By Fr. Leo Pabayo THE month of November is also a month dedicated to the praying for the souls of our beloved departed relatives and friends. During this month let us continue to meditate on what is in store for us when we have passed away from the present life to the life that awaits us after death. Among the things that we Christians have in common with other people is this belief in life after death. From the most sophisticated ancient cultures, like that of the Israelites, the Greeks, the Egyptians  and Romans as well as those of the primitive ones like those written about by the Spanish Catholic missionaries in the Philippines in the 16th century we learn of the belief in life after death. This belief, although they come in different forms is universal. The belief is most developed in the major religions of the world, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. There is something in common among the different religions with regards to their understanding of the afterlife, like for example the belief that some reward or punishment in the afterlife is meted out in the afterlife to a person according to how he lived his life before he died. For the Buddhists the reward or punishment is in the new form of life that he assumes when he is reincarnated. One Buddhist monk has written that the soul of man is like a glass of water. When a man dies his body can no longer hold the soul like the like the way that a glass holds water. The body will therefore assume another form, or will be reincarnated in an inferior form of animal life or another form of human life equal to or superior to the one he had lived before. We, Christians believe that there is more to life after death than this. We believe in is the resurrection of the dead. As Christians we believe that the kind of reward and punishment that is meted out to the person who dies is taught by Christ in the Gospel. However, the science of exegesis, that is, a more exact understanding of what Christ teaches in the Gospel shows that we cannot be simplistic in our interpretation of Christ’s teaching on life after death. There is such a thing as literary form in the language of the Gospel. Many of the teachings of Christ in the Gospel are in the form of parables. We believe in these teachings of the Church that Christ founded that there is judgment immediately after death in which some reward and punishment is already meted out. The final and definitive judgment however is in the end time, in the Second Coming of Christ. What that reward or punishment is after death has been the subject of the speculations of theologians. Some have defined the reward in terms of heaven. Heaven is of course a metaphor. The word “heaven” literally refers to the sky above as this assumes different forms and beauty at different times of the day and at different seasons of the year. Man’s fertile imagination however has envisioned that beyond the clouds exists another world with people and angels in them. The truth about heaven as taught in the Gospel and the teachings of the Church as well as in the writings of the saints is obviously more than this. It is the state of our soul wherever he may be in the next life. In the present life, when we are in the state of happiness we would say “I am in heaven.” On the other hand when we are experiencing the worst thing that is happening in our life, we would say “I am in hell.” There would be something of this in the next life. Heaven and hell later on can therefore be understood in terms of our experiences in the present life. When we have done something good in the present life we feel good about it. We can feel as if we are being rewarded for the good we have done. On the other hand when we have done something bad we feel bad about it. We feel as we deserve some punishment for the bad deed. We feel guilty. We may not be able to figure out right away what the good or bad thing is or the good we had done that makes us feel good or bad but given the time to reflect deeply we can trace them back to something good or bad or good that we have actually done. In other words, our feeling is not the best gauge to know the state of our soul for the reason that our feelings can sometimes be confused. Sometimes we need help to untangle our confused feeling. The best gauge is our understanding of the reason behind our feeling. Feelings come and go. But understanding the reason for our feeling reveals the truth about what is happening to us. Our feeling bad will continue until we do something to change our state of soul like repenting of the wrong we have done or receiving forgiveness for the wrong we have done. This will result in a long lasting feeling that things are ok in our life and we are encouraged to continue to do more of the good that we have done or are doing.