Thanks to the insight of fifteen-year-old Blessed Carlo Acutis, who died in the concept of sanctity in October 2006 (www.carloacutis.com), and to the generous and accurate research completed by the writer and journalist Nicola Gori, who also drew from various historical documents in the "Positiones" of persons whose cause for canonization is maintained by the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, it was made possible to achieve this exhibition which presents 160 testimonies of Saints and of Mystics who have had visions of the Inferno (Hell), of Purgatory, and of Paradise. The exhibition is the fruit of careful and thorough research carried out on an international scale. The young Carlo was profoundly convinced that the rampant spread of sin in our times and the consequential loss of innumerable souls, are very often due to the disappearance of preaching on the Last Things.  The experiences collected embrace all the centuries of the Christian era.  Through this exhibition the visitors will be confirmed in the truth of the existence of the Inferno, of Purgatory, and of Paradise, the reality to which each person is called to after death.  One is only left to visit the exhibit and immerse themselves with an open mind to the solicitations which these episodes provoke.

What Happens with and After Death?

Where does death have its origins?

God has neither willed nor created death in the manner we endure it today. Death entered the world as a result of the first sin of our ancestors, Adam and Eve. It is therefore the “wages of sin” (Rm 6: 23).

What is the meaning of death?

Today one tends to censor and remove this reality of human life. Just the thought of death itself creates anguish. By not thinking of it, one believes in keeping it away or overcoming it. In reality, death which is inexorable, comes and can come in any condition in which one finds oneself.

For every human being, death is:

• a sign of our being human; it is part of our human condition;
• the end of our earthly life;
• a door which closes a certain way of living so as to open another: death is not the end of everything;
• a reminder of the wisdom of living well the time at our disposal;
• a way of realizing fundamental equality among all, which goes beyond one’s social belongingness, economic condition and cultural capacities;

For a Christian, death is enlightened by the Word of God and offers light than brightens and consoles. In this manner, death becomes:

• the termination of man’s life as time made available for the acceptance or refusal of God’s life in Christ;
• the beginning of eternal life, which is that new and everlasting life which starts after this earthly life;
• a meeting with God, the Father and also Judge;
• a possible way of expressing an act of obedience and love towards the Father based on the example of Christ;
• It is precisely due to this Christian vision of death that Saint Francis of Assisi could exclaim in the Canticle of Creatures: “Praise be to you, my Lord, for our sister corporal death” (Franciscan Sources, 263).
  
  

What happens with death?

With death, one verifies the separation of body and soul. Man’s body gets corrupted, while his soul, which is immortal, goes to meet God in order to be judged. It will be reunited to its body at the end of time.

What does it mean to die in God's grace?

It means to die with the awareness of not having mortal sin on one’s soul. It means to die in peace with God and with one’s neighbour. “This word is certain: if we die with Him, we will live with Him” (2 Tim 2: 11).

How is it possible to die with Christ?

• Living as God’s children during our earthly life
  
  
• Frequently asking for pardon from God for our sins through the sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession);
  
  
• If possible, making use of the two sacraments instituted by Christ for the serious sick patients and for all those who are about to pass from this life to the next: the sacrament of the Eucharist as Viaticum and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.
  
  

How has Christ conquered death?

By destroying the cause of death, i.e. sin, with His Death on the cross and with His Resurrection.

How can one describe the conditions of man after death?

“It is necessary to avoid imaginary and arbitrary representations which, instead of helping, deepen the difficulties of the Christian Faith. The images used by Sacred Scripture nevertheless merit respect. One needs to draw out from them the deep meaning, by avoiding the risk of attenuating them too much and emptying the realities which they manifest from their substance” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter regarding some eschatological questions).

What happens after death?

The soul, separated from the body, is judged by God in relationship with the Faith and with one’s deeds. This is the specific judgment, with which the immediate remuneration is given to each one for his eternal life.

