By Brea Cannon
Connecting Creed and Life
Editor’s note: For 2025, the weekly Connecting Faith and Life column will be renamed Connecting Creed and Life. To celebrate the 2025 Jubilee Year and the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the columns will consist of reflections on the Nicene Creed, corresponding with related paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).
“I believe in life everlasting (CCC 1030-1041).”
Benjamin Franklin is famously known for the quote, “…but in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” Surprisingly, he was not the first to write about “death and taxes.” Seven decades before Franklin wrote his now-famous letter, a character in the play “The Cobbler of Preston”stated, “it’s impossible to be sure of anything but death and taxes.”
Both death and taxes were written about well before plays and famous Americans — all throughout the Bible we read about these two certainties, specifically death. Death is a certainty each and every one of us will face. We will each stand before our Lord and be judged for all we did or did not do in this life. Most of us will have sins to atone for at the hour of our death and will desire to be purged of our imperfection before spending eternity with our Lord in Paradise for all of eternity.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC 1030).
It may seem like our culture today tries to negate wrongdoing with the idea of each person must have his or her own truth. In reality, there is absolute Truth and that Truth is Jesus. One of the truths we are led to ignore or deny is that hell exists. Throughout both testaments of the Bible hell is spoken about time after time. Actually, Jesus speaks more about the fires of hell than he does the joys of heaven!
We will all be judged for the life we lived. We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. “Our Lord warns us that we will be separated from him of we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and littles ones” (CCC 1033). To die in mortal sin without repentance or the acceptance of God’s merciful love means we choose to separate ourselves from him — in eternity, this state of self-exclusion from God is hell. It is through our humble acknowledgement of our fallen nature and true dependence on God that allows us to accept his love and mercy.
The final judgement will come when Christ returns in great glory. He will come to pronounce the final word on all of humanity. It will be then that we see the whole work of creation and the providence that lead everything to the final end. What we do until that time matters. We read in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
We each have been given a purpose and a mission in this life. We each can think back to friends or family members who have died in faith that inspire us or even encourage us in our own life and faith journey. Those individuals live on in each of us. Their love, the love that was shared with you and me, is now a piece of the work of creation that will be revealed to us on the last day. It is equally our duty to be that love and service to others. We each get to choose everyday if we will follow the way of the world or if we will be the light to the world that appears to be walking in darkness. Benjamin Franklin was right; death and taxes are certainties in life. But it is what we do in this life that builds the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now. We actively get to decide to live for the world or live for the “brothers” Jesus spoke about. What we do, both public and private, is a piece of the great story of salvation history. Most of the good done throughout history, will not be in history books or passed down in stories through the generations, it is part of the story that will only be revealed when our savior comes again at the end of time. We are a part of a great adventure, and we each, young or old, have a huge role to play