

of belief to God brings deliverance from Hell. Belief is the first and most basic participation in God. Even if we have the smallest participation in Christ, we are a member of the body of Christ, and not eligible for Hell.
Thought and especially will, is real participation in the object of thought or will. According to Jesus in Mt 5:27-28, to think or will toward adultery is to commit adultery, we have a first stage participation in the act of adultery, just by inclining our will toward it. Instead we should incline our entire
“heart, mind and soul” (Mt 22:37), toward God. This would be a real participation in God.
This evidence of the power of prayer is motivation to cultivate our own prayer life. Sincere prayers for ourselves are always a participation in God.
Prayers for others go far in preventing their condemnation. Prayer should be viewed as a real act of construction and not just words.
Howard’s sins were forgiven after death, which is implied in Mt 12:32.
This verse says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in this life or the life to come, thus implying some other sins may be forgiven after death. The reason why speaking against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, is because the Holy Spirit is the agent delivering graces of al types including forgiveness. If we reject the Holy Spirit, we reject the graces he offers. Mt 12:32 shows the danger of atheism and its more harmful variant, anti-theism.
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Many who undergo an NDE, experience the presence of God. The NDE experience presented here is typical in content, but extraordinary in length of description. It is the NDE of a woman (initialed JB), who deeply viewed the essence of God.
This NDE cannot be specifically classified into any particular religion, although she does observe the Word of God in it. “The Word of God” as understood within Catholicism is the Son of God, or Trinitarian Christ, and his human incarnation as Jesus.
“I am in the operating room of a small private hospital.
On the operating table, I stare without emotion at the wall facing me. There is a black and white photograph of an old man. I imagine he is the founder of the hospital. I am reassured, administered anesthesia through a mask and rapidly begin to disassociate from my physical senses.”
“I was plunging rapidly into my body. I felt that I was getting entombed. I was falling into myself and into an inner, ever expanding, deep darkness. The normal sense of time, place and space became non-existent. After I had been in this engulfing darkness for what seemed to be a very long time, I suddenly became aware that I was on some sort of horizontal escalator or a conveyor belt, that was moving incredibly fast almost at the speed of light or greater, intentionally taking me somewhere. I felt I had traversed millions of years and millions of miles. At some point during this journey, I became aware that I was traveling in a pitch black tunnel. This moving through the tunnel went on for quite some time, almost an eternity.”
“Then all of a sudden, I was approaching an amazing, truly indescribable white shining, light. This light was scintillating, every particle of it alive and full of the purest, highest love. It was 28
tantalizing, brilliant, beautiful, living and moving.S This light was at the end of the tunnel or by its very presence ended the tunnel.
As I came closer, still moving at the incredible speed, I began to feel a mounting sense of exhilarating anticipation. I felt I was approaching a truly great, magnanimous, magnificent and beneficial event. In complete clarity, I thought and felt. This is what I have been waiting for all my life, this is what had been missing all along, this is why no event, no relationship, no possession, no achievement, no desire hankered after or possessed had ever felt complete. This is the reason why I have never felt fulfilled. Every bit of me desired to completely go into this living light and these thought-feelings seemed to add an additional momentum to the escalator's speed. I sped to the Light but at the very moment of union, I heard a loud, sonorous, authoritative, masculine voice, coming into me from all directions ask, 'Are you ready to die?'”
“When I heard this, everything came to a stop. I was completely aghast. I was, and had been, totally ignorant that reaching, meeting and going into this 'beyond everything else'
and 'all knowing light', astonishingly meant my death! I felt betrayed. Then, filled with great fear in my thinking and responding (both occur simultaneously here), I quiveringly asked,
'Why must I die?' Instantaneously the Voice replied, 'You must die, because you have failed to do what you promised us.' (No wiggle room here, my death was imminent.) Confused and frightened, I fell to my hands and knees (metaphorically speaking), and began begging for my life. I begged like I have never begged before. Groveling like a worm beseeching a human not to stamp on it, I implored, 'I don't remember what I S NDE patients speak of sensing love from all beings during their visit the boundary of Heaven. This love is proactive, unconditional, and immense beyond words. This love is the religious ecstasy that many saints have experienced.
