Pints With Aquinas - The Four Last Things (Death, Judgement, Heaven & Hell) - Legatus Summit Talk

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk on the four last things (death, judgement, Heaven, and Hell) to several hundred people at the Legatus Summit in Palm Beach, FL. Here is the meditation on death I read: http://www.cfpeople.org/books/DeSales/MEDITATEp5.htm   SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/   GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn’t be possible without you. I can’t thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show.   LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd   MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

17th century French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal said that there are three types of people in the world. There are those who seek the truth about God and find it. These, he says, are wise and happy. Wise because they knew to seek, happy because they had found. In the second group are those who seek the truth about God but have not yet found it. These, he says, are wise but not yet happy. And in the third and final group, he says, there are those who neither seek the truth about God nor find it. And of the persons in this category, he says, I have no words to describe so pitiful a creature. The idea is, how boring must you be to not concern yourself with the tremendous mystery

that is around us, that is us, the mystery of death, the mystery of what comes after death. How is it that we should spend our lives distracting ourselves to death so as not to come face to face with our own poverty, our self-deficiency, and the reality of the world to come? In this talk, I want to share a little bit about the last things, sometimes called the four last things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell, though we could expand that and talk about death, the particular judgment, purgatory, heaven, hell, and the final judgment. I only have about 20 minutes to give this presentation, so we're going to go through

it rather quickly, and then at the end, what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask for the lights to be lowered and lead you in a meditation on death written by Saint Francis de Sales in his excellent work, Introduction to the Devout Life. Now, I haven't had any particularly close brushes with death, but in March I was speaking in Chicago just before COVID hit. I was supposed to go to another location to speak at a men's conference, but if you remember back then everything happened so quickly it felt like one day people were saying it's not a big deal and the next day they went maybe it is and the next day they went please don't touch me. And I remember going to Chicago and I had one of these face masks in my bag. And I thought, should I wear it?

And I thought, well, I don't want to look silly. It was definitely my pride that led me to keep it in my bag. It's funny now, today you go into a room and you go, I didn't even notice they all had masks on. It's become so sort of secondhand. But I came back from Chicago right as COVID was breaking, right when we all sort of agreed that, okay, this is more serious than we thought. Whatever this is or will end up being, right now, at least, it seems to be more serious than we thought. I was planned to go to Italy in July. I had a little Bible study in Norcia. We were going to lead, for two weeks, I was going to lead some people in a study of Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the Gospel of John.

But of course, around this time, we started to see thousands of thousands of people having been said to die of COVID in Italy. And of course, that got canceled. And within a week of my returning from Chicago, I started to get these intense chest pains. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. It was as if somebody had taken a bat to my chest. If you had have told me that someone was beating you in the chest while you were sleeping, I would have went, that explains it. Because every time I took a deep breath, it felt as if I was bruised all over. I thought, well, that'll pass. I don't know what that is, but it kept going. And about three days went by. There were times where I felt like I couldn't actually breathe. And so I, one

morning, got up. I think my wife was still sleeping because she was starting to feel sick as well. And I went to the doctors and they put, you know, these, I don't know what they're called, those EKG, is that what they're called? Those tests, and they didn't look happy. They looked really serious, and they said, something's wrong with your heart, and I went, oh, bugger. No way that's good, and I remember being rather frightened. Now, it's a little embarrassing to look back and admit the degree to which I was frightened, because it seems that I have overreacted, but at the time, I'm like, I guess maybe I'll die. And they said, well, you've got two options. You can call your wife and have her bring you to the emergency room, or we can get an ambulance. But you have to go to the emergency room now. And you never really know how you'll experience a moment like that. I am a tremendous coward. I don't even know

how to exist without coffee. I don't like getting injections. If I'm ever to be a martyr, it'll only be by the grace of God. It won't be because of my own courage because I have none. But I remember in that moment sitting on a chair and thinking, I don't care if I die. I just hope that Cameron and the kids will be okay. And it's in times like that you realize who your friends are. And I gave a friend of mine, her name's Carrie Beckman. She's the founder of the Regina Chaley Academy hybrid schools you may have heard of. Good friend of mine.

