Tag: <span>Hell</span>

February 18, 2021February 3, 2021

Black and White

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

It would be nice if life were not a binary, black-and-white choice. But it is.

It is a fact that all people are a mix of good and bad; therefore, it may be said, in a sense, that all people are good. Evil is the absence of good; therefore, since all people have good in them, all people are good.

But in the end, there are only life and death; there is no in-between. And it is not people who are all bad who choose death over life. Only good people make this bad choice–because all people are, at least in part, good. And unfortunately, the good people who make this bad choice are not few.

The choice offered to the Israelites in the first reading is a binary one: life, or death. Jesus draws the same line in the gospel, and fills it with color: Only those who lose their life–that is, give it away, to God and others–will save their lives.

Ours is an age where many want to blur these lines, holding that even those who ignore God and do not live life as a gift will be saved in the end. But this belief contradicts Jesus.

Many will die this day; many who have made the wrong choice. Our mission, like Jesus, is to offer our prayers and sufferings for sinners, that God may inject into them an extra, special dose of His grace so that they may discover how desirable He is and convert to Him.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to stir in your heart a love for the welfare, eternal and earthly, of your brothers and sisters. Ask Him to make of you a fruitful and productive offering for souls.

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December 3, 2020November 17, 2020

Joy in the Heavenly City

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

How can our joy be complete in Heaven, when there will be many who are not saved?

When, as foreseen in the first reading, the gates are opened, and a nation that is just is let in, He simultaneously brings down the lofty city, the city of the proud and arrogant. As glory as our heavenly destiny is, how can we truly rejoice when these are lost to eternal suffering?

When contemplating the most dramatic element of the human reality, this eternal division between the just and the condemned, we must remember that the latter choose their fate. It is true that (generally speaking) they do not see Heaven and Hell set before them, and choose Hell, but they firmly choose not to undergo the radical transformation God asks of them in this life, whatever the consequences.

There is perhaps no more eloquent metaphor for this choice in the Gospel than today’s parable of the house built on sand. Those who build on sand make a choice. They may want the sand for its location and the associated ease, pleasures, gratifications, but they know it is not destined to last. “And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

We may rejoice wholeheartedly, because we have a God who is so merciful and so humble that He chooses to respect absolutely the freedom of His creatures, who would rather suffer in the long run than accept His challenges. It is safe to say that people are not as naïve as we think; we are not as special as we sometimes think in understanding life as a grand choice. People know this. But many simply choose the broad, easy path.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: In this Advent time, contemplate the world in its darkness ahead of Jesus’ coming at Christmas. See yourself as His hope for getting an opportunity to infuse a disproportionate amount of the grace He brings at the Incarnation into others, to help them convert to Him, and give yourself to Him for this purpose. But do so serenely, understanding that it is His will to leave the final choice up to them.

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November 13, 2020October 28, 2020

Separation

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Jesus does this a lot, and it is annoying to our refined worldly sensibilities. He preaches on a separation at the end of time/end of our lives in stark contrast to the amalgamation/non-separation of people here on earth. This amalgamation will persist until the very last day, as in the days of Noah: “They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark.”

But the annoying part is that the separation is coming, and Jesus just won’t stop talking about it.

Perhaps if we were gods, we would do things differently. Perhaps we would set things up such that things persist just as they are right into eternity. Perhaps we would make it such that, to avoid the radical result of condemnation of many, the few who radically choose Jesus would be deprived of the monumental transformation and exaltation that comes with the reward of the beatific vision in eternity.

But we are not gods. We must trust and obey. And pray and sacrifice ceaselessly for the eternal happiness of our fellow humans, attained through conversion. In the way God has in fact set things up, we may glimpse how worthwhile and different eternal happiness is from happiness, even spiritual happiness, here on earth–that God would sacrifice so much that we may attain it.

In the first reading, St. John reminds us that we don’t need to be particularly clever or invent anything new to make the choice for Christ and follow Him. We need only persevere in fulfilling His Commandment of love (cf. Mt. 22:37-40). “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” (Jn. 15:10)

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Contemplate eternity. Imagine, as best you can, heaven and hell. Drink in the mystery that there is in fact a separation in the end, and some will go to heaven, and others, hell. Be open with Jesus: Ask Him why He set things up this way. And ask Him for the grace to be effective not only in reaching heaven, but especially in assisting others in choosing this path.

