Thanks very much to the commenters for the response to my "Defending St Alphonsus" post. A couple of questions have come up about mortal sin and hell. Let's have a look at hell first...
Far from being the mark of a vindictive and malicious God who doesn't care about us, hell is something that follows as common sense from what God has done for us in his infinite love. First he has created us free and immortal. As human people, we are made to his image such that we are able to love freely and for ever. By revelation we know that God has made us to love him freely and for ever and to receive his infinite and supremely benign love for all eternity.
It is easy to see that just as the infinite love of God for all eternity is our highest good, so the loss of this love is the greatest possible misfortune. If it were possible for someone else to take it away from us, we would rightly be in anguish and rage at the utter injustice of it. Thank God, this cannot happen: God is infinitely just. But we can take his love and throw it away ourselves by deliberately sinning against him. The folly and madness of voluntarily incurring this eternal deprivation is the chief pain of the damned (the pain of loss.)
It is entirely rational and prudent to have a holy fear of this loss. A husband who loves his wife but has done some stupid thing that threatens his marriage will be sensible if he fears to lose his wife and resolves with the utmost determination never to do that stupid thing again. His fear will be an entirely balanced and sensible reaction to the situation.
If on the other hand, he is living a good life generally and is meeting the obligations of his marriage, it would be damaging to the relationship if he were living in constant anxiety about losing his wife. He might occasionally think of such a fear if some "near miss" accident happens, for example, but generally, it is better for him to be finding ways to show genuine, practical love for his family by the good things that he does from day to day.
In our relationship with God, if we have committed some sin that is grave matter and therefore possibly a "mortal sin", we are right to be fearful, to make a good confession as soon as possible, and to make a firm purpose of amendment. To carry on as though we had not a care in the world and excuse ourselves would be like the man who tells his wife "get over it" or "boys will be boys". If a man said that, you would not think that he cared much about saving his marriage. If a sinner behaves in a similarly blasé manner, he clearly doesn't understand the danger of losing God for all eternity and how awful that would be.
By our prayer, penance and reception of the sacraments, we should get into the state of not committing any sins that are grave matter but living from day to day trying to overcome our venial faults, trying to pray better and living a life of practical charity towards others. Now and again, some bad thought or other temptation can remind us of the real danger of falling into sin and how we need to take the means to guard against dangerous occasions.
(I know that there are one or two questions about "mortal sin" and I'll look at those soon.)
26 comments:
Brought up hell on my continuing debate with the secularists over on my blog. Could still do with your help..although Fr John Boyle & others are doing a stirling job..i mentioned to zeno that at the end of the day there's ' a very hot place ' for those who continue to reject Jesus.
Hell was just on its way out in the 70's 80's when i was at School..yeah & the sin.
You still haven't told me if you like the T-shirt!i know you can take a joke!
There are many difficult areas on this subject.
For me the most difficult is that what mother could live in total happiness in heaven knowing that her son or daughter is in torment in Hell?
Then there is the teaching on what gets you into hell. A person could live a good and holy life but then one day become tempted into a sexual encounter with someone they are not married to, leave the said ladies house and get run over by a bus. For that person to go to Hell would seem an utter injustice.
Similarly a person who is married but the marriage is not recognised by the Church, goes to Mass weekly but abstains from communion as required by the church, still faces the prospect of Hell if they die, as does a person otherwise living a good and holy life and who has had many children and resorts to contraception. What on earth is going on here?
Hey, Father. I think what your posts and resonses over the past few days has shown is that there is a terrible thirst for good teaching in this country. Too many of us find ourselves spiritually deprived. I am so glad that there are good young seminarians coming through who are learning from you what they are not getting in their seminaries. There is real hope for the Church. I am beginning to feel optimistic. God bless you.
Thank you for that, Father - I found it both reassuring and comforting - also eminently sensible. I'm sure there will be some 'hard cases' - there's one there already about the man who got run over by the bus - but we have to remember that it is not we who judge, but God, who IS both justice and mercy. Thank you again,
Amette
An excellent post, Father.
On another matter, it would be very helpful to have your response to the points raised in an article on the Tablet website this week (it's one of the free ones). It's hostile to the Motu Proprio and is written by Mark Francis, a 'professor of liturgy'. Quite understand if you don't have time, but if you come across a response on another blog, perhaps you could provide a link? Thanks.