And she's so lovely, you know. And she just directed my attention towards God. And she said, you don't have to worry about your wife and your kids. We're going to send someone over there right now to look after them. Even though, again, at the time we had no idea what COVID was, she was stepping into this area in which she could have been infected. And I gave my spiritual director a call and I said, I'm a little frightened here. What do I do? He said, you tell God you love him. And they were laying me in the ambulance and driving me to the emergency room and I was praying the Jesus prayer and all of a sudden it became really real to me. Jesus, I love you.

I think, and if I don't, I really want to. And so if I don't love you, would you help me love you? And I'm sorry for my cowardice and my selfishness, and if I'm not sorry, and if I only think I'm sorry, would you make me sorry? Glad you found it funny. I was up here the other day giving my best content, not a bloody laugh in the house. I'm about to die, you're in a fit of hysterics. That's fine. And they brought me into the emergency room and again I had no idea what was happening. My wife came in, of course, everybody was, you know, totally covered from head to toe, like I had leprosy or something. And a priest friend came and he had to sign something saying

that he agreed that he wouldn't hold the hospital responsible, a very holy priest. And he came in, of course, dressed to the nines and he was told to stand in the corner of the room and the doctor went out and I got to give a confession and I confessed my sins the way that we should always confess our sins whenever we confess our sins. I just began to weep and it was sort of like what I just said to you there, like I said, I'm really sorry that I haven't been a good husband. I'm sorry that I'm so selfish towards my wife and so lustful and so freaking arrogant. All those times I said I would fast from this or that and then I didn't. Why didn't I? And why didn't I pray more?

And why did I get so obsessed with those little minute details that don't bloody matter? And I just went to war on my ego and we don't often think about our death but it's important that we do. We think about everything else, what will I do this summer, when should I retire, is it time for a change in job but what about I'm going to die and I will be judged and I will spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell? These are things I do not want to talk about. Blaise Pascal, who I mentioned a moment ago, has this lovely line that haunts me. He says, I have often said that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. Why is it when you go to a new church that has an impressive Catholic bookstore, why is it that you'd rather be in the bookstore than in adoration? It's because you're an idiot. And I am too. And it's because I don't like being alone with myself. Because when I'm alone with myself with nothing to distract me, I have to face myself. And very often I don't like me. If you're at a party and you're getting a drink and somebody's coming over and you don't like them and you'd rather not talk to them, what do you do? Well, you might quickly pretend you haven't seen them, turn around and engage in conversation with somebody else. But what do you do when you're the pretend you haven't seen them turn around and engage in conversation with somebody else.

But what do you do when you're the one you want to avoid? It's a little more difficult. We plunge ourselves headlong into a myriad of distractions, fragmenting our interior life so that we do not have to face our own poverty. do not have to face our own poverty. Surely the number one thing that distinguishes us from our ancestors in a day-to-day sense is technology. We've come up with all of these time-saving devices that are meant to give us more leisure time and yet we're more frantic than ever because we don't want leisure time. We've just spent three bloody days at the breakers. How many of you have sat down and went, and how long did you do that for?

I think it's a good litmus test to see how depressed you are. Here you are. Go into your room at some point today with no one there. Turn the lights off. Sit in a chair and shut your mouth and don't listen to anything and see how long you're able to endure your own poverty. I think the holier we are, the longer we can do it because we know we're before an all-loving God and we know that He is our sufficiency. But we invent these time-saving devices that haven't

saved us time in order to distract ourselves, I think in part to distract ourselves from the reality of what's coming. If you'd like a very beautiful and piercing meditation on death, I would highly recommend that you read Tolstoy's short story, The Death of Ivan Ilyich. I read this to my family. They didn't want me to, but I read it to them anyway. And it is one of the most powerful meditations on death that I've come across, the death of Ivan Ilyich. And as I reflected upon my own death, I thought to myself, when I die, the number one question that will be being asked at my reception, the little reception, I say my reception, the reception they have after the funeral, the number one question, probably something like, sorry, where's the potato salad? Like, if you died today, I'd still have lunch. And I probably wouldn't care. And there are a few of you in here that if you died, I'd be really sad about it. And then I'd get over it.