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September 27, 2020September 9, 2020

Two Roads Diverged in a Wood, and I–

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Salvation was a hot topic in the 1500s within Christianity. Subject of much debate. Not so much anymore–because many take it for granted.

There is a mistaken logic prevalent among Catholics, often believed but not as often expressed, that goes something like this: God is infinitely kind and merciful, and He created human beings out of love, for eternal happiness. God, being omnipotent, is also not a failure. Now, we must not be heretics; we believe in human free will; we believe that not all are necessarily saved. But to go to hell after death, you need to live in open, explicit, clear, and stubborn rebellion against God. God will reluctantly respect such a decision to reject Him eternally. But in the end, given this threshold, few souls are lost. All the Scriptures (particularly the Gospel passages) that point to many taking the road to perdition are hyperbole aimed at helping assure that we don’t make the mistake of open rebellion against God.

But what if Jesus’ words–and in this case, they’re not very mysterious–what if they are true, at face value? What if the road to salvation really is narrow, and those who take it few? And the road to perdition wide and spacious, and those who travel it, many? (Cf. Lk. 13:23 and Mt. 7:13-14)

If this were the case, wouldn’t God be unjust–not to us, but to Himself, as infinitely merciful? Wouldn’t He, the omnipotent one, have failed?

Today’s readings go far in answering that question. “You say, ‘The LORD’s way is not fair!’ Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?” The Israelites seem to have grappled with the same questions that we do. Through the prophet, God goes on to say, in summary, “All you have to do is turn from the path of selfishness to the path of virtue, and you shall preserve your life. Why is that unfair?”

The Gospel passage reiterates this message eloquently. If we are to be saved, Jesus demands that we change. This is the contrast he makes between the prostitutes and tax collectors and the chief priests: The former repented and changed, the latter did not.

To lose our eternal salvation–a terrible prospect–we do not need actively to reject God. All we need to do, and we may do it by passive procrastination, is reject this change that is the condition for entering Heaven. All we need do is reject the transformation process God proposes to us. And, because this transformation involves radical, deep, and painful purification and detachment, it is very easy for us to reject it, simply by putting it off and ignoring it.

The road to perdition is wide and spacious, and many are those who travel it.

Is God betraying Himself, His mercy, when souls are lost? God would indeed betray Himself if He were to override the freedom He gave us by saving us without our cooperation. Is He a failure, if many are lost? His success is glorious when even one soul, having retained intact the mind-blowing gift of freedom by which God created us in His own image, and by which He made the decision to place limits on His own omnipotence, reaches the exalted destiny of holiness to which He calls all of us.

So, are His ways unfair? No, our ways are unfair, when, after all He has done to keep the door to salvation open to us, including acceptance of the radical humiliation of death on a cross described by St. Paul in the second reading, we refuse to walk through that door.

Now as we realize all these things, like the hearers of the apostles right after Pentecost, we may be cut to the heart and say, “What are we to do, my brothers?” (Cf. Acts 2:37)

Paul gives us the answer in that same second reading, when explaining the means to achieve unity in heart through love.

He explains that the secret is to be humble–but not just with any humility. He says, “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus,” who took the form of a slave and humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross.

In the end, we must be humble enough to embrace and choose not only salvation, but the radical transformation required for holiness, the fullness of the exalted destiny to which God has called us in Christ. Because in the end, salvation and holiness are the same thing, and the former does not come without the latter. And the path of transformation is hard, because it means following the same path as Jesus: Humble obedience to God, even to the point of suffering.

The choice before us may seem radical. But so is the glory and happiness to the eternal life to which we are called.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus that you want Him to do the work in you that He is longing to do, to transform you. Ask Him to make sure this choice comes to fruition. Tell Him that in the midst of weakness and ignorance, you cannot do this without Him taking the process over. Tell Him you trust Him for your destiny, and ask Him to help you trust Him more.

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August 17, 2020July 29, 2020

A Binary Choice

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

To truly appreciate, wonder at, and ultimately experience the surpassing joy that is an ongoing relationship with God, it is important to understand how terrible by contrast is the sin in which we habitually live.

When the rich young man approaches Jesus to ask Him what is necessary to gain eternal life, Jesus does not tell him to do his best, that God understands his wounds and psychological limitations–do your best, and God’s mercy will lift you up out of your misery after this life into eternal bliss.

He holds a much simpler line. He says, “Keep the commandments.”

The truly amazing thing about this exchange is that, rather than balking at this hard line, the rich young man realizes that beyond even this challenge, something is still lacking, not just in general, but for attaining his aim–for attaining eternal life.

