Heaven, Hell & Purgatory
The Afterlife by Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo
Where Does the Soul Go
When the Soul Leaves the Body?
"I am an old man, seventy-seven years of age. I know I am close to death, yet I do not feel death within me. I feel life, even when I realize that I no longer have the strength to do many things. The reason for this internal phenomenon is the soul and its immortality. We each have an immortal soul and, as such, it is always young."
The soul is spirit, and it comes out of the body in the fullness of life of the Spirit, as a silkworm comes out of its cocoon and then abandons it. The soul enters, intellect and will alike, into the eternal youth of immortality, pursuing its object: eternal Truth and eternal Good. The soul is outside the world and, like a rocket, launches upward and tends toward God, its only end.
The soul, however, is not as God created it when He infused it into the body; nor is it as Jesus redeemed it. The soul has within its own initiatives. They appear to it at the very instant in which it leaves the body, not in the dimmed light of the conscience, but in the splendid light of the Eternal Truth... In the light of the Eternal Truth, however, the soul recognizes itself for what it is, with a clarity that cannot find excuses or justifications... The soul in the state of grace, though still stained by the sins it has committed, is like a dove with broken wings that cannot fly but aims toward God with love. Since its nature is attracted to Him, it does its best to cleanse itself, imploring His mercy.
The lost soul is like a weight that plunges itself down toward the abyss, even if it has a natural drive toward God... The soul in mortal sin is so far away from God that it is left in a state of spiritual death. It falls into the abyss as into a new, frightful life. In this life, it only finds the vermin of its own faults enveloping and tormenting it. Therefore, a hatred is born in the soul...The soul keeps, nonetheless, the natural urge of the creature that would aim toward God, but since this natural urge cannot reach its goal, it becomes frustrating and distressing. The soul is left with its own despair and eternal horror. It is like a decayed substance that changes its condition: it is no longer a sweet cream, but a worm-infested mass.
The lost soul is a wretched traveler that has reached its eternal destination. The soul in the state of grace is a traveler that has reached the end of its life on earth, but, because of its need for purification, it is granted to be a traveler still in order to cleanse itself in a painful pilgrimage of love.
The lost soul is in eternal pain; the soul in Purgatory is still in its pilgrimage, and it awaits the blessed moment when it will be in its everlasting joy, in the glory of God and full union with Him. 1
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