here that if you died, I'd be really sad about it, and then I'd get over it. If my wife died, maybe I wouldn't get over it. I heard recently of a bloke I was working with on a new book I was writing. We went back and forth over email about this book and by phone, and this was about five months ago, and just the other week, someone rang me and said he had a heart attack and he died. And I said, well, God rest him, and I haven't thought of him since. And they won't think of you either, a great deal. And we'll see that in the meditation, that you and I think of those who have gone before us in the same way that those who go after us will think of us. They'll say, God rest him, and that's it. The world will be over for us. And when we die, of course, there'll be the judgment. And there are three possible outcomes to this particular judgment. There will be those of us who have loved God perfectly in this life, or at least have come to love him perfectly,

and we will be taken straight to heaven where we will enjoy endless happiness in the face-to-face vision of God. Then there will be those who die in God's love, but who love him imperfectly, and we will experience purgatory. And then there will be those, however, even in this room it's possible, even if you have a collar on, it's possible, who will reject God's love by mortal sin and die without repenting,

and they will be condemned to everlasting torment in hell. I don't want that to be true but since God said it is, what other choice do I have? Before we get to hell, let's talk a little bit about heaven. I forget who said this, I thought it was Chesterton but I looked up the quote and couldn't find it. But somebody said, cows chew contentedly in the meadows while men smoke discontentedly in the bars. It's very profound because unlike the brute beasts, we weren't made for things of this world. Unlike the brute beasts, we weren't made for things of this world. We were made for God.

And so we can't actually find full satisfaction in the things of this life. I'm writing a book right now with Ignatius Press on what Thomas Aquinas has to say on happiness. And he has a really excellent treatise on happiness in the Summa Theologiae, the first part of the second part, question two. He explores all the things that we look to to make us happy and he says that none of them bloody work. Here they are, wealth, honour, fame or glory. Now here's the thing about wealth, it sounds like such a trite cliche, doesn't it? Money can't make you happy. I'm like, I would prove God wrong. Or you may have heard that comedian who said, money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a jet ski.

And people on jet skis seem pretty happy. But Aquinas actually has a very good argument for why money can't make us happy. If happiness is our last end and money is a means to an end, it cannot be our ultimate end. Other things he says can't make us happy. Power. No good of the body can make us happy. No pleasure can make us happy. There is no good of the soul that could make us happy.

There is no created good that can make us fully happy. So in the Hail Holy Queen, when we say this veil of tears, this is what we mean. We can't actually be fully happy in this life. And the times that that is driven home to me are the times that I'm the most happy I've been, you know, like if your wife leaves you and you get fired from your job and you're being evicted from your home and you're not happy, you sort of know why you're not happy. And you can fix these things somehow, remedy these things, and hope that then you will be happy. But it's in those moments where you've got no reason not to be happy and you find yourself still unhappy. Those are the most brutal moments. I remember several years ago living in San

Diego and my wife and I were pottering about this little farmer's market and we walked down to the beach and the sun was descending and it was a lovely sort of orange mango color in the sky and the beach was warm and I remember body surfing and thinking to myself, I have never been this happy and yet I'm not happy. All the pleasures of this life seem like an appetizer and they should seem like that because unlike the cow who was perhaps made for these sort of material things, we weren't, and so they don't bloody work. But in heaven, we will be happy. Thomas Aquinas says, final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the divine essence. He is the fulfillment of all our desires.