Whilst I understand that a consequence of having free-will is the possibility of forfeiting heaven, I cannot see how the concept of a loving and merciful God can be compatible with the idea of an eternal hell.
If it is not possible for a soul of a person who has died in mortal to repent after death, then why would a merciful God allow this person to suffer eternal torment. Surely it would be more merciful to annihilate that soul (perhaps after an appropriate period of punishment)?.
I think you should refer to the Catechism. In order to go to Hell, one must be in a state of unrepentant mortal sin. If you are in mortal sin, but are repentant and contrite, and you die without having gone to Confession, then of course I think God will have mercy on your soul. You just might have to spend some quality time in Purgatory.
Anonymous' question raises another one for me-
could a mother whose children end up in hell get to heaven?
I guess it's possible-but those conversion stories such as Fr Coropi and John Pridmore and of course St. Augustine-the mother's sacrifice and prayer are behind the turn around.
I'm really tired so I'm not sure if I'm making this very clear. Do you know what I mean?
John - I'm glad the seminarians make you optimistic. The seminarians I teach make me optimistic too - as well as the ones I "meet" online.
Anon - just saw that Tablet article. Will have a go at it if nobody else does but I can't imagine it will escape the wrath of Fr Z :-)
One of my favourite books is 'The Way of Divine Love' by Sr Josepha Menedez.i'm not sure how approved it is, but the call of Jesus particularly to the religious in danger of losing their souls (can one do that..i'm not sure if i've explained well)is incessant. The point is made that we can offer up sacrifices for those in danger of going to hell. that ties in with the Fatima prayer..'O my jesus..'Both the Menendez book & Fatima describe Hell..& its torments, so Fr you do us a great service by reminding us of hell's existence. Let us pray!
One of the greatest tragedies of our time is the current thinking on suicide. Obviously the poor dear was mentally ill, or he wouldn't have committed suicide, and if he was mentally ill, then he was not fully rsponsbile for his act, and if not fully responsible, then it was not a mortal sin, so there is great hope for his salvation.
This miserable idea is itself a chute into Hell, because as the young man thinks more and more about suicide, this moral theology of the devil comes to mind. Obviously, if I am thinking about suicide, then I must be mentally ill, and if I am mentally ill, then I need not hesitate about ending my wretched life, since it is not mortal sin and I need not fear Hell-if indeed there is such a thing.
Hell- the idea and the reality- is the great friend of would-be suicides and their families, the notion that would make "cowards of (them) all," had they a sufficiently vivid notion of it.
It is a enormous disservice that it is not preached more insistently together with the teaching that it is very often deep sin and its consequences that wracks a man's mind and heart, distorts his idea of reality, brings him into deep self-condemnation and hatred of life- to the very brink of suicide, so that even if he may not be fully responsible for the act of suicide itself, nevertheless he is responsible for all his other unconfessed sins which estranged him from God and brought him to that point, for which reason the eternal salvation of suicides should not be so cheerfully presumed and preached.
It is true that all the above is apt to be very painful for the families of suicides, and preaching it may seem pastorally inept in the extreme, but it is also a teaching that would have the effect of vastly reducing the number of suicides and of grieving families in the first place were it preached from the housetops.
Hell was a concept that was very helpful to me along these lines over 43 yrs ago,because in a dream I had a little glimpse of it, enough to set my legs going pell mell in the opposite direction.
Hell is one of those doctrines that is bitter in the mouth, but sweet in the stomach, a perfectly lovely doctrine in its fruits of joy, peace and happiness.
Well Lee,
Naturally i beg to differ!i spent to periods of my life both lasting at least 2 years ech when i was constantly suicidal. Now thanks to the grace of God (not the Church's teaching which is quite compassionate anyway)i never once acted on these feelings.
Obviously i received the sacraments including that of the sick just as you would with any other life-threatening illness.
When did i get better & stop feeling suicidal..not when i started praying more..you couldn't have done more if you'd tried, no it was when the doctors gave me lithium. That sorted my mood instability out not a lot of people warning me i might go to hell..i was pretty much there anyway..so i wouldn't have much cared.