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promised, and I don't know why I must die. Please give me another chance. I don't remember what I promised!'”
“The Voice answered. 'You promised us that you would help others. You have failed to do this, therefore you must die.'
At this point, I was begging in a manner, which could be equated to convulsive crying from my deepest depths. I had no idea what promise the Voice was confronting me with, but deep inside me, I knew that the Voice knew more about me than I did and that it was behaving justly; I was getting exactly what I deserved.”
“After hearing my desperate pleas and acknowledging my sincerity, the Voice, with a gesture of benevolence (like a sweeping motion of a hand in gushing wind) announced, 'You have a second chance.'”
“Everything was still very dark; except for the presence of the Light. Then the Voice changed its judgelike manner and became instead, a teacher. Still very just and awesome but now, much kinder. What followed was even more mind-blowing. ”T
“I found myself suspended and moving in a pitch dark, empty, endless cosmic space (no escalator this time!). I was just a tiny dot of consciousness. I had no remembrances other than that I was an 'I'. The only ground (metaphor) to hang on to was my 'I'. I was getting smaller and smaller until I became an even smaller 'I'. There were no reference points, no up, no down, no right, and no left. Just my concentrated essence, my 'I' that had been falling into and onto itself and becoming smaller and smaller. I became aware that there were a multitude (infinite) of other 'I's around me, like stars studding the sky. They were 'I's;
'Ego's'. These 'All Seeing Eyes' were scrutinizing me. 'They' who are the One Voice (the voice that had been communicating with T This change in God’s tone of voice, or focus occurs in the Bible. The Old Testament records God’s justice, and the New Testament records God’s mercy. Both attributes are authentic elements of God.
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me all along) began to tell me things. They transmit, convey, and tell. 'They' as the One Voice, with a finger (metaphor) drew a white, brilliant, fluorescent, living plasma-like, and palpable-light graphic in the darkness. This was a circle. Its entire circumference moved in a clockwise manner. Then arrows were drawn on the circumference to show me the direction of movement.”
“I then heard the following, 'In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. The Word made all things. Humanity cannot understand The Word.
The Word is always (seeking) chasing after humanity and humanity is always chasing The Word (seeking). This is the way it was, this is the way it is, this is the way it shall ever be.'”
“The finality and truth of this sacred communication, naturally and instantaneously dissolved my every barrier to humbleness, and apprehending the circle, I was spontaneously made part of a dynamic living cosmic revelation. I was placed in THE WORD. It is difficult to fully describe this immersion for what it was in actuality. Adjectives and descriptions herein are only feeble attempts.”
“I was in, and surrounded by The Word. I was made an integral part of it but I was not 'absorbed' into The Word for I fully retained my awareness as a separate I.U The Word is a supremely alive, charged, scintillating, dynamic, exquisite and eternal flowing of fine living particles. The Word is true wisdom, true knowledge, eternal truth, all pervasive, all knowing, everywhere, in all, outside all, all powerful, complete, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. It is that in which everything has U This is an accurate description of the body of Christ in Heaven. Christ is now all individuals who constitute the body of Christ. These individuals retain their former attributes (individual awareness and will), but are now the single, divine person of Christ, the Word of God. Those individuals (formerly human persons) in Heaven are now members of the single, divine person Christ, who is Heaven.
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its origin, its life and its return. But nobody can go beyond the Word because there is a permeable membrane, a force-field like barrier and through its pores (not a metaphor) oozes out this subtle, but most substantial holy, sacred, pure, dynamic ceaselessly-in-motion energized particles. These particles are both homogeneous and heterogeneous, fully self-sustaining and all-sustaining truth-wisdom substance; a substance which is the be-all and end-all of all that is possible for all beings, animate or inanimate. This is not figurative substance, but literally
'substance'. It has 'being-ness'. It is a being. Naturally, this substance is not at all the material substance that we all know of ordinarily, yet it is related to it in a (some) extremely remote sense. It's some sort of living force made up of the above described lively and living particles. It is the basis of all other substances and forces as we experience them in ordinary daily consciousness. It penetrates and reverberates in all.”
