Aquinas On The Four Last Things

We think of an end as something that comes last, which is certainly the case with the Four Last Things – Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. They certainly do come last, at the end of our lives and at the end of the world. The Church’s great “Angelic Doctor,” St. Thomas Aquinas, reminds us that proper actions are determined by their ends, their ultimate goals or final endpoints. In this sense, an end is an organizing and motivating principle. Becoming increasingly mindful of the death, judgment, and heaven or hell that await us all at the end, should provide for us a new beginning, a beginning of good choices, choices that abhor and reject sin while helping us grown in virtue and closeness to Christ during our brief time on earth. Indeed, there is absolutely nothing of greater importance to each and every one of us than how and where we will spend eternity, enrapt in the unspeakable bliss of the beatific vision of God in heaven, or suffering unspeakable torments within the depths of hell. In these pages, under the guidance of the Angelic Doctor, the hundreds of Scriptural passages and writings of earlier Church Fathers he pulls from, and with current teachings from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we will ask – and answer – questions like these, and dozens more:
* Where is purgatory in the Bible?
* Why should we pray for the dead and to the saints?
* What four special gifts will perfect our glorified bodies in heaven?
* How could eternal punishment for sins committed in our brief time on earth be just?