“Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins! Save us from the fires of Hell! Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of Thy Mercy!” That traditional Catholic prayer came to mind as I pondered this gospel. Jesus certainly paints a rather graphic image of hell, a subject that few people care to dwell on. For them, hell has become a fable, a myth, an outdated holdover from the “Old Testament God of fire, brimstone, and judgment.”
Urged on by false doctrines and a want to believe that there can be no such thing as eternal punishment for serious wrongs when Jesus is a God of love and kindness, many have thrown hell out the window along with any concern for sin in their lives. After all, if there is no hell, then why would we need to worry about sin? Yet Jesus spoke more often on the subject of hell than heaven.
In today’s gospel, he uses the Gehenna to paint a picture of hell that his listeners could relate to. It was the ever-burning rubbish dump of Jerusalem where the city’s garbage and trash cans were emptied. As you can imagine, it had become a foul, unclean place, which smoked and smoldered at all times like a vast incinerator. In the mind of his listeners, there was no grimmer or more terrible place on earth.
The Church certainly does not view hell as a myth. While we often hear that hell is the destiny for anyone who dies in a state of mortal sin, the Church has never taught that anyone has in fact, died in a state of mortal sin because we never know what manner of contrition may take place if any before a person dies. Hell should not be seen as a place created by God into which God casts sinners. Instead, hell can best be understood as a self-chosen state for those who have chosen to alienate themselves from God, not as a punishment that God inflicts on unrepentant sinners.
It is not God who rejects the sinner, but the sinner who rejects God.
Our Catechism points out, “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves…To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of self-exclusion is called ‘hell.’” (1033)
Hell is best understood as the state of being utterly alone in self-chosen isolation, not literally a place of fire. Hell is theoretically possible for anyone of us if we end our lives totally rejecting goodness and God. Has any person ended his or her life in this condition? We do not know. Could anyone do so? Most definitely. As a product of our free will we could choose to live apart from God in this lifetime and many of us do. We could be so utterly absorbed and trapped in ourselves to the point that we see no need for God’s company, much less his love and mercy.
Jesus uses rather graphic language to grab our attention. I doubt any of us would literally follow his advice and mutilate ourselves in any way nor would he want us to but with this descriptive language Jesus is challenging us to realize that eternal life is worth any sacrifice if that takes away the temptations that stand in the way between us and God. Behind his warnings, I hear a call to humility. We shouldn’t be so proud of ourselves that we lose vigilance against our fallen nature or give into the lies of the devil who is constantly trying to convince us that we don’t need God in our lives.
As James implies in his letter, at the root of all pride is a yearning for self-sufficiency at the expense of others, which is so contrary to the message of the gospel. If you recall, that is what drove Adam and Eve to break God’s command in the Garden of Eden; they tried to become like God, which is what a fair number of so-called Christians have done. Having become so able to take care of their earthly needs, they see little need for God in this lifetime, so quite likely they will see no need for God in the next lifetime as well.
Life is full of choices. Every day we can expect to find ourselves in situations that demand a choice between right and wrong, but how watchful are we in avoiding sin? How readily do we seek to do God’s will in our daily lives?
Sometimes I have disappointed people because I have told them that the choice they made was a grave sin. In reply, one person asserted that God does not demand perfection in exchange for his love and accepts us for who we are. I told her she was right, but I cautioned her not to confuse who you are with what you do.
Leaving aside the question of guilt, mortal sin, and hell, every choice we make creates us, forms us, and gives shapes to our souls. Yes, God created us, but we create ourselves as the unique individual persons that we become. By our choices, we define who are. Do the choices we make reflect a personal desire to be with God forever in heaven or not? As his followers, we must be willing to sacrifice even what is most precious to us to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus informed his apostles, “Anyone who is not against us is with us.” Are we with him or not? The choices we make each day speak louder than any answer we could vocalize. Hopefully when the moment comes to stand before him, we will allow Jesus to look us in the eye, embrace us lovingly and say, “Welcome to my Father’s house for you are indeed one with us!”