet, how different! When he saw that face in pictures, it was crowned with thorns; now it is crowned with a diadem of matchless glory. When he saw that form in the church, it was naked, and hanging on the Cross; now it is clothed in garments of regal magnificence. Yes, it is Jesus Christ! And He is looking upon him with eyes of fire. He turns to escape those eyes, and he sees there are other figures in the scene. There are two figures – one at the right hand, and one at the left. Who are they? He ought to know them, for they know more of him than anyone else – they have been his companions for life. One is very beautiful – a being with golden locks and cloud-like wings – that is his angel guardian; he looks sad now, for he has nothing good to say. And the other is the black and hideous demon of hell, that crouches at his side, full of hate and malice, and triumph, too, for he has dogged the steps of this poor sinner from youth to age, and now the time has come for him to seize his prey. And now as the sinner looks from one to another, the meaning of it all breaks upon him. Conviction flashes upon his mind. He may not have been an infidel before, but putting his past feelings by the side of his present experience, it seems almost as if he had been. Did it ever happen to you to be talking quite unconcernedly, and all at once to find that others were listening, before whom for worlds you would not have used such unreserved. Well, to compare small things with great, something like this will be the feeling of the sinner when the curtain of time draws up, and shows him the realities of eternity. The whole tide of his past thoughts and feelings will be arrested, and, with a great check, rolled back before the new set of experiences and sights that rush in on him. Oh! He will say, what is this that I see and hear? Has Jesus Christ always been so near me? Have my guardian angel and the demon that has tempted me been always in this very room? Ah, yes! It is even so. I have been living in a dream all my life, and pursuing shadows. It is true, as I learned in the catechism, and as the Church taught me, I was not made for the world or for sin, but for God. I had a soul, and the end of my being was to love and serve my Maker. He has been watching me all my days, and I have thought little of Him. I heard of judgment, but I did not give heed to it, or I placed it far off in the future; but now it is here at the door. There is my Savior, there my angel guardian, there the demon. Once I heard of these things, now I see them with my eyes. Yes, it is all true. The world did not seem to believe it, the world forgot it; but the world was wrong. The poor and the simple were right, after all, and the wise ones taken in their own craftiness. Yes, Christianity is true, Catholicity is true; I cannot doubt it, if I would, for there it stares me in the face! O, overwhelming conviction!
III
You have heard of the answer of a self-denying old monk to a wild, licentious youth, who reproached him with his folly in living so severe a life for the sake of a hereafter he had never seen. “Father,” said the youth, “how much wiser I am than you, if there be no hereafter!” “Yes, my son,” replied the aged man, “but how much more foolish, if there be!” O fearful discovery, to come on one for the first time, with a strong and deep impression, at the very threshold of eternity! O miserable man! Why did you not think of these things before? Why did you rush into the presence of your Maker without forethought? Now, for the first time, to think seriously, when there is no longer freedom in thought, or merit in faith. O, the folly and the misery!
IV
But I must
pass on, for these are but the beginning of sorrows. The conviction, then, that
the soul acquires in the first moment of her experience in the other world is
accompanied by a mortal terror. Why is Jesus Christ there? Why are the angel
and the demon there? Ah! He knows well. It is to try him. Yes, he is to be
tried, and to be tried by an unerring judge – by Jesus Christ. To be tried; and
that is something he is not used to. He never tried himself. He never examined
his conscience. He was afraid to do it, and if sometimes the thought of a
hereafter intruded itself into his mind, he banished it, and thought he would
escape somehow or other. Perhaps he built on the very name of Catholic, or on
the sacraments, as if they possessed a magical power, and would change him at
once, in the hour of death, from a sinner to a saint. Perhaps he thought that
God would strike a balance between the good and the evil that was in him, and
pardon him for being as wicked as he was because he was no worse. Perhaps he
built simply on the mercy of God. So far as he thought at all, he built his
hopes on some such foundation as this. He did not know how, but he thought
somehow he would get off. It is the old story. Almighty God said to Eve: “In
the day you eat thereof you shall surely die.” And Eve said to the serpent: “We
may not eat it, lest we die.” And the serpent said: “You shall not die.” So it
is; man’s self-love reasons, and the devil denies. But the time has come when
the deceits of sin and the devil are discovered. The sinner is to be tired. He
stands as a culprit to be judged. And by what law is he to be tried? By the
Ten Commandments, of which he has heard so often, and which he has neglected so
completely. God says: “Thou shall not break my commandments, and in the day
thou break them thou shall surely die.” God had said: “Thou shall not commit
adultery.” He had committed it. God had said: “Thou shall not steal;” and he
had stolen. God had said: “Thou shall keep holy the Sabbath day.” He had
broken the Sunday and neglected the Sunday’s Mass. God has said: “Thou shall do
no murder;” and he had murdered his own soul by drunkenness. He had grown bold
in sin, and thought that God had hidden away his face, and would never see it.
