Meaning and Value of Death

 [At an Easter retreat Bernadette spoke about the meaning and value of death, and what happens after. What I wrote down was that there is only one death, the death of the self.  You can kill yourself all you want but that won’t matter. The body and the soul are never divided. People who are dying or seem dead to us may still be going on their journey. We cannot talk about how long it takes to complete that journey because after death, time is meaningless.  The vision of God will be our judgment – what will be revealed is the degree to which we are able or unable to bear that Vision.  Purgatory is a preparation for bearing the vision of God; it is a happy thing, a preparation for glory. Purgatory may begin during the death process. Resurrection happens after our death, not at the end of the world.  Pentecost was the time when all who were present recognized Jesus for who he was, as the Logos. He had to disappear so they could see him as the Logos. 

The one purpose of death is to get to the Transcendent.  We can’t get there without dying; what we call death is the entrance to the ultimate state of the transcendence of God.  The senses go down and what remains is not a sensory body but a spiritual body. During life the body carries out the work of the soul. In the end we will see that what appeared to be matter ends up being spiritual and what appeared to be spiritual ends up being form. After hearing this, I wrote in my notebook: This is a great Mystery, one only fully revealed after death.]

Patricia's Notes from 2004 Retreat with Bernadette