the eschaton - our destiny as christians:

As baptized Christians, our home is not here on earth, but in the presence of God, which the Church calls Heaven or the Kingdom, or eternal life. “But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 4:20-21).

Contrary to popular imagination, heaven is not a place where we shed our cumbersome earthly bodies and live as disembodied pure spirits, rather at the common resurrection, we receive our bodies back, perfected and glorified. “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2).

The Kingdom of Heaven is the eternal marriage supper of the Lamb of God (Revelation 19), where Christ continually gives himself to us and we offer him our eternal worship. In Heaven, we will see Christ face to face (I Corinthians 13:12). More fundamentally, it is perfect communion with God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). If we know Jesus Christ in this life, eternal life has already begun. “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” (CCC 1024).

When we die, we are judged immediately by God (Hebrews 9:27) who “will render to every man according to his works” (Romans 2:6). Those who have died in Christ will reign forever in Heaven, while those who die rejecting Christ and refusing to repent will be excluded from the marriage feast forever. “This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called hell” (CCC 1033). Jesus Christ himself warned of the reality of hell. “The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evil-doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41-42).

At the Second Coming, Christ will judge both the living and the dead, and separate the saints from the damned. “Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another books was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was writing in the books, by what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:11-15).