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S1E2: The Four Last Things · Mentoring In Ministry

• 0:02
  Welcome to the Mentoring in Ministry podcast. In each
• 0:04
  episode, we approach various catechetical
• 0:06
  topics from different perspectives.
• 0:10
  Hi, I'm Scott Sollom. This is my friend, Drake McCalister.
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  We're here with Catechetical Conversations,
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  and we're just discussing various types of questions and
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  comments that come up in various
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  catechetical settings from catechists themselves. And so,
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  Drake, I had this question for you,
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  which is, how do you teach, how do you go
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  about teaching the four last things, death,
• 0:29
  judgment, heaven, and hell in a catechetical setting?
• 0:32
  Yeah, great question. I always feel like the title of that
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  catechesis, if you give it that
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  title, it just, it sounds like a total downer, you know.
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  And today, we're going to talk about
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  death, judgment, heaven, and hell.
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  And it just-
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  Cue this spooky music.
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  Yeah, exactly. It's what it feels like.
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  But I love this catechesis. Almost out of
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  all the ones that get to do, this is the one
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  that people concretely get some of their greatest fears
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  allayed, put at ease. So, when I think
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  of teaching on the four last things, clearly, I'm not going
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  to unpack each of the four things
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  now, but the principles of which I approach are helping
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  them see the good news of the
• 1:19
  gospel. That, yes, there's four last things, but
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  thankfully, you don't have to get all
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  four, you can get just three of them. Everybody gets death,
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  everybody's going to get judgment,
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  and we're going to shoot for heaven and hopefully avoid
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  hell. But in that, what I help them
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  see is the beauty of the Christian faith is that we don't
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  have to wonder what to do, what
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  must be believed. You're not guessing.
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  It's knowable, it's concrete. And so, it's not
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  rolling the dice to get to heaven. It's actually pretty
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  easy to get to heaven. It's not some
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  mysterious formula that we know how to get
• 2:02
  there. And that for the Christian, there is
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  peace in death. I always make clear, I'm
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  not so much afraid that I die. I'm just afraid
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  how I die. So, I prefer to not be eaten alive by red ants.
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  That's high on my list. But the
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  thought of death for the Christian really can be a source
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  of peace. And one year in RCIA, as I got
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  through this catechesis, I sat down with small groups
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  talking to a young man who has zero
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  Christian background. He just looked at me and said, " Death
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  always seemed so scary, but that
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  doesn't sound so bad. " And that just really struck me that
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  it was good news to him to hear
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  about these things. And so, I unpack about with judgment.
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  Often that can have a negative connotation,
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  but when you go to a judge, you get a judgment for or
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  against. So, you can have a judgment in
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  your favor. So, that's not a scary thing. So, yes, eternity
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  is real. Heaven is a real place.
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  Hell's a real place. Real people go there. But we also
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  underscore that God alone is the one that
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  knows the heart, the eternal destiny. There's no canonized
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  list of people in hell. Thanks be to
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  God. And so, I think that's at the heart for me when I
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  approach this topic is to root in the
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  love of God, the good news, the hope, the joy. And while
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  there's always sorrow in parting,
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  the earthly parting, and sometimes untimely deaths really
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  are painful at the end of the day,
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  there's still peace for the Christian when it comes to
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  death. And specifically, that we don't
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  have to wonder what we must do to be saved and hope that it
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  might get to heaven. It's pretty
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  noble. It's pretty concrete. And it's pretty accessible.
• 4:01
  It's a great point that you're making. It kind of takes
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  the, in a sense, takes the sting out of
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  looking forward to death, judgment, evident hell, because
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  Christ has already told us what's going
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  to happen, how it's going to happen. It reminds me of what
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  you're saying, and you've already
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  touched on it. It reminds me of the definition of hope,
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  where we have, we're given by God, this
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  desire and expectation for heaven because Christ said so.
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  And of course, we're going to expect God
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  to give us the grace to do it. So, he's within his
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  revelation to tell us what's going to happen,
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  and in the grace that's going to make it happen, we can
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  really keep our eyes fixed on Jesus to
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  inspire and perfect our faith all the way to heaven.
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  Yes. Yeah. And especially at those last moments, as I've
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  heard it said before, the Catholic Church
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  is a great place to die because you are, the priest comes
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  and you're surrounded by the Church. And
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  there is just such a great peace in those last moments,
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  which ushers us from this life to the
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  next. Thank you, Drake. So, death is good news. Good news. Heaven is good news. Amen.