Part III – Crossing and Defeating Death
23 February 2025
Stefania Caterina’s words in the book Beyond the Great Barrier[1]:
God did not create death
I received several explanations regarding death. I was told that every Christian is called to pass through death in order to conquer it, as Jesus did. The departure point is once again the offering of life to God, through Jesus Christ, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This offering of ourselves makes us full participants in divine life. United with Christ, we dress ourselves in incorruptibility, we experience the resurrection, which is victory over death.
I would like to outline a summary of the explanations I received.
“Death is Satan’s servant. It comes in two guises: as physical death and as spiritual death. The first touches every man, the second touches those who belong to Satan, who exclude themselves from God’s love and from his grace. These are the two faces of death.
Satan hates man created in God’s image. For this reason, he pushes him towards death. For him this is a sort of mission, which was not entrusted to him by God, who does not want anybody’s death. Satan attributed this duty to himself, when he tempted your ancestors, and led them to rebel against God. From that moment, he set himself the goal of leading every man to death. Spiritual death first of all, which interests him more, and then physical death.
Death does not come from God, as the Bible clearly states: “God did not create death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living. For he fashioned all things that they might have being; and the creatures of the world are wholesome and there is not a destructive drug among them.”[2]
Satan uses two tools to lead man towards death: illness, which leads to physical death, and sin, which leads to spiritual death. These are the two stings of death that Satan uses against man. Although it is the end of a natural process that comes about within the organism, even death due to old-age originates from evil. This evil is called corruptibility. It entered the world due to original sin, because man was not created mortal by God, but immortal. In the Bible it is written:“For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him. But by the envy of the Devil death entered the world and they who are in his possession experience it.”[3]
Unfortunately, the majority of humanity has betrayed God. Due to this, physical death touches each of us, without exception. Spiritual death touches those who have chosen to belong to Satan. They experience the worst death. Jesus Christ came to Earth to conquer death throughout the universe. He came to destroy the works of the devil.[4] Death is the greatest of all Satan’s works. In fact, it is ruination, total destruction, before which man is powerless.
Jesus Christ came to earth, sent by the Father, to conquer death. He would have been able to conquer it in many ways, but he chose to conquer it through his own death. In this way, he transformed death from a tool of ruination, into an instrument of purification and redemption. It is written in the bible: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”[5] This affirmation is very important, because it enables us to understand that death has been conquered.
Death was conquered by Jesus Christ. It just needs to be hunted definitively from the universe, and this will come about at the end of time. Upon returning, Jesus Christ will separate death and hell from creation forever.[6]
I say to you once again however that death has already been conquered. Jesus will not therefore come a second time to conquer death, because he has already done so; nor will he come to conquer the devil because he has already done so. Jesus will return to fulfil the definitive work of elimination of evil.
If up to now death was not eliminated totally from creation, despite the coming of Jesus, it is not because it was not conquered, but because man had to be put to the test. He had to freely choose whether or not to adhere to the redemption implemented by Christ. God allows evil to exist, to purify man, putting him before a choice between good and evil, between life and death.[7]
With Christ, you too have conquered death. Although you still experience physical death, your body will rise up, when Jesus Christ returns. You will rise up because Christ conquered death. Evil will have to disappear, and your condition will return to its original state, that of the immortal man, before original sin.
On earth, man fights against death. However, this is not the final battle. Christ alone will definitively conquer death, at the end of time. Nevertheless, if you give yourselves completely to Christ through Our Blessed Mother Mary, each of you can conquer your own personal battle against death, sin, illness.
Those who offer Christ their lives, will conquer spiritual death first of all. By offering yourselves to Christ, you belong to him, and Satan cannot touch you. Then physical death wins. Understand this. From the very moment every man is born, Satan blows the breath of death onto him, and it begins its work. Death attacks man throughout his whole life. He avails of sin, illness, of that degenerative process that is old age, and that for many of you is worse than an illness. All of this is the work of death, that Satan hurls against all creatures.
At every moment of a man’s life, God puts a limit on death. It is a limit against which Satan is powerless. It is put in place for each of you.
In this way, God protects man until such time as he attains fullness, and until he is ready to pass through to the other life. Only at that moment, God allows death to act in a definitive manner and only then will a person die. If God were to fail to put a limit in place, humanity would no longer exist, because Satan would kill every man as soon as he is born, as this is his work.
