Hell and Hope

One

Hope is the virtue whereby the individual strives for Heaven as something which is possible, but not guaranteed. So hope involves three things. First, an active pursuit of God and Heaven. Second, a realization that the attainment of Heaven is possible, (after all, if it wasn’t possible to get to Heaven, why would anyone even try to get there?) Third, a realization that failing to attain Heaven is also possible, (after all, if getting to Heaven was guaranteed, why would you have to try to get there?).  

So a vigorous hope implies an awareness that hell is a real but tragic option. But many people think it’s not a good idea to bring up the idea of hell. Some say it doesn’t even exist.

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, made it quite clear that Hell exists and there is the possibility due to unrepentant sin of going there forever by our own free choice.

St. Faustina gives a testimony of it in her diary, “Today, I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is!” She then describes what the suffering of Hell is like. She states, “I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like. I, Sister Faustyna, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence…I have received a command from God to leave it in writing….But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell. (Diary 741)

Two

There are probably three primary reasons why people don’t want to talk about hell. First, they think, “How could a good God keep anyone out of heaven?” Secondly, they think, “How could a good God design an eternal torture chamber and actually put people there to suffer in agony forever?” Thirdly, they think, “Even if there were a hell, how could thinking about it make us better Christians? After all, the Christian life is about love, especially love of God, and it doesn’t work to say, ‘Love me, or I’ll punish you horribly!’”

These are very reasonable concerns. Let’s address them one by one.

Three

How could a good God keep anyone out of Heaven? 

Well, He doesn’t! God sends no one to hell. If you desire God and Heaven, then that is what He will give you. But some people do not desire God. Some people don’t want to live according to the way God designed the human person, according to the moral law, some people just don’t want to spend time with God in prayer or Mass or they don’t want to encounter God in their duties or in the poor. They just don’t like it.

Sin is to turn away from God. When we make turning away from God into a habit, it results in an aversion for God, a real dislike for Him. Every time they are forced to think about God, they don’t like it, they don’t want to and they find all kinds of ways to avoid Him because they don’t want Him.

Well, if that becomes a habit, your second nature, if it becomes who we are, then when we die and see God, we won’t want him then - just like they didn’t want him while they were on earth. Why should they? Nothing has changed in them. This is why sin leads people to pray less, go to Mass less, be less generous in their vocations, and take care of the poor and defenseless less. 

On the flip side, the more we spend time with God the more we like Him, and we make it our nature to like Him, to desire Him, to choose Him. Then when we die God will give us what we always wanted, Him!

Four

The Pains of Hell

Everybody knows Scripture talks about the “fires” of hell, and that the children of Fatima saw the “flames” of hell. But we know that these fires and flames don’t primarily signify physical pain, for the simple reason that there are no bodies in hell. It’s not clear how you could set an angel or a soul on fire any more than you could set a thought or a feeling on fire. How do you set an immaterial thing on fire? But, then, why the familiar imagery of fire?

Well, we all use metaphorical torture language to describe deep emotional, and psychological suffering. We might say, “It’s killing me. It’s eating me alive. It’s tearing me apart.”

Now imagine the psychological pain that comes from knowing you’ve ruined everything, that you can never even hope to be happy again, that you’ll never rejoice with another soul, you’ll never love, you’ll never even want to love again. To capture that kind of pain, you might say something like, “It’s like I’m on fire, it’s like a hideous burning that never stops.”

The point is that Hell isn’t a place where God tortures us. It’s a place where we torture ourselves, where we continuously and eternally resolve never to be happy. It’s awful to think about. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we can think of times we’ve done that before, where we’ve thrown a fit and hurt a relationship and made ourselves miserable out of our own pride and self-will.

Now is our time to curb that impulse. Now is the time to stop ourselves from becoming frightful and permanent monsters of selfishness.

Five

Why it’s so important not to forget hell

So hell isn’t God kicking us out of heaven, it’s us choosing to live without love. Hell isn’t God torturing us, it’s us making ourselves miserable. So why even think about it?

The point of talking about hell is not to motivate us to love out of fear of external punishment or external suffering. The point of meditation on hell is to remind us of the horrific results of selfishness, results that are capable of becoming permanent. That kind of reminder does motivate love. 

Every so often, it’s good to remember, “If I don’t keep fighting my selfishness, if I let my vices get the best of me, they’ll ruin my life. They’ll ruin me. They’ll turn me into an abomination.” 

Then you think, “I don’t want that.” And then you pray, “Dear God, please save me from myself. Dear God, please help me to love better. Please make me into the kind of person who, when this life ends, chooses happiness with You and with everyone else.”

That’s how, surprisingly, occasionally meditating on hell can strengthen our resolve to hope.