Jesus does not gainsay his further prodding. He asserts what Catholic salvation theology will later reaffirm and explain: That to enter heaven, complete detachment from created reality and exclusive attachment to God is not optional, but necessary. Indeed, it may be posited that people go to Hell, not so much because they reject God as because they reject the painful and necessary process of their own transformation through detachment.

All sin stems in some way from from attachment to self and created things. And the first reading spells out with horrible clarity what this attachment leads to: Ultimately, a despoiling of all happiness. We may see an allegory of this in the cocaine addict. It is said that the first cocaine hit is the best; the addict thereafter chases that first high but never fully finds it again, as each succeeding high is less gratifying than the last, and the addict descends into complete, inescapable misery. So it is with the soul attached to self and creative things, in habitual sin. Life in sin is so miserable, that drastic, painful wake-up calls, like that portrayed in the first reading, come to resemble more an intervention for a drug addict than a punishment.

Still, as miserable as the life of sin is, many more times exalted is life with God, here on earth, but especially in eternity. “…and you will have treasure in heaven.”

Ultimately, the choice for God or for sin is drastic and binary: “He who does not gather with me, scatters.” Nor is it a choice between two paths at a fork in the road, but rather, a choice to paddle upstream, or to drift. Those who make the choice to drift will not enjoy friendship with God on earth or, more importantly, enter eternal life.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Affirm categorically that your life choice is for Him, that you are willing to undergo whatever sacrifice and accept whatever suffering is necessary in the process of choosing Him over sin. Look at a crucifix and thank Him for opening the door to this choice, which was tragically closed to us by our first parents, through His act of salvation.

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August 12, 2020July 21, 2020

It’s Either/Or

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it seemed the Church was replete with theologians excited to invent–convinced, it appeared, that their hour was the hour of innovation. The thirst for innovation seemed in some cases to surpass the thirst for truth.

One of the brand new theological trends of that time, which unfortunately remains prevalent to this very day among even good and noble souls, is the notion that maybe, just maybe–read: probably, likely–all or at least most people in the end are saved.

This supposition flies in the face of the prior one-thousand-nine-hundred-something years of tradition in the Church and the unanimous teaching of the saints. It also flies in the face of the Gospel itself, where Jesus unequivocally states that those who walk the broad road that leads to damnation are many (cf. Mt. 7:13).

Such theology rejects the message of the first reading wholesale, or relegates it completely to Old Testament times. Yet, this first reading is a very tame precursor to the terrible separation of the sheep from the goats at Final Judgement, about which Jesus explicitly speaks (Mt. 25: 31-46).

And in today’s Gospel, He talks about treating those who commit offenses and fail to listen to the Church as outcasts, indicating further that whatever the Church binds or looses on earth is likewise bound or loosed in Heaven.

That God allows souls to be condemned is of course as mysterious as it is certain–but a sort of understanding can be reached if we accept that God values human freedom more than He does human salvation. He would rather allow persons to walk to their own perdition than remove from them their freedom by forcing salvation on them when they have rejected it.

But who in his right mind would reject God’s mercy and eternal life, in the end, if given the choice?

This too, while mysterious, can be understood in a way when we realize that, by and large, people don’t reject God’s mercy and love–they reject the prospect of their own transformation. In the end, only saints stand in the presence of God. Standing before Him without full alignment to Him would in fact be a fate more painful than Hell. Reaching sainthood, whether on earth or in purgatory, is a deeply painful process of detachment, and while the end result is exaltation, the process feels like one is being turned inside out.

And many, many reject the prospect of this process–quietly but explicitly, in the recesses of their hearts–and lose God as the inevitable result. There is no middle ground.

But hearken to the second-to-last statement in today’s Gospel! “If two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.”

Per the message of St. Faustina, the Church must come together as never before and pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners. And in line with today’s Gospel, Our Lord assured this saint that prayer for the conversion of sinners is always answered.

Heavenly Father, by the infinite power of the sacrifice of your Son, penetrate deeply into the hearts of sinners, and convert them to yourself! I give you my freedom as a small token; leverage it as you did the self-gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary to pry open the hardened hearts of sinners and show them compellingly what they are missing! Lead them to Yourself!

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Him to what lengths He would go–in fact, went–to open the door for sinners to walk through to their salvation. Contemplate the degree of His sacrifice for the eternal fulfillment of human persons. And ask Him what role He would like you to play to help them put one foot in front of the other and walk through that door.

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