There is no Christian who fails to meet death, and every Christian must be aware of how to deal with it. This is your mission. Death should be looked at in the eyes and faced up to, in all life circumstances. You can do this in the name of Christ, who conquered death. Not only can you do this, you must do it.
I ask you to be strong, courageous, and determined. Death is Satan’s servant. Satan’s breath is death, just as God’s breath is life. As God sends his Spirit, which is life, Satan sends his breath, which is death. Satan’s breath is corruption. Death means corruption. This is what entered into creation due to the devil’s envy. God sends you, as members of the Risen Christ, to counteract Satan’s work, and to face up to and conquer death, sin, illness.
The higher the number of people who offer themselves to Satan, the more death and corruption will increase. This is particularly visible on Earth. You can easily see how illnesses and devastation progress on your planet. This happens because, by adhering to Satan’s work for the most part, humanity gives him the power and opens up the doors to death, which Satan is the Lord of.”
(St. Raphael the Archangel, 12.02.2001)
“Satan avails of the fear of death to chain the people, and to make them into his slaves. It is your duty to undo the chains of death. First of all within yourselves and then in the reality that surrounds you, where you are sent.
Satan insinuates the fear of death in man, he injects it into your souls, like the snake injects its poison when it bites. You must carry the hope of life with you, the only force that can oppose the fear of death. When I speak of life, I refer to the fullness, the happiness, the awareness of belonging to God, but also to eternal life.
It is important to believe in eternal life, because death is conquered by the hope of eternal beatitude. Your physical death would not have any meaning if you did not have the hope of eternity within yourselves. You already experience resurrection if you belong to Christ. It will become a definitive reality upon Christ’s return.
Many Christians are slow to believe in eternal life and they lose the hope of true life. But you must clearly understand that true life cannot be found on Earth. Earthly life is only a great preparation. It is the time of the trial, the time of the sowing. You will only see the harvest partially in this life, in the next life you will see it in its fullness. Many people are discouraged because they wanted to see the fruits of what they sow immediately, they want to see a change in the world.
You cannot change the world with your own strength, but only through your own authentic conversion. You will see the fruits of what you sow at a later stage because the history of salvation is a history that embraces the universe. It has its stages and its journey. You are part of this journey. Do not be in a hurry! Know that each of you will fully gather the fruits of what you sowed, if not here, then in the next life. If this were not the case, your earthly existence would have no meaning.
Carry and cultivate the hope of beatitude within yourselves, true beatitude, which derives from uniting yourselves completely with God. This hope unties the chains of death and conquers Satan. Do not bring many words to people, bring hope. It is the great unknown among the men of today, including many Christians.”
(St. Raphael the Archangel, 02.03.2001)
“Satan is evil, death is evil. However, God may also use Satan and death as tools. When the person reaches fullness, God allows physical death to act. If you offer yourselves to God, you know how to accept death because you are open to God’s life. This life conquers death and allows you to welcome it like the “sister death”, that Saint Francis spoke about.
Judgement could not come without death. Judgement is inevitable because humanity has sinned. Man consciously chose to sin and he had to subject himself to judgement. Death comes first, then comes judgement. Death leads you before God. If you belong to Christ, death will introduce you into eternal happiness. It loses its power, in he who believes in Christ.[8]
If you belong completely to God through Jesus Christ, if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you become ruination and confusion for Satan. The offering of your life to God, through Mary, makes you become a stumbling block for Satan, against which his work shatters. Death also shatters against the person who belongs to Christ.
Physical death is only a temporary experience. God leads the whole universe towards a progressive overcoming of death. Your death is only a parenthesis, pending reconciliation in peace and harmony with those who are dear to you, pending the definitive resurrection of the body and soul.”
(St. Raphael the Archangel, 05.03.2001)
[1] See Stefania Caterina, Beyond the Great Barrier, Luci dell’Esodo 2008, Chap. 14, pp. 236-240, 245-248
[2] See Wisdom 1,13-15.
[3] Wisdom 2,23-24 Sap 2,23-24
[4] See 1 John 3,8
[5] Heb 2,14-15
[6] See Rev 20,14
[7] See Deut 60,15
[8] See John 11,25-26
Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe 