Hell
Posted by: tony on 07/21/2007 11:03 PM
Updated by: tony on 07/23/2007 10:56 AM
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Expires: 08/21/2007 12:00 AM
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Last weekend, after Mass, I walked into the "gathering space" to say hello to Father and tell him what a wonderful homily he had delivered. "Sinners in the hands of an angry God" had nothing on this.
As I approached, I realized he was in a rapt conversation with a well dressed woman who appeared to be in her mid to late 50's. She was discussing Father's "intolerance", and how even as a Catholic there were many things that the Church infallibly teaches that she didn't believe in.
One of them was hell.
"I can't believe a loving God would send anyone to hell!" the lady exclaimed. Father replied: "God doesn't send anyone to hell." The lady countered with: "Why would anyone choose hell?"
Father Fox puts it well:
You see, in this life, we don't just choose sinful things; the things we choose shape who we are -- we are, with our choices, in the process of becoming. I don't mean to say a sinner, so enlightened by the Lord, cannot or will not repent and believe; but I do mean to say that it seems very reasonable to me that the sinner won't want to -- in that moment when God's grace enables him to make a truly free choice, his choice can still be...sin, because that is who he has become.
And I'd like to add, maybe someone chooses hell because he has gotten to the point where he doesn't consider hell as being bad.
In the United States in recent times, we have become a people who wants to be entertained. We get easily bored. And we have projected that need to be entertained onto the Church and most importantly on the Mass.
We really don't understand the God shaped hole that we are all created with. It needs to be filled, ideally with the presence of God, but if not, it's generally going to be filled with something. Many people fill it with bad things like drugs, alcohol, illicit sex... worldly things.
Satan loves this.
We need to understand that Jesus Christ died for all of our sins. He paid the required blood debt we had to God for the sins of our first parents, Adam and Eve. But God is not a "cosmic rapist". He will not take us into heaven against our will, kicking and screaming. If we don't want heaven, we choose hell.
Let's not do that.
Correction: Father Fox isn't my parish priest, I believe I'd enjoy having him as my parish priest, but I'm not ready to move yet. :)
Update: David Morrison has an interesting commentary on this. He writes:
I do suspect though that an awful lot of us are spiritually asleep. We've become like comatose souls like in the first Matrix movie, being fed a diet of pre-masticated diversions and entertainments to keep us dreaming our lives away. Sometimes something happens to wake us up, the sudden crushing pain in the chest and coming to in the emergency room, or when the officer asks you for the third time if you can recall how many drinks you had earlier in the evening, or the first time you figure you really need to take that HIV test or the time when the nurse appears at your side saying I am sorry to have to tell you and asking can I call someone for you?
David is, I believe, quite correct. But being ignorant is not what sends us to hell (in my unenlightened opinion). To expand on David's analogy, choosing hell is a lot like what Neo's compatriot Cipher (who is set to betray all of his friends) says when he is talking to Agent Smith: "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss." Cipher is choosing hell.
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