 Okay. Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio Stephanie is back from a brief hi hiatus from the show. Hey So I had our friend Terry Rumeau talking about fraternice. He's a great guy. Sorry. I missed him He's beautiful wife and family. That's a wonderful tool for priests to build brotherhood and Connection and virtue in their parishes So if you missed that show Fathers and sons. Yeah fathers and sons really should look into fraternice and tell their priests about it and see if they can start a Chapter at their parish somewhere in their diocese. I think it's fraternice.net. I remember to net I think Anyway, so today a few things where we jump into the show with dr. Kevin boast again, he's he's a he's a very He's an excellent author writers communicator and so we're always happy to have him back and he's with us often So today we're going to be talking about death judgment heaven and hell the last four things Before we do that. There are a couple of events coming up webinar Tonight tonight. It is tonight. Holy Eucharist and reverence with father Altair who's quite famous online. I think or developing so Wonderful, holy humble priest. He's wonderful, but he is quite also clear. Yes and hard-hitting. Yes, but not Angry rigid. No, and and when you talk to him or listen One-on-one or as it'll come through on the webinar. I'm certain I just think he's extraordinary. Yeah, so holy Eucharist and reverence tonight at at Doesn't say the time but spiritual direction comm 4 slash events. I think it's 7 central It's my guess when it'll be we'll find out from the producer lady. She'll let you know Yeah, the next event the mental prayer why we need it now more than ever church of all saints at st. Hedgewig Hedgewig in Holding Ford, Minnesota. That's a hard city to name September 23rd 7 p.m. So I'll be there and That's also spiritual. These are free events by the way spiritualdirection.com events and then Waconia, Minnesota, I'll be there will be there September 26th 1 p.m. The winery at sovereign estate And I'm told it's a beautiful winery and that's into the deep event. So all of those can be that's on Finding peace through prayer at all at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events That's a half-day retreat on September 26th. Yes, and your webinar tonight is at 7 p.m. Central 7 p.m. Perfect Yeah, make sure you register so you can get the link. Yeah, you have to register for it even though it's free Last two things introduction to st. Therese at the Avala Institute Deacon Colin Coleman if you want to hear a guy with a very interesting accent Teach a class and actually teach you good stuff. He's from New Zealand and he's part of the community the Beatitudes He's a very good teacher. He loves st. Therese. So that course starts September 13th And the last one is growth in holiness and the doctors of the interior life doctors, of course, sir doctors of the church like John of the Cross Therese of Al Vila St. Bernard of Clairville, Max St. Maximus the Confessor St. Isaac the Syrian want to learn about them September 14th is that course Dr. Michael Gammo is amazing too. So I Wish I had time to take all these courses from our own school That would be cool me too. Yeah me too you too So go out to avala-institute.org avala-institute.org For the events spiritualdirection.com and click on the events tab. So I think we better I think we're ready to get rolling You ready? I'm ready. Okay, and your mark get set Go this is Dan Stephanie Burke with divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest your hermitage of the heart You're a monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to help us navigate in the storm of life the challenges of life and help us really to come to a Understanding of how we can live in joy and peace in the midst of the storm because Jesus is actually awake in the boat I think what do you think? I think so. I mean Pretending no all those situations are trials there. You know, do you believe? Oh, you have little faith, right? So right very good. So we have a returning guest one of our favorite Writers authors speakers. He was at our last summit, which was very a lot of fun to have them there Who is that? That is dr. Kevin Vost and he obtained his doctorate in clinical psychology from Alder University in Chicago and Adler okay, forgive me. I'm not from Chicago and has taught psychology and gerontology at the University of Illinois at Springfield and Aquinas Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee a revert to Catholicism. Yay revert After 25 years of atheism Kevin has written over 20 Catholic books from Memorize the faith to Aquinas on the last on the four last things the father of two sons and grandfather of three children He lives with his wife Kathy in Springfield, Illinois. Welcome. Dr. Vost Welcome Kevin. It's great to see you. Great to see you again Dana Stephanie It's my pleasure to be joining you from my study of studiousness at least Well, we really enjoyed having you at the Alvala summit this year and getting to know you a little bit that was a blast For folks who were wondering about the summit. It's an annual gathering where we bring speakers on a specific topic and We're it was fire from above and dr. Vost did a talk on the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the fruits the gifts of the Holy Spirit and He's written a book about that of course. It's it's also a very good book Today we're talking about his book Aquinas in the last on the four last things on the four last things and So dr. Vost, let's just jump in What are the four last things? Sure There are four things that we're gonna deal with one day a death judgment heaven and hell Sounds pretty ominous. So we're all