"Every eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him. And all the
tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves because of Him" (Apoc. I.
7).
"We shall all rise again." (1 Cor. XV. 51).
"The sea will give up the dead that are in it, and death and hell ...
their dead that are in them." (Apoc. XX. 13).
"The dead who are in Christ shall rise first." (1 Thess. IV. 15).
"We shall be changed, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and
this mortal must put on immortality." (1 Cor. XV. 52).
"He shall send His Angels with a trumpet, and a great voice, and they
shall gather together His elect from the four winds." (St. Matt. XXIV.
31).
"Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with
them (those who died in Christ) in the clouds to meet Christ." (1 Thess.
IV. 16).
"Then shall He sit upon the seat of His Majesty," (St. Matt. XXV. 31)
and "render to every man according to his works." (chap. XVI. 27).
Then "the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements
shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it
shall be burnt up." (2 Pet. III. 10). And all these events are to take
place "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye!" (1 Cor. XV. 52).
With the vivid words of Scripture before us, it is not difficult to make
a picture of the scene--the sign of the Cross where all can see it; the
voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God heralding the approach of
the Judge; the Son of Man, coming in the clouds with all His Angels and
thousands of His Saints (all those from Heaven and Purgatory); the cries
of those to whom His coming is as that of "a thief in the night" (1
Thess. V. 2); the shouts of joy of "the children of light" (verse 5);
the opening of the graves, the sea giving up its dead and the reunion of
each soul, whether from Heaven, Purgatory or hell, with its body; the
changing of the bodies of those who are living on the earth into
Resurrection bodies; then the great multitude of the elect clothed in
their bodies of immortality rising to meet their Lord in the air; then
"the great white throne" set up and He who is "appointed by God to be
Judge" (Acts X. 42) taking His seat upon it, "His garment ... white as
snow ... His throne like flames of fire ... thousands of thousands"
ministering to Him (Dan. VII. 9, 10); the dead, great and small,
standing in the presence of the throne (Apoc. XX. 12), "ten thousand
times a hundred thousand" standing before Him. (Dan. VII. 10).