OK some suicides might be due to an atheistic mindset or whatever, but preaching hellfire & damnation at families with mental illnesses is not really very nice is it?
i am not a lesser Catholic or believer because i have a mental illness..i rather think it's made me a better believer & have a greater love for God. Let's not play the Priest who walked past the samaritan..let us stop to help the depressed, manic, psychotic, marginalised,suicidal,vagrant,tramp,leper,sick,unborn,aged,earful
etc etc.
Of course hell exists..but we might be surprised who we see there!
To Rob M on annihilation - if that became an option, the number of suicides is likely to increase.
Whenever I think that suicide is the most attractive option, I remember that I have an immortal soul. Whether I would end up in Heaven or Hell, there's still no end, ever, so there's really no point in embarrassing oneself by trying.
I have one son who does not practise his religion.
I am fully aware that if he were to die in this state then he will indeed end up in Hell.
I pray for him daily.
There is not much else that I can do. I do remind him that he should be going to Mass.
I have told all my sons that I don't want to find that on the last day, I am on this side of the line and that they are on the other. They clearly understood what I meant. And I do mean it!
Tomorrow's Gospel is Matthew 11:20-24.
"Woe to you Chorazin! woe to you Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes....."
The Catena Aurea tells us that St. Jerome says ...Either, you shall go down to Hell because you have proudly resisted my preaching, or, ....you shall be visited with the heavier punishment, because you would not believe even these (things which were done in you).
And further:-
The words, 'It shall be easier in the Day of Judgement", clearly prove that there are diverse punishments in Hell, as there are diverse mansions in the Kingdom of Heaven.'
JARay
Jackie - while I sympathise with your take on this, statistics seem to show that where Hell is believed, suicides really are low in number. I had cause to check the stats a couple of days back: have a look at the Irish situation between 1960 and today. And the lowest number of suicides seem these days to be in Moslem countries - look particularly at the contrast between the ex-Soviet states which were historically Christian and those which are Moslem. (Islam, like our faith, regards suicide as wrong: the suicide bombers are thought of as martyrs, not suicide.)
Sadly Sue, Ireland has one of the highest rates of suicides, particularly amongst young men. i've never bought into the if you believed in hell you wouldn't kill yourself theory. i personally believe in hell & all that the Church teaches. It made no difference whatsoever to my suicidal ideation which was caused by brain chemicals going awry.
i'm not sure how muslims can have the lowest rate of suicides when so many are trying to blow themselves up even if they call it something else.
Jackie - perhaps the figures can be explained. I would certainly accept that brain chemicals going awry can mean that someone has a desire to kill themselves in which culpability is reduced or absent all together.
However, if as a matter of fact, religious faith results in a lower rate of suicide, perhaps it is an indication that we are too ready to attribut all suicide to such causes.
As for Muslims, it is only a small number of people who engage in suicide attacks.
Well now you put it like that!
Seriously though we must pray for all these young Irish boys/men commiting suicide..i wonder if Fr Sean has any insights? Possibly the breakdown of the family?
There are many bad reasons why increasing numbers of young Irish men are committing suicide. The prosperity of the country since the Celtic Tiger began to roam leaves out many who are poor and uneducated and they cannot compete. While the country thrives economically the social services are being run down. The drug culture is still strong. Aggressive feminism is also partly responsible. In Ireland it is still back where it was in the Seventies and is pretty raw. A new generation of young female achievers has arisen that have money, dress provocatively and enjoy putting men down. Ireland has for centuries been a patriarchal society and many can't cope with the change brought about by education, money, full employment and more opportunities for women. It's still new here. The younger generation has lost its traditional contacts with religion and the social mores of their parents and grandparents. Yet the Irish are still a naive race, despite the growth of brash, superficial sophistication, and underneath this veneer many young men can no longer handle it. It is a reality few Irish people are willing to face and it's hard for them to handle their grief as the Church is breaking down on all sides. Fr Tim, your recent posts on hell and mortal sin are fine by the book but they don't give God a chance to work in situations where he is most needed. I can't believe the hell these people have gone through is going to be rewarded by eternal punishment. If that is so God is a repulsive, cruel, indifferent tyrant. The Incarnation points to a more merciful view that offers hope to a post-Enlightenment world. Like it or not, we are all affected by it. St Aloysius lived in a pre-Enlightenment age and his rural spirituality reflects it. We no longer live in a peasant society.
Eamon - I think your analysis is spot-on. However part of the tragedy is that the Church in Ireland is losing (has lost?) the one thing that can help in the situation which is traditional Catholic ascetical and mystical teaching.
