There are four unalterable, unavoidable truths that every human must eventually face.
You will die.
You will be judged.
You will be received into Heaven or…
… your life will condemn you to Hell.
Period. No wishful thinking will alter the above truths. They are expressly laid out in the Bible and they cannot be avoided.
“But I’m not Christian…” Yeah, so what. Non-Christian religions may have much truth in them and they may lead people to God, but only in Judeo-Christianity has God revealed Himself to us and wrote a roadmap to the afterlife and salvation in the Bible. You will be judged for what you are responsible for.
In the course of my recovery, I thought more deeply than most other 12-Steppers of my acquaintance on the eternal verities. Death. Judgement. Heaven. Hell. The four unavoidables.
I’ve rarely heard these topics brought up in recovery meetings, except that some members presumed that they’ve already experienced Hell or went through Purgatory on Earth as a consequence of their drinking. I understood that as an expression of suffering, but I wondered about the real places, or whatever they are.
I’ve heard in 12 Step meetings is the basic conviction or feeling that once you’ve stopped drinking, that’s it. You’ve run the race and you’re “in”. That’s always bothered me. Just not drinking today isn’t enough. You may still sin (that is, offend God), and perhaps even mortally sin. There are whole other ways to screw up your life besides drinking. You may still do those.
So I did a lot of reading and research; some of it was done during my grief recovery after my Mom died. The following resources are all about the afterlife. Death. Judgment. Heaven (and Purgatory.) And Hell.
Afterlife Links
- A Travel Guide to Heaven
- Cemetery Visits, Praying for the Dead and Gaining Indulgences During November
- Classic Prayers for the Holy Souls
- Digital Death and Afterlife Online Services List
- Facebook Legacy contact info
- Heaven
- Hell
- Helpers of the Holy Souls
- Holy Souls
- Holy Souls Sodality
- Judgment- Individual Particular
- Judgment- the Last
- New Heavens and a New Earth
- On Christian Hope (Spe Salvi)
- Pious Union of St. Joseph for the Suffering and Dying
- Prayer Warriors of the Holy Souls
- Purgatorian Archconfraternity
- Purgatory
- Purgatory Project
- Rorate-caeli Purgatorial Society
- Susan Tassone – Official Website
- The Digital Beyond
- The Secret of the Poor Souls in Purgatory: An interview with Maria Simma of Austria
- Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory
- Your Digital Afterlife
Afterlife Blogroll (it turns out that the first four blogs on the list are defunct. I’m leaving them on the roll since their posts are still useful.)