And now he is brought to trial. There is no hope that his transgressions
against the commandments can be hidden. The demon is there as his accuser.
V
“I
claim this soul as mine. Look at it; see if it does not belong to me? Does it
not look like me? Will you take a soul like that and place it in your
paradise?” At these words the sinner looks down upon
himself and sees his own soul. He has
never seen it before. Oh, what a sight! As a man is horror-struck the first
time he sees his blotched and bloated face after an attack of smallpox, so is he
horror-struck at the sight of his own soul. Oh, how horribly ugly and defiled
it is! What are those stains upon his soul? Ah! They are the stains of sin.
Each one has left its separate mark; and to look at that soul you might see its
history. There is the gangrene of lust, and the spot of anger, and the tumor of
pride, and the scale of avarice. Ah! How hideous it is, and how horrible to
think how it is changed, for it was once like that beautiful angel that stands
by its side, all radiant with light and beauty. It has no resemblance now. The
words of the demon are true; it resembles him. But the accuser goes on: “I
claim this body as mine.” He turns to the body, as it lies in the bed: “I claim
those eyes as mine, by the title of all the lascivious looks they have given. I
claim those hands as mine, by the title of all the robberies and acts of
violence they have committed. I claim those feet as mine, because they were
swift to carry him to the place of forbidden pleasures, and slow to go to the
house of God. I claim those ears as mine, by the title of all the detraction
they have drunk in so greedily. I claim this mouth as mine, by the title of all
the blasphemies and impurities it has uttered. "See,” says he, “this body is
mine; it bears my mark;” and as he speaks he points to a scar in the forehead,
the remnant of a wound received in a drunken fray in a house of ill-fame.
Surely he has said enough; but he is not accustomed to be believed. He has now
spoken the truth indeed, because truth serves his purpose better than falsehood
would have done. But he knows he is a liar, and therefore needs confirmation;
so he goes on: “I have witnesses, if you want them. Shall I bring them up?”
Jesus Christ gives his permission. And now see, at this word, a band of lost
spirits come up from hell. Oh! How pale and haggard they look, and how they
glare on the sinner as they fix on him a look of recognition. Who is that who
speaks to him first, and holds out her long withered fingers to him, and says,
with a horrid laugh: “I think you know me.” Oh! that is the poor girl he
seduced. She says: “I followed you to ruin” it is fitting you should follow me
to hell.” But there is another woman. Who is that? That is his poor wife; his
poor wife, who had to put up with all the cruelties and
violence he
practiced in his beastly drunkenness; who was led by want to steal, and by
despair to drunkenness. She looks upon him with a blood-shot eye. “My
husband,” she says: “you were my tormentor in time; I will be your tormentor in
eternity.” But who are those young people, that young man and young woman? Oh,
they are his eldest children, his boy and girl, of whom he took no care; who,
finding nothing but a hell at home, went out – the one to the tavern and the
gaming-room, the other to the ball and the dance and the lonely
place of assignation, and, after a short career of
dissipation, were both cut off in their sin.