And if we seek anything other than him, then it's not going to work. You may have heard that famous story of Thomas Aquinas on the 6th of December, I think. He was just celebrating Holy Mass and he had a vision of our Lord. And our Lord said to him, you've written well of me, Thomas, what would you have as your reward? And I would have said, you know, like a jeep and a trip to Russia or something, I don't know. But Aquinas gave the right answer. He said, nothing if not you, Lord. Non nissite domine. Like, I'll have it all with you or I'll have none of it not you, Lord. Non nissite domine. Like I'll have it all with you or I'll have none of it with you, but I need to have you. Hell. Hell is a real possibility for us.

It's so important that we revere the sacred scriptures as the word of God, because too many of us begin with certain axioms like God's omnipotence and omnibenevolence and reason from that to things that are contrary to God's word. Namely, well, hell exists but nobody could possibly go there. Or hell doesn't actually exist in the way we've previously understood it. Really, it's more of what we call now an annihilationism, where the souls who do not go to heaven are annihilated. They don't spend eternity in hell. It's very easy to reason yourselves into these comfortable conclusions. This is why we need the sacred scriptures, which throw cold water upon our brilliance, you know, shed light upon what we thought had to be the case.

I remember shortly after my conversion saying those very silly things that people say, I believe in God, but maybe not the devil. I believe in heaven, but I don't really believe in hell, which was very convenient, but not true. A friend of mine said, because I pointed her to the passage that said, you know, broad is the way that leads to destruction, narrow is the path that leads to life, and only few find it. She tried to explain that away and said, well, that just means sort of happiness in this life or something, except it doesn't, because the question was, like, how many will be saved? And our blessed Lord seems to say, few. And it's really difficult. I don't want to believe it. I don't want to accept the sort of the tradition of the church when it tells me few will be saved and the majority will be damned. But I'm a humble

son of the church. Sometimes I don't act like it, but I ought to act like it, and acting like it ought to mean submitting to what the church has taught and what the most saintly figures have taught. But here's the truth of it. Immediately after death, the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, eternal fire. The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. And the scriptures couldn't be any more clear about this. First Corinthians chapter 6, St. Paul says the following, Do you not know?

And it was seen that the majority of us Catholics would be like, no, I did not know. That would be our appropriate response to St. Paul. He says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards. Thomas Aquinas, when he talks about drunkenness, a drunkard is somebody who chooses to get drunk. If you've done that this weekend, like if I've done that this weekend, I have to repent. I have to stop pussyfooting around with sin and explaining the things I think really aren't that bad at the end of the day and start reflecting upon what the Word of God says. Nor revelers, nor swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

In Galatians 5 we read now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality impurity sensuality idolatry sorcery enmity strife jealousy fits of anger like this is my list I mean this is if I were to be honest in the Christmas card that I send out this is how Matt Fratt is doing you know and it's not terribly funny though you you think it is. Dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these, I warn you, who's he warning? He's not warning those outside of the church. These epistles were read to the churches, to the church in Galatia. He's warning the Christians, And that warning holds true for us as well. I warn you, Matthew Fradd, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, thank God.

Thank God for God. That we have a God who loves us, as Scott Hahn has said, as we are and too much to leave us that way. 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 4, we read that this loving Father desires all to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. That by sending His Son, by His death and resurrection, He has opened heaven under our feet. And you and I act too often as orphans, as if it were hell that had been opened under our feet.

He really loves us. See, I'm quite convinced that I could provide a syllogism that would counter God's decision to save humanity. If He would just give me a moment, I would be like, I get that you thought we were worth it, but here's why we're not. And the beautiful story of Christianity is it's sort of God responding to our protestations and saying, I love you. Oh God. One of my favorite scriptures, the one that makes me weep like no other, is Song of Songs, Chapter 2, I think it is. Some of you will understand this and some of you will think I'm being inappropriate.

