November 24

In death men pass into the fullness of reality and truth. They assume the place that is truly theirs. The masquerade of life, the hiding behind posturings and fictions, is now over. We are what we are in truth. Judgment consists in the removal of the mask by death, for judgment is simply truth itself, its manifestation. Certainly this truth is not impersonal. God is truth, truth is God, is a “person”. Truth can be judging, definitive, only if it has a divine character. God is judge insofar as he is truth itself. But God is truth for us as the One who became man, who himself became the measure of man. Hence God is the criterion of truth for us in and through Christ. Herein lies the redemptive transformation of the idea of judgment that Christian Faith has brought about. The Truth that judges us has itself given us a truth of a special kind, the truth of being loved by Truth.

From: Eschatologie—Tod und ewiges Leben, p. 169

 Ratzinger, J., Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year (ed. I. Grassl) (San Francisco 1992) 371.