They meet him, and now they say: “Father, you did pave the way of perdition for
us, and now we will cling to you, and drag you deeper, who are at once the
author of our life and of our destruction.” Ah! Has not the demon made out his
case? Can there be hope for one like that? Are you not ready to condemn him
yourselves to hell? But wait – perhaps he did good penance. And the Judge,
turning to the angel guardian says: “My good and faithful servant, what have you
to say in behalf of this soul, which was committed to your special care?” The
angel looks down upon the ground and sighs, and answers, “Most just and holy
Sovereign alas! I have nothing to say that can set aside the accusation you have
heard. All I can do is to vindicate your justice and my fidelity. I have given
to the man all the graces you had prepared for him. He was a Catholic. He had
the sacraments. He had warnings. He had faith. He had many special graces.
He had the mission; and I myself often spoke to him in his heart, calling him to
do penance, but he never did do penance. He was careless in attendance at
Mass. He was seldom at the confessional, and when he did come he made his
confession without a sincere purpose of amendment, and soon relapsed into his
former sins, and at last he died without penance. Therefore there is nothing
left for me but to resign my charge and to return the crown” – here the angel
takes up a beautiful crown – “to return the crown which you have made for him,
that you may place it on another brow.” “Do you not hear,” the demon once more
cries out impatiently – “Do you not hear what the angel says? Yes, this man is
mine, has always been mine. I did not create him, and yet he always served me.
You have created him, and yet he has refused to obey you. I never died for him,
yet he has been my willing slave. You have died for him, and yet he has
blasphemed your name, broken your laws and despised your promises. You did
allure him by kindness, but were not able to win his affection. I led him to
hell, and found him willing to follow. O Jesus, Son of the living God, if you
do not give me this soul, there is neither truth in your word nor justice in
your awards.” The demon speaks boldly, but Jesus Christ suffers him to speak
so, because he speaks truly; and oh, with what terror does the poor
sinner hear that truth! But terror is not the only
feeling that is to fill his heart. Despair is to come in, to make his misery
complete. He begins to cry for mercy. “O God, mercy! Have mercy, O Jesus
Christ! Do not let me perish whom you have redeemed. I have had the faith; oh,
do not let me come to perdition! One quarter of an hour to do penance!” Can
Jesus Christ resist such an appeal? No, my brethren, if there were a real
disposition to do penance in the heart. I will undertake to say that if the
devils of hell were willing to do penance, God would forgive them. But there is
no penance in the other world. There is only the desire to escape punishment,
not the desire to escape sin; and being out of the order of the present
providence of God, which leaves the will free, there is no real conversion
there. Therefore Jesus Christ answers; “O wicked man, your deeds condemn thee.
You call for mercy, but it is too late. The time for mercy is over! Mercy! You
have shown no mercy to yourself, to your wife or children. Mercy! I have shown
you mercy all the days of your life. I sent you my preachers, and you refused
to listen. There is no mercy now but justice – and therefore I pronounce the
everlasting sentence. I consign this man’s soul to hell, and his body to the
resurrection of damnation.” Did you hear that howl? That was the devil’s howl
of triumph. Jesus Christ is gone. The angel is gone; and the devil goes to the
body. The have not done washing it. He begins to wash too. What is he doing.
He is washing the forehead; for on that forehead, the mark of Christ, the holy
cross, was placed in baptism, and he is washing it out, and with a brand from
hell he places there his own signet – the signet of perdition. And now the
soul, feeling the full extent of her misery, cries out: “I am damned. I am
damned! No hope more; not even Purgatory. Oh, I never thought it would come to
this; I did but do as the others. I was no worse than my companions, and now I
am lost. I who was a Catholic, I that had always a good name, and was liked by
my friends. And oh, are the judgments of God so strict? What will become of my
companions whom I left on the earth, wild and reckless like my self? Will they
too follow me to this place of torment! Oh, why did not the priest speak of
this? Alas! He did, but I would not hear. Alas, alas, it is too late now!
Shall I never see Jesus Christ again? Must I forever despair?” And a voice
rises from the walls of eternity with ten thousand reverberations: “Despair.”