slept. We're all gonna experience at least I guess three of those Death judgment heaven or right at least three. That's right. That's right. You know, uh, I I find the old old statuary or paintings of saints and things like that Fascinating because they often have a skull Either in their hand or on their writing table or whatever Does that relate to the last four things in this topic? It sure does, you know, there's an old latrice to memento mori. Remember that we're going to die And in some of the the scriptural writing in the book of Serox and others says, you know He really if we think about this if we keep in mind that we are going to die Someday it would totally change the way we live our lives. We would have whores sin, you know So so yes, that's a crucial factor there It's the unescapable st. Thomas moore has said even for for unbelievers that fact of death is inescapable It's there. It's there for us all and it should revitalize The way we live if we keep that undeniable fact in mind One of the one of my favorite photos of all time Which may sound a little strange because there's so replete today We have so many photos and visual images everywhere, but there's this black and white photo of a of a caramelite nun And for those on radio if you can visualize this you're in her cell and she's facing away from you So you can't see her face, but she's kneeling beside her little very You know simple bed and her arms raised up Very high left and right arm raised up like as in praising in her habit and one day I was looking at the photo and On the right it had a crucifix on her wall and on the bottom of the crucifix was an actual skull And I think the practice back then was that those were the skulls of the Deceased members of the order that sort of thing, but they took this very seriously back then and I think it's waned I think in our time we you know We don't we we like to use Colloquialisms and different ways of talking about death to hide The severity or the or the challenging nature of death But the book you've written here and of course the reflections of Aquinas are to try to help us recover a healthy Look toward that time when when it's all done and our judgment is done Absolutely, you know these are the last things and sometimes St. Thomas likes these philosophic terminology like like ends or goals And although these things come at the end That's where we're ultimately headed and it's those goals Those ends should order than how we live our life to make sure we can achieve that end that we want that Eternal bliss and heaven, you know rather than the suffering of hell and as we'll probably get into it a bit and Ideally so we can avoid as much as possible The the temporary sufferings of purgatory so yeah keeping these in mind, you know should be vital You know vital to every follower of Christ because you know We want to be with him one day and by keeping these concepts in mind by understanding them Better is going to increase our chances that we are gonna enjoy that bliss with God someday and in the good Lord willing We're gonna help others get there too Even now on earth we can help others who are in purgatory by our acts of prayers offering masses and so far And so forth so when we look deeply at these four last things it ties into all kinds of vast teachings From the church, you know not only the eschatology the end times or the nature of the four last things But it also has all kinds of moral lessons on how we live our lives every day of our life here on earth absolutely so So you mentioned purgatory and so obviously we're most of us here listening online or Certainly us in here in the in this conversation Understand that there is a purgatory So do is there any chance that that souls go immediately to Hell or heaven is there some sort of Holding room do we have conversations before where we meet our ultimate judgment? What does Thomas Aquinas say on what happens to us at the moment of our death and then To our basically our judgment Yeah, that's an extremely important question And I should note and Thomas in his book I cover 164 questions in total that that he covers regarding these four last things and for some of the questions some of the answers Are definitive doctrines dog is taught by the church so it was who we can know with confidence This is the way it is others are more speculative. There's opinions there. It's not been clearly revealed We can argue one way or the other, but the existence of purgatory is a very fundamental Catholic teaching and Thomas teaches one of the things at the beginning is whoever denies purgatory Really in a sense they deny the justice of God because it is set up for us in a totally Just manner now. So in his first article I cover we read just purgatory He talks about different opinions that developed over time within the church Like what happens to us right after we die and he said some people thought well, well nothing Nothing is going to happen until christ comes again You know at that at the end of time then our souls will go where they're destined and so on And Thomas, you know taught now the church teaches something different for very important reasons one The moment that we died there is a Particular judgment where you and I will be judged are as an individual human being You know based upon our own acts whether we still we die with grace in our souls Connected to God or not or whether there's some stains of Of venial sins on our soul or not or whether there's mortal sin And depending on the state of our soul at that moment of our death at this time of this Unique judgment for you and I our souls will go Either to heaven if there's no stain of sin on them the hell if there's grievous mortal sin on our souls Or