I hope I'm not. But do you remember that bit where it talks about my beloved? Here he comes, leaping over the hills, yeah? And do you remember that bit that says, there he is behind our wall, peering in through the window, staring at me through the lattice. You remember this? I love that. He's coming closer to me, huh? Jesus is coming closer. First he's behind a wall. I can't see him. Maybe I can hear him. Then he's staring at me through the lattice. I can see him. I can hear him, but something still divides us. Oh, that's the window, and then it's the lattice, and I can have more direct access to him, and what does he do? The beloved says beautiful

things to my soul. He says, come away with me, my dove, my beautiful one. For see, the rain is over and past, and the flowers appear on the field. Come, let us catch the little foxes that spoil the vineyard. And you see what she does, you see what the beloved does, she does what I do whenever I encounter our Lord in that way, she buries her head in the cleft of the rock, hey, like Saint Peter who says, get away from me, I'm a sinful man. When I encounter that love of God, I want to give him the middle finger because it's so scary. I just want to say, piss off. You don't know me. Don't tell me that you love me. Don't tell me that I'm worth whatever you say that I'm worth. And I would think, because I know people who are holy, I imagine like that

path in holiness becomes that little, you know, the dove's head in the cleft of the rock, just slowly turning and being able to see our Lord kind of gaze upon us, you know. So he loves us and he wants to save us. But we can still choose to be damned if we want. I'd like to conclude now with a meditation from St. Francis de Sales. And I'd like to ask that the lights below it will play a little bit of Gregorian chant in the background. You don't have to participate if you don't want to but if you do and I hope you will, I would just invite you maybe to close your eyes, no one's going to look at you and let me lead you through a short meditation on death of course, not by me, but by St. Francis de Sales.

It's a couple of minutes long, and so why don't we do this together? In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. So we'll just begin by placing ourselves in the presence of God. And in your heart right now, beg him to inspire you. Imagine yourself on your deathbed, incurably ill. Consider the uncertainty of the day of your death. One day, my soul, you must depart from this body. When will it be? In winter or summer?

In the city or country? At home or afar? during the day or night, with or without warning, as a result of illness or accident? And shall I have a chance to go to confession? Shall I be assisted by a priest? Will I be prepared? Unhappily, I know the answer to none of these things. Only one thing is certain, that I shall die. And sooner than I imagine.

Okay, consider that then the world will come to an end, as far as you are concerned. You will have no more part in it. It will turn upside down before your eyes for worldly joys and pleasures and the things you loved in vain will turn into empty dreams and shadows. Fool that I am to offend God for the sake of such trifling vanities. I have forsaken God, and for what? For nothing. On the other hand, devotion and good deeds will be seen as desirable and delightful too. And you will ask yourself, why did I not take this beautiful and pleasant path of everlasting joy?

At that hour, your sins, which at the time seemed so small, will appear as vast as mountains and your devot's truly small. Consider how reluctantly your soul will bid farewell to this world, to all its riches and vanities, to amusements, friends, family, to everything, And last of all, to your own body. Leaving it pale, wasted away, hideous and fearful. Consider how your body will be hurried to the grave. Consider how your body will be hurried to the grave, and then the world will give no more thought to you than you've given to others.

They will say, God rest his soul, and that will be the end of it. Such is the pitiless power of death. Consider the destination of your soul once it has left the body. In which direction will it go? It will continue in the same direction as it went on earth. Let's make some spiritual acts and resolutions here. First, pray to God and cast yourself into his arms. Oh my God, take me into thy care on that terrible day. May all other days be sad if only that single day will be a happy one.

Secondly, despise the world. Since I do not know when I will part from the world, I will not become attached to it. No love for friends or for relatives, save for what is holy, save what can last forever. For why should I love them with a love that death can end? I will prepare for that hour and ensure that it may be a happy one. I will do all I can to make my conscience clear and resolve to overcome all my faults and imperfections.

As we conclude, let's pray by thanking God for inspiring these resolutions and offer them to him, imploring him to grant you the grace of a happy death through the merits of his Son and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints. And second, carry with you always a small happy death crucifix, properly blessed to obtain a plenary indulgence at the hour of death and meditate upon it often. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be

done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, at the hour of our death. Amen. And may all glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.