God has established a day in which he will judge the world with justice through Jesus Christ, to whom the Father gives all power and judgment. On that day, not only the apostate angels will be judged, but in the same way, all the people who have lived on earth will present themselves before the judgment seat of Christ to account for their thoughts, words, and deeds and to receive according to what they have received have done while in the body, whether good or bad.
The purpose for which God has established this day is to manifest the glory of his mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and his justice in the condemnation of the reprobate who are wicked and disobedient. At that time, the righteous will enter into eternal life and receive that fullness of joy and rest, which proceeds from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked who do not know God, nor obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ, will be cast from the presence of the glory of the Lord. The glory of his power, into eternal torment, will be punished with everlasting perdition.
Just as Christ wanted us to be certainly persuaded that there will be a day of judgment, both to dissuade every human being from sin and for the greatest comfort of the pious in times of adversity; In the same way, he wanted to keep that day unknown, so that human beings leave all carnal security and are always vigilant, because they do not know at what time the Lord will come, and so that they are always ready to say: Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.
Where is the border?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and he loves your neighbor as yourself.”
Gospel according to Saint Luke 10:27
In his book The Republic, Plato exhorts the Greeks not to reduce Greek cities to servitude nor to have any Greek slaves, fearing to “stain the temples by adorning them with the spoils of our neighbor.” These “neighbors” were the Greeks since he considered the barbarians “foreign and strange.”
The Old Testament collects the divine commandment regarding how one should treat one’s neighbor. Thus, the book of Leviticus can be quoted as saying that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself. Now, what does the word neighbor mean? It means one who is close. And everyone with whom domestic life was shared was considered to be close. From this perspective, a neighbor is a person with whom one is related. And, what about those people with whom one is not related?
Here comes the focal point of the parable of the Good Samaritan. According to the story, the Master questions the expert of Jewish law who has come to Him to test Him. After the expert correctly cited the compendium of the law, including the commandment that contemplates love of neighbor, he went on to inquire as follows: And who is my neighbor? With this, he puts on the table in the form of a question that both Plato, the expert himself, and many others understood as vital to consider: Where is the border? That is to say: how far should I extend my obedience to the law? It is then when Jesus narrates the parable to make it clear that the Christian duty is not to establish borders but to go beyond those we and other human beings have established.