Can you imagine dying on Good Friday?

It is certainly one of the holiest days.

In Africa, at a Church-approved apparition site, one of the visionaries, Vestine Salina, was taken on a "journey" through levels of the afterlife by the Blessed Mother on Good Friday, 1983 (she came out of her "coma" on Easter, after doctors and church officials, hearing no pulse, detecting no respiration, and finding no blood pressure, were ready to bury her). She saw Heaven but also: "Our Lady showed me an abyss filled with fire to explain that this is the eternal fire," said the seer. "But she told me that hell is not fire. It is the eternal suffering of not seeing God, of being deprived of God."

That was Kibeho in Rwanda. You can read about it here.

They saw three levels: "Isangano" -- the "place of communion" -- where seven handsome men in pure white cloaks were in a circle creating gorgeous music but with no instruments, "each note filled with a different sensation of contentment and joy"; "Isenderezwa z'ibyishimo" or the "place of the cherished of God," also part of Heaven; as well as purgatory: "Isesengurwa, a "place of purification" for those who "persevered."

"The last place we visited was a land of twilight where the only illumination was an unpleasant shade of red that reminded me of congealed blood," said another visionary, Anathalie Mukamaimpka, who still lives at Kibeho, seen often in deep prayer as she walks around the shrine. "The heat that rose from that world was stifling and dry -- it brushed my face like a flame, and I feared that my skin would blister and crack. I couldn't look at the countless people who populated that unhappy place because their misery and anguish pained me so greatly. Mary didn't have to say the name of this place... I knew I was in hell."

One day we will know where Jesus went between His death and Resurrection.

It's fascinating how consistently -- whether at apparitions of the Blessed Mother or during "death" brushes -- the point is made that we in our free will choose hell, if it's hell where we are heading. Said Fatima visionary Sister Lucia dos Santos in 1992: "Hell is a reality… Continue to preach about hell, for Our Lord Himself spoke of hell and it is in the Holy Scriptures. God condemns no one to hell. People condemn themselves to hell. God has given mankind the freedom of choice, and He respects this human freedom.” The exact same message has come from the reputed site of Medjugorje. “We saw many people in hell," said the seer Vicka Ivankovic. "Many are there already, and many more will go there when they die…The Blessed Mother says that those people who are in hell are there because they chose to go there. They wanted to go to hell…We all know that there are persons on this earth who simply don’t admit that God exists, even though He helps them, gives them life and sun and rain and food. He always tries to nudge them onto the path of holiness. They just say they don’t believe, and they deny Him. They deny Him, even when it is time to die. And they continue to deny Him, after they are dead. It is their choice. It is their will that they go to hell. They choose hell.,"  In greatest danger: atheists, "those who do not know the Love of God," in the words of yet another visionary. [Here is a great prayer for atheists, with "wonderful promises" for those who pray it.]

Lately, we also came across a book, Heaven Visions: Glimpses into Glory, by a Christian blind man, Terry James, who died clinically at Saline Memorial Hospital in Benton, Arkansas, on Good Friday, April 22, 2011. His experience was of Heaven.

"My heart stopped working three times, and I was within ten seconds, according to the interventional cardiologist, of being beyond resuscitation," he says. "The defibrillator paddles were used each time to start my heart. When my heartbeat went silent, I didn't see Jesus or talk with Him. I didn't see the glorious city, Heaven," he said. "But what I did see was spectacular, and it made me totally unaware of ever having been anywhere else.

"This much I can say with certainty: Heaven is magnificent far beyond anything the most eloquent narrative by the greatest of novelists could ever begin to express. [People] beckoned me. A throng of cheering, brightly smiling, laughter-filled young men and women, their faces radiant with the glowing health of youth, wanted me to join them. I had never been more at peace, absolute calm surrounding me... within me. This was life at its apex, and I moved forward, my desire to be with them as powerful as their allure. A vividly colorful ambience generated by their love was overwhelming -- like the sun's radiance that warms to the very core. Momentarily I would be with them, a part of them. Nothing else entered my mind -- not questions about where I had been. I was here. This was real, and the reality was all-embracing. The young faces beamed with that shimmering glow, their eyes on me, their love gently tugging me toward them. Retrospectively, I longed to join them. I wanted to be a part of them more than anything I can remember ever wanting. I say 'retrospectively,' because at that moment I had no memories: no thought of the past, the future, or anything else -- just the desire to merge with this reality.'"

Alas, a moment later, James heard someone -- an earthly voice -- say, "I just hit him with the paddles!"  It was medical personnel. They were reviving him. "I remember thinking: NO! I don't want to leave. I never want to leave this wonderful place. The absolute peace had a gravity of its own, tugging me toward the throng, and I remember that the pull of the darkness in the opposite direction made the leaving emotionally draining. I wanted to stay forever, and yet everything again became dark, and I was thinking that I was having a nightmare. I was in the land of my longing, where I had always wanted to be - where I belonged. This was a bad dream trying to take me from my home. Surely I  soon would be back where I was safe, loved, and at peace. I would be back with those young people and the warn, inner glow would return. Then the realization came into focus in my thinking. I wasn't having a bad dream, I was having a heart attack. This was the reality. I was back on the gurney or the operating table of the cath lab."

[resources: afterlife books]

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