What happens immediately after a person dies?
Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.
Immediately after death, each person undergoes their particular judgement in their immortal soul before Christ. In that encounter, one's life is seen in the radiant light of truth. Depending on whether the soul dies in friendship with God, in need of purification, or in deliberate, unrepented mortal sin, the soul immediately enters either the joy of heaven (directly or via purgatory) or eternal separation in hell.
At the end of time, when Christ returns in glory, there will also be the General or Final Judgement. At that time, all the dead will rise bodily, and the full cosmic and historical consequences of every person's good and evil deeds will be revealed in the sight of all creation.
Sources
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1021
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1022
- Hebrews 9:27
Awaiting review by the chaplaincy. Written in our own words; the Church's own texts are the authority.