It is a cliché to talk of the cruel and vindictive God condemning people to hell - one that I tried to address in my post. If we are indifferent to the loss of the love of God, we just haven't understood it.
Sadly, I think you are right about the naivety of many Irish in the face of modernisation. This applies in the Church as well. I weep when I hear Irish clergy proposing the failed and discredited programmes that we have suffered in England for 30 years as though they are the great new thing.
The best thing that we can do for the young is to look at those dioceses, orders, movements and initiatives in the Western Church that are thriving and producing vocations and good marriages among the young. They are not characterised by a rejection of pre-enlightenment spiritual writers certainly. On the positive side, they are distinguished by a confident acceptance of the Church's tradition in doctrine, liturgy and spirituality.
Sadly a lot of my Irish relatives think it's kind of quaint that we still go to Mass!Fr Tim's & the previous post raise important points..i do side with Fr Tim's solution though..although i can relate to if you're already in hell of some sort ie intense mental suffering it's hardly likely that a loving God is going to heap eternal punishment on you for good measure & give you a bit more is it?
No, Jackie, of course not. God is more merciful than we will ever be.
But I think that these considerations can be a red herring in the discussion on hell and mortal sin. The bottom line is that we are capable of rejecting God through sin and it is possible to lose his love eternally.
Rather than making us angry or rebellious, this should make us understand the importance of living the Christian life faithfully.
Red herring yes! More than likely! that's just the way my mind works..but you get the gist & have been extremely charitable. Just as a holy Priest should be.
God bless Fr
I have to say that I disagreed with some points in Eamon's post, specifically his comments that a lot of modern Irish men can't "cope with the change brought about by education, money, full employment and more opportunities for women" because "Ireland has for centuries been a patriarchial society".
Well... which particular society in Europe wasn't such "for centuries" even up until well after the last war? And how many does "a lot" mean? I would say that the amount of male suicides caused by these supposed factors are pretty minimal - to pretty non-existent in fact.
I have known personally 3 people who have committed suicide in the last 10 years. All were young men and all were very well educated, coming from families with successful females and having circles of friends and workplaces including many such. All were successful in their own right. So independent and successful women, and the demise of the patriarchy, certainly were not reasons for their sad decision.
Many other countries in Europe - witness Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and even France, would be regarded as having been much more patriarchal than Ireland up to far more recently with a much more defined split between the "roles" of men and women and plenty of the sort of machismo you don't get in Ireland - or NW Europe in general. So I don't think the patriarchal thing washes all that much in Ireland's case.
I do however agree with Eamonn when he touches on a reason for increased suicide levels: the brash superficiality of life fuelled by excess drink, drugs, sex and whatever else you're havin', man. It has produced a shallow rootlessness which, while thankfully it doesn't (yet) characterise the entire culture, is gaining ground steadily and has led many astray. I honestly think this was what led the 3 young men I knew down that dark road. Not one of them actually practised religion but were more than ready to denigrate it in a very ill-informed way and when challenged (gently, I have to add) were incapable of coherent response, despite their good education, but could only respond with the shrug and the "yeah, well, whatever" so characteristic of many these days. Realistically, I suppose, they had no hope and were literally despairing, but more sadly didn't see the message of Christianity as a beacon. Or maybe they just choose not to, which I suppose is where the mortal sin enters the picture? jaykay
Nobody goes to hell for simple sin. In actual fact nobody goes to hell unless they freely choose it. There is no question that simply by sinful acts we are damned forever as that is not in the gospels revelation of a merciful father.
Some persons that live very evil wicked lives unrepenting of their errors and cursing god with their dying breath MAY be subject to Gods justice. It remains an act of gross uncharity however, to imagine any actual individual as going to hell.
We, the church or any created authority to the angels themselves may not presume to imagine what God judges or otherwise. Hence St Michael rebukes Satan by passing judgement back to god.
Mortal sin cannot be qualified as we have no idea on the mental state of the individual let alone the state of their soul. We must not think to much on hell, though we freely acknowledge its existence but rather try and think about paradise.
If we are too scared then we must ask the Holy Spirit to take away our morbid fear of hell and rather make us bold in the love of God The Father and the friendship Of Jesus Christ our redeemer.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:
1033 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: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."612 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.613 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell;620 for this, a wilful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance"
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