Such a remuneration consists of having access to:

• the eternal joy of paradise:
  
  
  • immediately after death;
  • or after an adequate purification (Purgatory).;
    
    
• eternal damnation of hell.
  
  

What is Paradise?

Paradise is the state of full and definitive happiness. This happiness consists of seeing God “just as He is” (1 Jn 3:2), “face to face” (1 Cor 13: 12). God will then be known and loved as the maximum, supreme happiness of man, the ultimate end and full realization of the deepest aspirations of man.

This mystery of the beatific vision, of the beatific communion with God and with all those who are in Christ, goes beyond every possibility of comprehension and description. Sacred Scripture speaks to us about it with some images: life, light, peace, wedding banquet, the Father’s house, heavenly Jerusalem…

What is Purgatory?

Purgatory is the purification of those who die in God’s grace, and therefore are already sure of being able to enter Paradise, but need further purification in order to obtain the holiness necessary to enter the joy of Paradise.

How can we help such a purification?

• God purifies, with the merits of Christ who died and rose from the dead, all those in Purgatory, thanks also to the collaboration that we can give them.
  
  
• We, who are still pilgrims here on earth, can in fact help our deceased who are in Purgatory:
  
  
  • with our prayers for the deceased, in particular by participating in the celebration of the Holy Mass and even by celebrating the Holy Mass for them;
  • with works of penance and charity;
  • with Indulgences, which are the forgiveness granted by God of temporal punishment for the sins already forgiven as regards one’s offences. Every Christian pilgrim here on earth can acquire through the intervention of the Church, such Indulgences, if duly made available and under certain conditions, and can apply them to the deceased in such a manner that they can be relieved from due temporal punishment for their sins.
    
    

What is Hell?

Hell is the eternal damnation of those, who due to their free choice, die in mortal sin without repenting for it and without accepting the merciful love of God. Jesus expresses such a reality with some images: Gehenna, inextinguishable fire, burning furnace… They are images to describe the state of extreme suffering and of eternal damnation which affect those who are in hell;

The main punishment of hell consists of eternal separation from God: only in Him in fact man can have life and happiness, for which he has been created and to which he aspires.

God does not predestine anyone to go to hell. Rather He, as a good Father, desires that everyone be saved and reach His Home: Paradise. He therefore sent His Son who died and was raised. He does not want “that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pt 3: 9). He thus wants that every single person during his earthly life either kindly (benevolently) or sometimes even in a strong manner (as every good father does with his own son). And nevertheless, having created man free, God respects the decisions of every person, especially in the crucial moment of his death. Therefore it is man himself who, in full freedom and responsibility, excludes himself from Paradise and, by persisting in his radical refusal of God, merits hell.

What is the Final Universal Judgment?

It is the judgment that God will give at the end of time, at the end of the world, when Christ “will come in glory with all his angels […]. And all the peoples will be reunited in front of him, and he will separate one from the other […]. And those will be sent to eternal torture, and the just to eternal life” (Mt 25:31-46).

With this judgment:

• All the bodies of men will rise. Every body, transformed from corruptible and mortal to incorruptible and eternal, will be united to its soul, sharing with it the condition of Paradise or of hell: a condition which it has from the moment of death of the body.
  
  
• Among all the saints in heaven there exists a fraternal communion which is “extremely delicious, because everyone will have all the good things of all the other blesseds. Each one will love the other as himself and will therefore enjoy the good of the other as of his own. In this manner, the happiness of just one will be much more as greater will be the joy of all the other blesseds” (St. Thomas Aquinas, (Conference on the Creed).
  
  
• There will be “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Pt 3: 13). The current universe, freed from all slavery, will be a new universe in which “there will be no more death or mourning or wailing or pain because the old order has passed away” (Ap 21:4).
  
  
• God’s plan to “sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth” (Eph 1: 10) will be realized fully and definitively. God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).
  
  

When will the Final Judgment take place?

