The only way in which justice could be done would be if God were to raise both his faithful people and their persecutors to life again so that he might judge both and give both their just reward. But what was only a hope for the ancient Jews became a reality when Jesus Christ, ‘the Holy One of God’, was raised from the dead and thus vindicated over those who put him to death (Acts 2:27, cf. Psalm 16:10).

 Jesus is our hope of justice. Although we too deserve judgement for our sins, and will also have to face both the ‘particular judgement’ at the time of our death (Comp. §§207, 208) and the ‘general judgement’ at the resurrection of all the dead (Comp. §§214, 215), yet we have already ‘died with Christ’ in Baptism (Romans 6:3, 4). Already, by God’s grace, we ‘walk in newness of life’. ‘This saying is sure: if we have died with him, we will also live with him’
(2 Timothy 2:11). Our Gospel proclaims that the Kingdom of God is indeed coming.

Whether this happens in our own lifetime or whether we must first face earthly death, none of God’s people will ‘miss out’ on its coming (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:13ff). In fact, those who die in Christ are already entering into his Kingdom, even though the resurrection of the dead and the final consummation have not yet happened. The Compendium explains this in terms of ‘heaven’, ‘hell’ and ‘purgatory’. . In what does hell consist?

Hell consists in the eternal damnation of those who die in mortal sin through their own free choice. The principal suffering of hell is eternal separation from God in whom alone we can have the life and happiness for which we were created and for which we long. As the Compendium goes on to say, God does not capriciously condemn anyone to this ‘eternal separation’ from his presence. it is ‘the human person who freely excludes himself from communion with God if at the moment of death he persists in mortal sin and refuses the merciful love of God’  But while the possibility of eternal damnation is necessary for the simple fact that justice must be done, our Christian hope is focused entirely elsewhere.

 What is meant by the term ‘heaven’? By ‘heaven’ is meant the state of supreme and definitive happiness. Those who die in the grace of God and have no need of further purification are gathered around Jesus and Mary, the angels and the saints. They thus form the Church of heaven, where they see God ‘face to face’ (1 Corinthians 13:12). They live in a communion of love with the Most Blessed Trinity and they intercede for us.

The joy of heaven and the blessedness of communion with God and his saints is thus not postponed till after our resurrection, even though the fullness of this joy requires that it be experienced in the resurrected body as well as in the soul. Again, however, a question of God’s loving justice comes into play. In the doctrine of purgatory, the teaching of the Catholic Church takes seriously the nature of sin even in the Christian believer. What is purgatory?

Purgatory is the state of those who die in God’s friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.
Purgatory is not one of the ‘four last things’ because it is temporary. All who undergo purgatory—which Pope Benedict XVI taught was ‘simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Saviour’ (cf. Spe Salvi, §48)—are destined for the same eternal happiness as the souls already in heaven.

Then, as the ancient Jews had hoped and the Resurrection of Jesus has made certain, at a time which God himself has set and which only he knows (Comp. §215; Acts 1:6, 7), our Lord Jesus will come proclaiming the Gospel that the Kingdom of God has finally arrived. And it is to this justice of God, to his faithfulness to his believing people that we say at the end of the Creed: ‘Amen’, a word which ‘expresses our confident and total “yes” to what we professed in the Creed, entrusting ourselves completely to him who is the definitive “Amen” (Revelation 3:14), Christ the Lord’ (Comp. §217).