perhaps for the majority of us to purgatory the state where We would go if we do not have mortal sin on our soul at the time we die Yet we have committed some venial sins some lesser sins that we haven't made satisfaction for that We haven't you know done our penance kind of paid our dues Or if we've had mortal sins that we have confessed They're no longer going to drag us to hell But maybe we haven't done our penance or satisfaction for those yet Purgatory is a time that God provides for us after death where we can undergo this additional cleansing So our souls will one day Uh Reach heaven after this cleansing of purgatory and we read in revelation that nothing uh unclean will enter heaven So purgatory is this opportunity For our souls to become cleansed to become purified So every soul in purgatory will at one point Attain heaven because they have died without that mortal sin that drags us down And without going on too much longer we give a very nice analogy that that saint thomas acquiesce gives us for this The state of our souls not our body and soul That's something a story that comes later But the state of our souls after we die you set us like the effect of gravity on objects If you have an object that's lighter than air like helium or something So that's kind of like the soul that dies without any stain of sin on it and it's going to rise immediately to heaven So like the saints the martyrs their souls are going immediately to heaven now if you have a soul that is mired in heavy Deadly unrepentant mortal sin you're going to sink you're going to sink down the hell uh, but in the middle there if your soul is is uh Does have some things weighing it down But not the mortal sins then you will rise to heaven But you're going to rise slowly and sometimes I like to think of it later We actually does use an analogy of a balloon like if you ever see people in those movies are stuck in a hot air balloon They start to sink so they have to throw everything over the sides to lighten their load to make them to make them rise And in a sense purgatory can be looked at that way We're cleansing purging burning off those sins that will one day allow our souls to rise to heaven So so just I guess to make a long story short. Yes, the church does teach that when we die There is instantly a judgment that will determine whether our soul is going to go at the moment of death either immediately to heaven or hell or to purgatory That's really beautiful. You know, it fills me with Hope it should fill us with hope that the lord provides this opportunity to cleanse us so that we can Stand before him. Um, even if we have Stains or things that are weighing us down as you said, you know It reminds me of a dream my mother had when my grandmother passed. She was in the states and I'll say it quickly before we go to break But it was so beautiful. I my mother my grandmother was very beloved, you know 13 children a beautiful woman And when she passed my mother fell asleep in her sorrow and and had cried herself to sleep And in her dream she heard the phone ringing And the phone was actually ringing, but she didn't answer it and so but in her dream She heard the phone ringing. She answered it in her dream and my grandmother was on the other end of the line And the and my grandmother, uh, she said, um, mamita, are you okay? You know Mamita, are you okay? And she said yes, I'm okay. And my mother in her dream said to her Have you seen him yet? And she responded I haven't seen him But we can hear him And that just really consoled me and I found it to be incredibly beautiful So purgatory is a mercy of god so that he can cleanse us and bring us into his presence when we're ready So beautiful. So when we get back from the break, we'll continue talking to dr. Kevin boast on Aquinas On the four last things. We'll be right back So 1244 we'll just go to 13 uh your mark Good set go. This is danna stephanie Burke. Welcome back to divine intimacy radio your radio Haven of rest Excuse me. Let me do that again Welcome back. This is danna stephanie Burke divine intimacy radio. We're talking to dr. Kevin boast Who's written a stack of books that and you should read every one of them But there's a view that I really like This one is really amazing Aquinas on the four last things And just as a side note. So oftentimes when we're heading into lents We're not really ready for lents. I always recommend folks practice the Preconcilier traditions of lant like septuagesmon and those times of preparation When you do that or when you start getting ready ahead of time You can get the reading material you need beforehand So I'd strongly recommend depending on when you hear this broadcast or you hear it uh a recording or whatever The pick up Aquinas on the on the four last things and you mark it at very least to read Before lent and then during rent. It's quite a it's quite a it's quite a good uh thick book So it's over 200 pages for today's standards anyway Uh, but I think you'll be deeply blessed by it. It'll help draw your heart and mind to the To the to the uh a proper state for the season But also it's also traditional in the church to reflect in the last four things before Advents as well because it helps us to understand Why he came and uh was born among us incarnate So Aquinas on the four last things So before the break we were talking about purgatory Stephanie relayed the beautiful story of her grandmother Interesting thing dr. Vost is a lot of people shy away from The discussion of hell in our time and some I think in a very incredibly destructive way Seem to imply That there is no nobody is in hell, which of course isn't true Jew in the council of Trent, you know some recent controversy about A prominent