13 August 2020

The Douai Catechism, 1649 - CHAPTER XXI. The Four Last Things Expounded.

The Four Last Things Expounded.
    
Q. WHAT are the four last things?
    A. Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven.
    
Q. What understand you by death?
    A. That we are mortal, and shall once die; how soon, we are uncertain, and therefore we must be always prepared for it.
    
Q. How prove you that?
    A. Out of Heb. ix. 27. "It is decreed for all men once to die." And Matt. xxv. 13. "Watch ye therefore, because ye know not the day nor the hour."
    
Q. What is the best preparation for death?
    A. A godly life, and to be often doing penance for our sins, and saying with St. Paul, "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." Phil. i. 23.
    
Q. What else?
    A. To remember often that of Matt. xvi. 25. "He that will save his life shall lose it, and he that shall lose his life for me shall find it."
    
Q. What understand you by judgment?
    A. I understand, that (besides the general judgment at the last day) our souls as soon as we are dead, shall receive their particular judgment at the tribunal of Christ, according to that, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, from henceforth now, saith the spirit, they rest from their labours, for their works follow them." Apoc. xiv. 13.
    
Q. What is the best preparation from this judgment?
    A. To remember often that of Heb. x. 31. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God." And that of 1 Cor. xi. 21. "For if we did judge our selves, we should not be judged."
    
Q. What understand you by hell?
    A. That such as die in mortal sin "shall be tormented there both day and night, and for ever and ever." Apoc. xx. 21. "There shall be weeping, howling, and gnashing of teeth; the worm of conscience shall always gnaw them, and the fire that torments them, shall never be extinguished." Mark viii. 44, 45.
    
Q. What understand you by heaven?
    A. That the elect and faithful servants of God, shall for ever reign with him in his kingdom, "where he hath such delights and comforts for them, as neither eye hath seen or ear hath heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man." 1 Cor. ii. 9.
    
Q. How prove you that?
    A. Out of Matt. vii. 21. "He hath doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven."
    
Q. What profit is there in the frequent memory of all those things?
    A. Very great according to that, "In all thy works remember the last things, and thou shalt never sin." Eccles. vii. 40. which God of his great mercy give us grace to do. Amen.

Next - The Douai Catechism, 1649 - CHAPTER XXII. The Substance or Essence, and Ceremonies of the Mass, Expounded.

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