Only God knows the day and the hour of such a definitive event. We only know that it will take place “on the last day” (Jn 6:39), at the end of this world.

On what is our faith regarding the resurrection of our body founded?

It is founded:

• on our Faith in God who “is not a God of the dead, but of the living” (Mk 12:27).
  
  
• on Jesus Christ, who:
  
  
  • said “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:25)
    
    
  • operated some ‘resurrections’ during his earthly life: that of Lazarus, of the son of the widow of Nain, and of Jarius’ daughter. These ‘resurrections’ which were a return to the previous life, were a sign of his being ‘the resurrection’ and a prefiguration of his rising from the dead;
    
    
  • made this solemn promise before dying: “I am going to prepare a place for you; after going and preparing a place for you, I shall return and take you with me, so that you also may be where I am” (Jn 14:2-3)
    
    
  • freely underwent death, death on a cross, for our salvation: with His death he has conquered death for Himself and for all of us;
    
    
  • resurrected Himself with His own body, transformed and glorified: “If Christ has not been raised from the dead […] then in vain is our Faith” (1 Cor 15:14)
    
    
  • is the principle, the foundation and also the certainty of our resurrection: He is “the first born of those who rise from the dead” (Col 1: 18); “God, who resurrected the Lord, will also raise us from the dead with his power” (1 Cor 6:13).
    
    

How will the resurrection of our bodies take place?

To know the way in which the resurrection takes place goes beyond the possibilities of our intellect. It is accessible only in the Faith.

What is the difference between resurrection of the body and reincarnation?

There exists an enormous difference between the two, in so far as:

• resurrection is not a returning back to one’s previous life, but a new living with a completely transformed body;
  
  
• every life is unique and cannot be repeated;
  
  
• “it is established that human beings die just once” (Heb 9:27).
  
  

In what sense does a Christian die and rise to new life every day?

Every day of one’s life here on earth is, for a Christian, a participation in the Death and in the Resurrection of Christ, from a:

• sacramental point of view: with the sacrament of Baptism we die with Christ to sin (we come to Him freed from sin) and we rise to new life, to the life of adopted sons of God, members of Christ and of His Church, temple of the Holy Spirit;
  
  
• moral point of view: every day we are called to turn away from sin, to avoid it, to repent and to resurrect from it, in order to live joyfully every moment as children of God, seeking “the things of above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Col 3: 1).

S.E. Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli

NB: per approfondire l’argomento, si leggano anche i seguenti documenti pontifici:

• Catechismo della Chiesa Cattolica (CCC), 1992, nn. 988-1060; Compendio del CCC, nn. 202-216;
  
  
• Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Lettera riguardante alcune questioni di Escatologia, 1979.

ESCHATOLOGY. The branch of systematic theology that treats of the last things: death, particular and general judgments, heaven, hell, and purgatory. All the essentials of eschatology have been clearly defined by the Church, notably the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the constitution Benedictus Deus of Pope Benedict XII in 1336. (Etym. Greek eschatos, uttermost + logos, discourse on.)

(Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Modern Catholic Dictionary)