Can there be anything more dreadful still? Yes, the sinner’s cup has one more
ingredient of bitterness – remorse. You know what a comfort it is to be able to
say, “It was not my fault, I did what I could.” But the sinner will not have
that comfort. On the contrary, he will say, “I might have been saved. It is
all true which the angel said, I was a Catholic, and had the means of
salvation. I might have been saved, saved easily, more easily than I was lost.
I was never happy; sin never made me happy.
I sinned, and gained for myself misery even in the other world. Fool that I
was, I might have done penance, and been happier after it, in time and in
eternity. How little God asked of me! I had the mission, if I had but made it
well. Oh, what trouble I took to be damned, and how little was required of me
to be saved! Yesterday, God was ready; the sacraments were at hand, the church
door open, the priest was awaiting me; but now all is closed. Oh, if I had them
now!” But his complaints were silenced. An iron grasp is on his throat. The
demon has his black hand on his throat and chokes him; then he puts his horrid
arms around him, and hugs him as the anaconda hugs her victims. He carries him
swiftly through the air; down, down they go – until at last they reach the gates
of hell. They creak upon their hinges, they open, the demon enters with his
prey, and casts it on the bed of flames prepared for it. Then a yell is heard
thorough out those dismal regions: “One more Catholic vocation thrown away, one
more soul lost, one more devil in hell.”
VI
Come, let us go back to that room where the corpse is laid out. They have just finished preparing it for the grave, and all that we have described has been taking place in that very room too, and they have not known it. They have smoothed the body and laid a white cloth over it; and they say, how natural it looks. It wears the smile they remember it used to wear in youth, and that poor soul they are talking of is damned. Jesus Christ has been there, and adjudged it to hell. And this is going on every day. Wherever death takes a man, there judgment meets him. Jesus Christ meets men in all kinds of places. You know how death met Belshazzar. He was a drunkard, an adulterer, a sacrilegious robber; and one night, when he was drunk, and held a grand feast, surrounded by his concubines, and with the vessels of God’s house on his table, a hand appeared on the wall and wrote this sentence: “Mene, Tekel, Peres;” and that night he died. Yes! In the midst of their sin; in the place where they go, Jesus Christ meets the soul, and condemns it to hell. He meets it in the grogshop, where wild companions are gathered together, and one of them falls to the ground, under the blow of a companion, and dies. There upon that spot, with those bad companions standing around, with the sound of blasphemy in his ear, Jesus Christ, unseen, meets that soul and condemns it to hell. Another is shot in the street, on his way to keep an assignation, and then and there, in the street, Jesus Christ meets him and condemns him to hell. One dies in the low hovel, where squalid vice and misery have done all they could to brutalize the inmates, and then and there Jesus Christ, in that hovel, meets the soul and condemns it to hell. Another dies in a bed covered with silken tapestry, and as he dies he sees the face of Jesus Christ looking in through the silken curtains to pronounce the sentence against him, who had made a god of this world. Another dies in prison, and there in that cell where human justice placed him, divine justice meets him, and in that prison Jesus Christ meets him and condemns him to hell. Yes, wherever death meets you, O sinner, there Jesus Christ will meet you, and there he will condemn you. It may be tomorrow. It may be in the very act of the commission of sin. It may be without any opportunity of preparation, you will stand before an inflexible and unerring Judge. Oh, then, do not delay now to propitiate Him while you can. In that tribunal after death, there is no mercy for the sinner; but there is another tribunal, which He has established, where there is mercy – the tribunal of penance. There the accuser is not the demon, but the sinner himself; and he is not only his own accuser, but his own witness against himself. There the angel guardian waits with joy, not with sorrow. There Jesus Christ is present, but not in wrath. There the sentence is, “I absolve thee from thy sin,” not “I condemn thee for thy sin.” Oh, then, appeal from one tribunal to the other. Appeal from Jesus Christ to Jesus Christ. Appeal from Jesus Christ at the Day of Judgment to Jesus Christ in the confessional. And if you would not be condemned by Him when you see Him after death, be sure you get a favorable sentence from Him now in the Sacrament of Penance, “Make an agreement with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him: lest perhaps the adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. Amen. I say to you, you shall not go out from there until you pay the last farthing.” (Matthew 5:25)