“No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account” (Heb 4:13).
Now, there are people to whom this kind of light has been given in this life as a “grace freely given.” Some of them testify that, far from a “chastisement,” it was a moment of tremendous mercy; a saving grace. Among those said to have had such experiences is Dynamic Catholic founder Matthew Kelly. I was told that he once had a rather active ministry testifying to this, but that he has since (wisely, I believe) removed most traces of it. Graces like this are personal. There is a marked difference between a personal grace of an “illumination of conscience” and the kind of universal pre-Judgment Day judgment that is described in some of the chastisement literature.
In general, the chastisement literature that takes a universal “illumination of consciences” as a given supports this with select quotes from holy men and women of the past and present who reported such experiences, including St Margaret Mary and St Faustina. But St Margaret Mary (to delve into one example) experienced an “illumination of conscience” after she had already undergone a mystical “exchange of hearts” with Jesus Christ! That’s not exactly replicable across the board.
Graces given to individuals as part of their spiritual journey cannot be extrapolated to the entire human population at a given moment in history. God treats each one of us as unique and unrepeatable. You and I have a distinct relationship with our Good Shepherd. The spiritual life is not a “one size fits all” proposition.
Ideally, every examination of conscience brings us closer to genuine illumination of conscience, so that we live more and more in the light of God. Seeing the daily showering of grace we live in can open our eyes to the depth and breadth of sin and the compromises we make. Little by little, we learn to recognize that our actions and omissions have an effect not only on our own spiritual life, but on the spiritual lives and actual lives of those around us and on the entire Church. This in can provoke profound repentance and allow us to receive even more mercy from the infinitely good Heart of God.
What the “illumination of conscience” anticipates has a name in the Catholic faith tradition. It is the particular judgment. And each one of us has an appointment of our own, at the moment of our death. There we will see, in the light of God, the extent to which we let Christ live in us.
In the particular judgment, we will recognize all the ways divine life and love was poured into our lives so that it might be magnified in us and shared in the world. We will see the choices we made to correspond or delay, receive or refuse, draw near or turn away. We will recognize, as God does even now, all the circumstances that surrounded those choices: the limiting factors like abuse, poverty, neglect, shame, fear, lack of support, bad example and worse; and the extra help that was available from the sacraments and actual grace, the intercession of Mary, of our Guardian Angel and our patron saints, the kindness of our neighbors, even our own good deeds and hard-won habits of virtue. We will see, in other words, the story of grace and mercy as we allowed them to play out during our limited time on earth.
When the Last Day comes, all people who ever lived will rise from the dead for the Second Coming of Jesus. Together, with bodies that reflect lives of grace or evil, the saints and the damned will experience the universal Judgment (the Final Judgment), described in imagery in the Gospel of Matthew (25:31-46):
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left….
Not only the saints, but the whole universe will be renewed, “set free from its bondage to decay,” as St Paul said (Rom 8:21) in a new creation that surpasses all imagining. God will be all in all, and each will experience that existence in God according to the way he or she lived during this short span of time we call “life” (but that is really only the beginning of real life).
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ. The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. The parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul—a destiny which can be different for some and for others.
1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification or immediately, — or immediate and everlasting damnation.
At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love [St John of the Cross].
I have been researching "chastisement prophecies," and as I develop these themes, hope to include them in future posts. I think this is important for the peace of many hearts. You might also be interested in
Private Revelations: https://romans8v29.blogspot.com/2021/03/private-revelations-you-can-be-mystic.html
Three Days of Darkness? https://romans8v29.blogspot.com/2021/03/three-days-of-darkness.html
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