What will the particular judgment be like?
“At the evening of life, we shall be measured by our love.” – St. John of the Cross
On Nov. 1, Pope Leo XIV declared St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. In honor of our newest doctor, I want to share with you an image of the particular judgment he offers in his long poem, “The Dream of Gerontius.” Gerontius is a dying man. In fact, in the first few stanzas of the poem, he dies, as the priest recites: “Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul! … Go, in the Name of God … who created thee!”
The soul of Gerontius is guided by his Guardian Angel through various choirs of angels and saints singing hymns as he approaches the Throne of Judgment to appear before the face of Jesus Christ. Filled with fear and trepidation, he comes to the test, which is to look into the eyes of Christ and know the truth of the omnipotent love of God. He slowly raises his eyes and enters a moment that contains eternity. He knows, with perfect clarity, all the ways Christ has loved and graced his life, and also knows his countless lies, infidelities and justifications. His soul is consumed with a passionate longing to be united to Christ, yet also shame and desire to be purified. His Angel sings: “O happy, suffering soul! For it is safe, Consumed, yet quicken’d by the glance of God.”
Christ answers this desire and sends Gerontius forth to a place of purification, in which his tears of love will heal his shame of sin, until only the bright, eager desire for union with the Lord remains as the sole passion of his soul.
From this poem, there are three ways each of us might respond to the loving gaze of Christ at the moment of our death. We may be like Gerontius and filled with both shame and the longing of loving desire, in which case the Lord mercifully places us in purgatory to heal and renew our lost spiritual purity. Or, like the great saints, our soul may be filled with nothing but pure delight in His gaze. In that case, seeing the face of Jesus and the emotions of wonder and love are nothing but the first bubbling forth of the joy of eternal life. Logically, it is also possible to be filled with nothing but loathing and shame, as our mortal sin and rejection of God stands revealed, and those souls long to depart from the awful love they have definitively rejected, and they will depart from the Lord forevermore.
This is one way of thinking of the particular judgment, poetic and imaginative, and hopefully inspires you to deep repentance for sin and a great longing to see the face of the Lord above all earthly desires.
Father Charlie Archer is associate pastor of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis.
