What you need to know about death and the afterlife ... ...in order to live this life as you should.
In a culture obsessed with material comfort and success, even Catholics can lose sight of their eternal destiny. Hence the enduring value of this book, written in 1942 England, when death and its consequences could not so easily be ignored. Penned by the brilliant and witty Jesuit, Fr. Martin D'Arcy, this profound explication of Catholic teaching on death and the afterlife is bracing. Its chief attribute: laying out the conditions for attaining eternal happiness. Chapters include:
The Soul and Its Body * Intimations of Immortality * The Nature of the Self * The Undying Self * The Christian Doctrine of the After-Life * Holiness and Immortality * The Supernatural * Hell * Purgatory * Heaven Topics:
What will eternal life be like? Three terms mystics use to describe the experience of eternity
The glory of aging: How, as our bodily powers fail, our spiritual and moral lives curve ever upward toward fruition
How we suffer in this life when we ignore our immortal destiny
How human thought itself provides sufficient proof of the existence of immaterial reality
The value of using concrete imagery to evoke Heaven, Hell and Purgatory -- and some pitfalls
Why Heaven will be anything but boring
Two key New Testament verses that make Catholic doctrine on Hell "painfully clear," and are echoed in dogmatic statements
Why eternal damnation is compatible with -- indeed, required by -- God's justice and mercy
Why the Church, in its wisdom, does not describe Hell only in terms of the "pain of loss," but also of the "pain of sense"
How we know that no damned soul can ever complain of lack of justice or love
St. Gregory of Nyssa and Cardinal Newman: How to view Purgatory
Why the desire for immortality is actually evidence for it
The evidence of the will, and of human motivations, as "signposts to the nature of our life beyond the grave"
How we know that friendships abide in Heaven, and that nothing of good is lost or lacking there
The experience of time in eternity
Why those who believe in eternal life are more, not less, anxious to do good in the world, contrary to atheists' charges
-The proper attitude for Catholics regarding telepathy, second sight, poltergeists and other remarkable happenings
How obsession with fame and celebrity reflects the suppressed yearning for true immortality
Mind and brain: how the two are distinct. The "catastrophic" implications of equating the two, as many scientists do
Why the complete "self" that will live forever is much more than mind and soul
How will our risen bodies compare to our earthly ones?
"A wealth of profound and subtle thought. ... It should and will do an incalculable amount of good to Catholics in revealing the depths of what they believe already, and to non-Catholics by showing them that a creed they have perhaps despised as puerile and outworn is in fact the richest, deepest and most comprehensive view of human nature and destiny that has been propounded to us." -- The Tablet
"A book of consolation. ... whoever reads it must feel that his horizons have been widened, and that a new path of the spirit has been opened to him." – America
"Should be of great service to those who cannot see beyond the outward dress of dogma to its inner meaning." -- The Dublin Review
"Readers of very different tastes and degrees of education will find an exceptionally rich treasure." -- Catholic Herald
"Covers the attitudes and despairs of the modern world with illuminating and often humorously shrewd criticism, steadily bringing out, from this indication or that, man's profound consciousness of immortal longings." -- Times Literary Supplement
"Father D'Arcy is probably the ablest apologist for the Christian religion at work in England today. ... He treats his theme in the freshest and most engaging manner ... an extraordinarily satisfying book. ... a godsend." -- Church Times
