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Sunday 33(B): Read Dan 12, 1-3; Mk 13,
24-32
Being rewarded or punished teaches us a number of things: our free choices have consequences, we are therefore responsible
for them, we are judged or evaluated by others for them, and there is a standard of right and wrong which is independent of
ourselves. Freedom means responsibility - which means accountability. We need to be able to explain why we choose what we
choose, not just to ourselves, but to others and, ultimately, to God. The standard by which He judges us is the same as the
standard He expects us to follow: the Truth of Christ as taught by His Church. On the last day, all other standards established
and used by men to judge their fellow men will themselves be judged by that standard of Truth. Of course, the Truth is summed
up in love of God above all things and of one’s neighbor as oneself, a love measured and determined, not by our instincts
or feelings, but by the love of the Crucified Jesus.
Many of us –and I include myself- do not want to accept that each and all must answer ultimately to God for all
that we are and do. The fascination of this life, especially in the fleeting days of youthful prowess, or in the dreams of
human omnipotence in science and technology, or in the elusive hope of discovering the gene of eternity in the maze of the
human genome, are all examples of how we might evade facing the inevitable: death, judgment, purgatory, heaven or hell (what
we call the “last things” or “novissima”). The stunning antiquity of the expanding universe may make
us think that we are set, not so much in timelessness, as in time without end. The cycles of life themselves seem to beckon
eternity; and so the idea of reincarnation becomes attractive. Like the leaves which bud, blossom and fade, but which bud
again, we might think of our own death as just a hibernation from which we will awaken again under our beloved blue sky. All
of this can become an elaborate rationalization of our fear of death and judgment, or of the possibility that the cycle might
be broken. It may also be fear of the reality of an eternity in which we can no longer hide who we are or what we have done,
but in which the last detail of our personal truth is laid bare for all to see in an eternity beyond the times and places
of this universe.
Catholic Truth teaches that the universe was created in Christ and is destined to find perfection in Him. Christ Himself
became subject to the laws of Creation to save us from sin and, through His Resurrection, to draw creation itself out of itself
and away from its tendency to decay. This He indeed achieved by conquering death. So creation itself now groans and yearns
for the return of Christ and it looks to us to lead it by paving the way for His return through living responsibly the glorious
freedom of the children of God. The presence of sin in mankind perturbs the order of creation; it is not surprising, then,
that Jesus would speak of signs in the sun, moon and stars and on the earth itself, as they sense Jesus emerging once more
from the transcendent dimension of “heaven” to come and restore all things in Himself. This He will do as He returns
at the end of time, not now to die for our sins, but to judge unto life those who have rejected sin by living in the hope
of His love, and to judge unto damnation those who have lived in indifference to, or outright rejection of, that same love.
The elect of God could include every human being that ever existed, for the God of Mercy wants all to share in the
eternal banquet. No matter how tragic or absurd or hard-hearted or hateful or blasphemous someone’s life may have become,
if they can utter sincerely, even once only, and in extremis, “Lord, have
mercy on me”, they will surely be among the elect. Hell is the only dimension of creation that is not authored by God.
Indeed, hell is in a sense a non-creation, an anti-creation, a no-where, a non-sense, not because it is not a real possibility,
but because the very concept is repulsive to the Heart of the Creator. The Church has the process of canonization by which
She declares a person of heroic virtue already to be in heaven. There is no such corresponding process regarding those who
are, or might be, in hell for their “heroic vice”. But we must be careful not to conclude that, since we do not
–for we cannot- know with infallible certainty if anyone has chosen hell for themselves, therefore hell does not exist.
Jesus Himself seems to indicate that Judas Iscariot made that choice; St. Paul gives long lists of immoral behaviors which, if lived by free choice and unrepentantly, will exclude
its practitioners from the Kingdom of God.
We need, I believe, to understand that hell is not so much a place with dungeons, long-tailed devils and torture chambers;
nor is it a den of iniquity where people can, at last, freely indulge all their sinful inclinations without restraint for
eternity. The Devil is very pleased when we caricature hell and himself, for then we make it all laughable and worthy only
of the contempt of modern sophistication. Hell is rather more akin to an inner state of mind and will which has finally and
definitively decided that the truth and love of Christ are simply irrelevant for one’s own life, now and eternally.