“As I was experiencing this profundity, I began to have a strange feeling of claustrophobia. I felt irrevocably enclosed; I wanted to break through this thing-in-itself, the all encompassing Word. I felt deep within me that there is something else and I must go to it. I was drawn to The Word's cosmic boundary.
Boundary, not as a metaphor but as it actually felt and showed itself to me. It is truly a boundary. I tried to go through it but was unable to. Then 'They' as the 'One Voice' told me that no one can cross this boundary, except that which emanates through it; The Word. ”V
V Because Heaven is the person of Christ, only those who are Christ (who is now the entire body of Christ), may enter into Heaven…who is Christ. This whole idea seems like the beginning is the end, and that is exactly how Christ describes himself in Rev 22:13.
A more specific truth that JB observes is the difference between The Word, and its creation. The Word of God is non-optional (see section on Christology). Creation is optional, it has no inherent right or necessity to exist, The Word does.
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“Being in The Word was discombobulating and anti-climactic, yet The Word is complete, just and fully integrated, full of reason, logic, wisdom, the container-holder of past, present and future, the all-sensible, all knowing in its every particle. I believe that the Logos substance is the actual substance of the
'Other'. The 'Other' is the rest of the Logos or some superior and/or different part of it that is on the other side of the boundary. I experienced this entire event in a unique state of timelessness where the past, present and future are one. I was told that I had made a promise to the spiritual world, which I had failed to keep. I was told that my purpose on Earth is to help others. I was also shown my previous incarnation on Earth in great detail.W I was told that I had to regain what I have W In NDE’s the idea of past lives is not uncommon, and sometimes called reincarnation. This is a mislabeling of the Christian idea of the “ongoing, partial incarnation of Christ”, and is discussed in detail in a later section.
The basic idea is that Christ in Heaven incarnates specific dimensions of himself, these dimensions become humans, angels, rocks and trees when they are incarnated, or enter into creation. The prophet Jeremiah was such a dimension of the single person of Christ in Heaven before his incarnation as a human, (Jer 1:5). Later when Jeremiah made communion with Christ, he again became a dimension of the single person of Christ, (and he brought his hard gained virtues, which somehow added to the perfect virtue of Christ).
The set of dimensions of Christ we call “Jeremiah” may be incarnated again if Christ desires, (this likewise happened when Elijah was incarnated again as John the Baptist, Mt 11:14). This is not a “bank of souls”, or reincarnation which is the serial migration of a soul amongst bodies, but the “ongoing incarnation of Christ”. The single person of Christ incarnates selected dimensions of himself at his pleasure, and some of these dimensions may have been incarnated previously. It is a Catholic teaching that the human soul is created directly by Christ, thus the term “incarnation”.
One possible source of previous existence would be cyclical creation which exists as a possibility in the Big Bang theory of an expansionary universe. Most theories of the Big Bang include general or localized gravitational collapse of the universe, returning it to its infinite point of initial creation. At this point God would make his expected communion with all of his creation, not already in communion with him. “When he has done this, 33
spiritually lost; that which is known as Samadhi consciousness. I have also been told explicitly how I am to help others; however, this is not an easy thing to do.”
“Afterwards, I fuzzily saw several beings in white robes with blurred halos surrounding me. I had died and gone to heaven. 'Are you angels’, I asked? The blurring cleared and I saw smiling, relieved human faces. One of the doctors said, 'You gave us quite a scare. We almost lost you.'”
“The operation had taken no more than an hour and a half, but to me it felt like I was gone for billions of years to a place trillions of miles away. ” 29
The woman JB, who experienced this NDE speaks of the Word of God as the expression of God, which the Church understands to be the person of Jesus Christ. She seems to be a student of religion, and makes a brief remark about the Hindu/Buddhist idea of Samadhi consciousness, which is the highest state of consciousness. In Buddhism God is recognized as a possibility only, but in her NDE, JB had a definite experience of God, and even the Word of God, which is a Christian idea.
Those NDE patients sensing or seeing Christ and his love are ecstatic, overwhelmed, heightened, enamored, and completely committed to his presence. Mickey R, described his ecstatic vision of Christ, “His magnificence pierced me like a laser. All that mattered was that I stay in his presence.” 30