Catholic apologist saying that we don't know if Judas is in hell and the council of Trent, of course puts him there So we have magisterial certainty that that he Judas is in hell but with respect to talking about hell with people My sister god rest her soul died in her mid 30s. She was my closest sibling. Her name was Linda And I was wrestling then I wasn't a Christian But I was wrestling with the concept of heaven and hell and I talked with her about hell And it actually scared the hell out of her and I mean that literally I'm not being crass in my Speech and she came to christ before she died because she began to think about these things We often don't realize that god is involved in these conversations, right? And so This book I think is not only a book that I think will help people understand the doctrine It's a book that will help them to meditate on these truths and and And hopefully amend their lives and orient more fully to god, but it's also a book that can help us evangelize By telling people the truth About heaven and hell does that? Is that ring true to you? Oh, absolutely that that is so well put important points made there that It's important to know to think about the reality of heaven. What would heaven be like as far as The clues we've been given what would hell be like because they're they're gonna be reality for us At some point time one or the other And when I laid out this book you know following st. Thomas's guidelines for the section on heaven I put you know heaven for those who accept it because god is offering heaven to all of us You know, he gives us his graces if we've been baptized we join with him We're one with him in charity and even if we sin grievously He's given us methods of confessing of repenting of rejoining him in grace So he has designed us to be with him in heaven one day if we cooperate with him For the section on hell I could title that hell for those who choose it Because to get the hell it's not going to happen accidentally It's going to involve you know deliberate misuse of your will rejector and god rejecting god's offer He's got this, you know engraved invitation to all of us if we're not going to make it there to heaven It's because we will have rejected him Keeping in mind that god is just a unlimited and limitlessly Merciful and we mentioned Judas Iscariot and it called to mind a story I recall from st. Catherine sienna In her dialogues where she had ecstatic visions where god spoke to her and in one God referenced Judas Iscariot and he told her that Judas's greatest sin Was not the betrayal of jesus christ But after that even To think that god would not forgive him to think that god's mercy was limitless The idea being that god would have been totally willing to forgive Judas Iscariot If he would have fully repented in heart for what he had done. So god's mercy, you know Is virtually limitless, but we have to cooperate with it We have to ask for we have to join with him. So yeah, these issues of heaven and hell I think are extreme importance to focus on their their reality And on the importance of trying to comport our will to god. So so we'll end up where he wants us to be Well, that's so important especially today and I you know You just look across and you see so many people suffering and their pain and their shame and their brokenness And I think if you could get to the core of it, it would be that they Don't think god can forgive them And and we really need to help people understand that he is just extraordinary and he's so merciful So you mentioned in your book particular and general judgments Can you explain to us why we need to understand that? What is it? What does that mean? Sure. Yeah, and that is really essential to churches, you know Talked about this for for millennia now that that particular judgment is we referenced earlier when each one of us dies As an individual human being we are going to be judged, you know The state of our souls at that time and then our soul will go heaven hell Or perch right where our bodies, you know remain in the earth Uh, so here is st. Thomas's we are judged as individual persons You know based upon our own merits or lack thereof But then this general judgment This is what comes at the end of time when when christ returns for the final judgment And now thomas says now we're going to be judged not as individual human beings, but as members of humanity As humanity as a whole we are all going to experience this judgment Uh, even though, you know, where we go the particular judgments will determine You know where we're going to end up but it's all going to become clear to everyone on the earth at the same time When christ comes then after this judgment the general judgment That is when Our bodies are going to be reunited With our souls for the rest of eternity So this is a very very crucial teaching that you know god crafted human beings As beings of body and soul he made angels as as pure spirits The lower animals on earth as bodies alone without an immaterial soul But he gave human beings this what's called the intellectual soul with intellect with will And it's immaterial it's indestructible outside of an inactive annihilation from god So our souls are going to persist forever in heaven But god also crafted us As in sold beings he gave us bodies. We're not going to become angels forever in heaven We are actually going to have bodies But they're going to be glorified perfected human bodies and some of the church fathers and saint thomas have talked in very amazing and beautiful ways About some of the things some of the hints we've been given about what these glorified bodies are going to be like Yeah, that leads to The next question which is what are the rewards? That