Yet hell is also a place, for, after the general Resurrection from the dead, the damned will be there body and soul. Hell
demonstrates the frightening power of human freedom effectively to eliminate Christ from one’s existence – Christ,
the source of that very freedom and existence. It is the ultimate form of selfishness and self-absorption which consider true
love, the love of Christ, as the greatest form of pain and affliction. Hell is created by its occupant to fit his very own
brand of hatred of Christ and of those who belong to Christ. There are as many hells as there are occupants thereof, although
their common feature of rejection of Christ and, hence, of eternal separation from Him brings them into some macabre alliance
and gathering-place of damnation. Clearly, no-one ends up in hell by surprise; deep-down the anti-Christs have, at some point
in their journey, aligned themselves as His enemies and, alas, have resisted His merciful attempts to win them over to His
standard of love. The judgment of Christ on the Last Day will be declaratory of what these people already know to be their
personal truth and the fate they have chosen. Even should Christ offer them forgiveness, they would disdainfully refuse it.
Satan’s jealousy of Christ, his hatred of Christ’s kingship and of His Kingdom will, alas, have already become
their own, irrevocably and irremediably. Only beyond death will they perceive fully and bitterly the consequences of their
own free choice of misery and wickedness.
Some will object that the doctrine of hell has no place in modern Catholicism with its emphasis on the mercifulness
of God. They are mistaken.
To deny hell is to deny that man was made free, free to choose Christ or to reject Him. Of course, as it is Christ’s
hope, so it is ours, that no-one would thus reject Him. For sure, we can never know what happens in those few crucial moments
between passing from this life to the next. We can never tell what power of merciful persuasion Christ will try to exercise
to convince a borderline soul to embrace His Cross. Think of all the “good thieves” of history! Yet it is foolhardy
of someone freely to wait until death’s door is opening before repenting: for who can presume to guarantee that the
grace so often refused in life will even be offered in death? And even if it is, who can trust his own self enough to be sure
that he will accept that grace?
To deny hell is also to deny heaven, for the gracious offer of heaven must also be freely chosen; to deny hell is therefore
to deny God, the One who is in heaven; it is also to deny sin and grace, for if there is no hell, there is no behavior that
will bring me there and so no need for any divine assistance. The denial of hell in the name of some kind of philanthropic
emancipation from the shackles of medieval religion is both arrogant and naïve. It also plays dangerously into the hands of
those who would reinvent or abolish universal moral truth, and exalt in its place the so-called “ethics” which
suit the ephemeral whimsicality of their particular generation. More subtly still, the denial of hell denies that human freedom
is limited, and thus states that man can set for himself some kind of limitless and ever-expanding boundaries of freedom,
whereby everything is permissible and nothing is accountable. Indeed, that was the first temptation of man: to transgress
the limits of his own created freedom. Logically, yet paradoxically, it is when man persists in considering himself unlimited
in his freedom, and therefore indifferent to the limits within which God has created him, that he freely follows the path
which leads all the way, broad and spacious, to hell. The motto of the citizen of hell reads: “There is no God except
yourself: serve no-one else.” You will recognize here the phrase attributed in Scripture to Satan: “Non serviam.
I will not serve.”
If evil does not exist, neither does good, and Christ’s Cross means nothing. But evil does exist and by Christ’s
Cross we can find the strength to overcome it with good. If society approves and even legislates in favor of what Christ through
the Church has defined as being evil, it only proves how powerful and clever evil has become in convincing us that it is in
fact good, while true good is cast as evil. For evil to conquer, it is enough that good men do nothing. Christ the King and
the Judge of the world to come calls us to be good, to do good and to overcome evil with good. Alone we can do nothing. With
Him, all things are possible. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, but the Church calls us to stand up
and be counted in the battle of love over sin. St. Michael, “the great prince”, will help us to take the courage
to love, to speak the truth in love, and to do all we can to root out evil from our own lives and from the context in which
we live. We fight with the arms of faith, the deadliest of which is Christ’s love working in us, for His love is stronger
than death and hell. How we have fought in the power of that love will, indeed, be the criterion of our own judgment. For,
as St. John of the Cross says, “at the evening of the day, we shall be judged upon how we have loved.”
There is no need to fear hell. With Christ, stand up against it and it will flee. At our own peril, however, do we
court its advances, individually or socially, for if we let it gain unchallenged power over us, we will know in this life
the bitter taste of its destructiveness and, in the next, of damnation. We cannot negotiate with hell; and, since we know
neither the day nor the hour, we must surrender our lives now to the King of heaven, Christ Jesus the Lord.
Msgr.
Peter Magee
Sunday,
November 16th, 2003: St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Washington, DC
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