Saint Augustine of Hippo - (354-430)   (PDF: 216k) Sister Maria of Jesus from Agreda - (1602-1665)   (PDF: 224k) Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque - (1647-1690)   (PDF: 161k) Rachele Ambrosini - (1925-1941)   (PDF: 160k) Saint Teresa of Jesus from the Andes - (1900-1920)   (PDF: 202k) Saint Anthony of Padua - (1195-1231)   (PDF: 209k) Servant of God Consolata Betrone - (1903-1946)   (PDF: 158k) Saint Francis Xavier Maria Bianchi - (1743-1815)   (PDF: 148k) Saint John Bosco - (1815-1888)   (PDF:211k) Saint Gaspar del Bufalo - (1786-1837)   (PDF: 147k) Servant of God Edvige Carboni - (1880-1952)   (PDF: 140k) Saint Catherine of Siena - (1347-1380)   (PDF: 171k) Servant of God Marie-Martha Chambon - (1841-1907)   (PDF: 196k) Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa - (1904-1955)   (PDF: 214k) Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich - (1774-1824)   (PDF: 243k) Servant of God Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero - (1886-1916)   (PDF: 223k) Saint Gemma Galgani - (1878-1903)   (PDF: 139k) Saint Gertrude - (1256-1302)   (PDF: 141k) Saint John of the Cross - (1542-1591)   (PDF: 169k) Saint John the Evangelist - (1st Century AD)   (PDF:182k) Blessed Pope John XXIII - (1881-1963)   (PDF: 168k) Saint Veronica Giuliani - (1660-1727)   (PDF: 277k) Saint Joseph of Cupertino - (1603-1663)   (PDF: 165k) Saint Clement Maria Hofbauer - (1751-1820)   (PDF: 163k) Saint Faustina Kowalska - (1905-1938)   (PDF: 162k) Blessed Dominic Lentini - (1770-1828)   (PDF: 179k) Saint Rose of Lima - (1586-1617)   (PDF: 226k) Saint Leopold Mandic, O.F.M.CAP. - (1866-1942)   (PDF: 172k) Venerable Antonio Margil - (1657-1726)   (PDF: 231k) Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified - (1846-1878)   (PDF: 217k) Servant of God Sister Josefa Menedez - (1890-1923)   (PDF: 230k) Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort - (1673-1716)   (PDF: 183k) Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora - (1774-1825)   (PDF: 192k) Servant of God, Teresa Neumann - (1898-1962)   (PDF: 206k) Venerable Margaret Occhiena - (1788-1856)   (PDF: 146k) Saint Luigi Orione - (1872-1940)   (PDF: 179k) Blessed Maria Assunta Pallotta - (1878-1905)   (PDF: 165k) Saint Paul of the Cross - (1694-1775)   (PDF: 181k) Saint Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi - (1566-1607)   (PDF: 221k) Saint Pio of Pietrelcina - (1887-1968)   (PDF: 189k) Blessed Pius IX - (1792-1878)   (PDF: 156k) Saint Stephen Protomartyr - (1st Century AD)   (PDF: 173k) Saint Frances of Rome - (1384-1440)   (PDF: 169k) Saint Francis de Sales - (1567-1622)   (PDF: 177k) Saint Dominic Savio - (1842-1857)   (PDF: 228k) Blessed Anna Schäffer - (1882-1925)   (PDF: 213k) Venerable Mother Speranza of Jesus - (1893-1983)   (PDF: 239k) Saint Bridget of Sweden - (1303-1373)   (PDF: 162k) Blessed Catherine Tekakwitha - (1656-1680)   (PDF: 212k) Saint Teresa of Avila - (1515-1582)   (PDF: 244k) Saint Therese of the Child Jesus - (1873-1897)   (PDF: 155k) Saint Thomas Aquinas - (Circa 1225 - 1274)   (PDF: 186k) Saint Louis Versiglia and Callistus Caravario - (1873-1930 and 1903-1930)   (PDF: 189k)       Servant of God Mother Mary Costanza Zauli - (1886-1954)   (PDF: 157k)
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To host the Paradise, Hell, Purgatory exhibition, you need to obtain a set of high definition PDFs to print the posters. You may request a DVD from the:

Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association
Phone: 815-254-4420
Email: exhibition@therealpresence.org

Please be sure to include your name, address and phone number with your request.

In cooperation with Antonia Salzano Acutis,
Curator of the Pontifical Academy Cultorum Martyrum and
President of the Institute of Saint Clement I Pope and Martyr,
the Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association
presents in English, complete with beautiful artwork, the following Exhibitions.

Eucharistic Miracles

Angels and Demons

Paradise, Hell, Purgatory

Blessed Virgin Mary