god holds for us in heaven both body and soul I personally am looking forward to turning this one in and getting a new version Because mine is not worked very well for most of my life. So what what's that all about? Well, you know in a very real sense that is very very really true Building on you know different different hints in the scriptures and one of the biggest foundations is first Corinthians 15 I mean 42 to 44 where saint paul says What is the body that is sown a perishable will be raised in perishable sown in weakness is going to be raised in power Sown in dishonor. It's going to be raised in honor. It was uh formed as a physical body It's going to be raised as a spiritual body and from this verse and others saint thomas talks about four major characteristics of a glorified body as Impassibility subtlety clarity and agility But before I dip into those I should say too That That the teaching is our bodies will be perfected in heaven So if you had some some well one thing that there are going to be brought back around the ideal age And it's usually speculated to be in our early 30s there, you know where christ came into heaven Uh, so these ancient church fathers are talking about that physical perfection around the age of 30 And as I was writing about this I thought just for fun I googled on the internet, you know when we reach our peak athletic performance Both in strength and endurance and it really is around the age of 30 So thomas said that we're all going to come back with bodies like at that peak at that peak of our physical Uh, perfections He said we won't come back as children because children have not yet Attain their physical peak. We won't come back with an elderly body Though because we will revere and respect the elderly even in heaven It's because of their soul because of their wisdom not their body So even the elderly will come back with uh this ideal body And if we had some kind of major defect like some growth disorder that prevented our body from getting its Naturally desirable size or becoming too large with deformities those kind of things will be remedied So so we're going to be giving the perfected bodies But these four things and I'll talk about very briefly if you want to expand, you know We can if there's time or not, but but basically this idea of impassibility Uh, one thing that means imperishable, you know, the bodies we have now, you know We decay as we grow older and then we die but these new glorified bodies there's no we no decay They won't decompose Also another key and interesting component here is we know our bodies on earth Sometimes our passions our desires, you know our lusts our anger are very hard for us to control Through our reason but our glorified bodies will perfectly obey Our reasons so we won't have all these there'd be no there'll be no sin. Let me know simple desires So an amazing thing to think about Uh, the subtlety of the the body We think the way when christ came back with glorified body he walked through walls and things Well, the idea is that our bodies will be able to follow our will and just move move as we Want them to move now. They won't be pure spirits because as st. Paul said we'll have a spiritual body So they have spirit like qualities though We'll still be bodies, but just have amazing capacities there clarity is one that I really really love This is the idea that our bodies will so in dishonor Raised in glory our bodies will be beautiful in some amazing ways will actually glow We'll emit this light And when I was doing some research on this it occurred to me, you know There are these deep sea creatures that get no light from the sun, but they generate their own light It's called bioluminescence and actually scientists find that we all do that even human beings now Chemical reactions in our body actually emit light, but it's so faint. We can't begin to see it But in heaven we're going to glow with the visible light in these glorified bodies uh, the other is uh Agility that I say put it in superhero films where we're going to be faster than the flash Our bodies will be instantly be able to move well not instantly but the faster than we can perceive We'll be able to move where we want to go so in a sense I say god's going to make us all you know glorified athletes in christ Our bodies will totally obey our souls and our bodies will be given all the perfections They can possibly get be given as human beings. So one thing a lot of people don't know about you as your weight lifter And uh, my what I want to know is will I be able to lift as much weight as you in heaven? Oh, that's a good Hoping to god that we both get there. We can we can test that out someday All right, well, let's let's make it a point right now that we're gonna we're gonna test that out I'm also looking for like an eternal ping-pong game where you know, nobody nobody Nobody misses and all that but anyway, we're running out of time This has been fun talking about this with you, uh, dr. Vos Aquinas on the four last things of course Published by Sophia institute press you can find that out at dwtn's religious catalog you could find it at uh our um Our shop button on spiritualdirection.com make sure you head out to spiritualdirection.com And uh, dr. Vos, thank you so much so much for being with us. Oh, it's always my pleasure. Thank you awesome Now we um, so we have to thank you so much. It was awesome. Yeah I am so hopeful. I'm so excited for our glorified body. You just uh, Um, brought me great joy So He's got to record the ending. I've got a record card here. Yeah, so uh, go ahead step. Okay So our time is up until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our lord jesus christ Amen. Amen. All right. Awesome. Well