Chances of Hell?

[Marc_Anthony]

I have never believed that Hell is a place to party or a place that could be better or at least acceptable. Heaven is where I wish to go to be with God and to be at peace or to be anything he wishes me to be. When I have struggled with suicide in the past (my first attempt I was seven years old) I have just wanted it to be over and to be with God but the Church teaches that I could commit no greater sin and I would not be able to be with God.

First of all I’ll make sure to pray to you and your struggle with suicidal thoughts, it’s a very personal issue for me-I was never suicidal but several of my best friends self-harmed or considered suicide.

But think about this: Sinning is putting something before God. It is making the conscious decision to do something that we know that we are not supposed to do-a deliberate turning against God. So you have decided that something is worth more than God-that you’d rather do something besides what God wants. So, God will let you do it-He’ll let you do whatever it is you want to do. You’ve decided to leave god and do what you want-to be without God. To be in Hell.

 

[JDaniel]

I have been away from the Church for a long time, in fact I’ve only rarely visited the local Cathedral since I left high school, where chapel and confession were part of our regular weeks. That’s part of what drew me here.

I’m not trying to propose a loop-hole or anything that makes it OK to go on sinning but I have felt frightened of other Christians and of the Church since childhood. I feel like I’m most often encouraged not to sin not because I love God and sinning offends him, but to avoid sinning just so that I don’t go to Hell. For many years that was what solely fueled my adherence to attending Mass and going to confession and I found I was just frightened all of the time and unhappy. I looked to other older Catholics and other Christians and felt like I was often getting different answers and different interpretations of God’s words. When I read my bible I pray to God and Jesus and to Mary that they will guide my understanding. So much disagreement about what God wants leads to me feel like there is a lot error or maybe God means for us to figure some things out on our own and that by proxy we may not all be in agreement.

God has always been part of my life and I don’t ever want to be without him. I have lived through much Sin and my one solace when enduring the greatest times of suffering I have had in my life was that no matter what God was there and that even if for whatever reason I did not act as if I loved myself, he still would and that gave me strength to behave like I loved myself again.

I’ve never felt like I want to turn away from God, but I confess I have felt on multiple occassions in my life like I wish to turn away from the Church. Does that make sense?

I feel like it’s safe for me to be honest about these things here because it’s not my parish. I can be honest with my priest but I feel separated from other Christians. Is it safe and right to take the advice of my priest over the advice of other Christians when I am feeling unsure? So many others seem so sure about what is right and what is wrong and what God wants and I feel like if anything really threatens my salvation is that I am not sure the way others are.

I have never believed that Hell is a place to party or a place that could be better or at least acceptable. Heaven is where I wish to go to be with God and to be at peace or to be anything he wishes me to be. When I have struggled with suicide in the past (my first attempt I was seven years old) I have just wanted it to be over and to be with God but the Church teaches that I could commit no greater sin and I would not be able to be with God.

Perhaps I am sharing too much and derailing this thread. I am sorry.

Regards,

• Mharren

MH:

As I mentioned earlier, go to the Pastor of your preferred Church and ask about becoming a Sacristan. It’s hard work, for about 45 minutes prior to Mass time, but, it places you inside the ritual. At some point, you’ll be expected to become an Extraordinary Eucharistic Minister. Don’t hurry into both at the same time. When you a OK with becoming an EM, then do so. Your Church will, if they aren’t overloaded with people in these ministries, be very happy to have your assistance.

The ministry of EM is one of the oldest ministries of Christianity. In the early days of the Church, they did not have per se churches. So, people were designated to go to their Pastor, get some viaticum, and distribute the body and blood of Christ at their homes, as part of the worship service. (I became a sacristan about 4 - 5 months ago, then an EM about 3 - 4 weeks ago and love both ministries! But, I’m semi-retired, so I have time.)

Now, all that being said, I am assuming that it works the same in Canada as it does in the States. If you can find out, I’d love for you to let me know.

Oh, you need to be Baptized Catholic, have received first Holy Communion and received Confirmation. In the States, we were required to have an FBI background check as well.

God bless,
jd

 

[mharren]

This wasn’t my thread, but thank you all for your imput to my posts. I made an appointment with my priest to come in talk frankly about my concerns and I asked if I could repeat some RCIA. We’re going to have a chat next week and he said I could speak freely.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

• Mharren

 

[wcknight]

No one knows IF anyone is in Hell. There are some who believe Hell is completely empty. There are others who say it is so full that there is hardly any room to squeeze anyone else in.

The saints tell us that there definitely in a Hell and some of them say it definitely is not empty.

No one knows who is there. We can not even say that the most horrible person immaginable is in there, because no one can say whether or not at the last moment that soul may have repented for their misdeeds.

IF you entertain thoughts of suicide or of harming yourself, then you need professional help. Mental illness is a very serious health problem, and an online forum is NOT the place to seek advice. The Church USED to teach that suicide victims were condemned. That is no longer the case. It now recognizes that suicides may very likely be cause by mental health issues, so it no longer judges suicides as an automatic excommunication.

 

[mharren]

I’m not suicidal now and I didn’t come to these forums to permeate it with complaints about suicidal idealization or experience. I brought it up as a demonstration of when I had been at what I feel was my very worst points in life so far and that I firmly believe God has helped me to avoid ever succeeding in past attempt that plagued my life since childhood. I haven’t been clinically suicidal for almost two years and I attribute a lot of that success from having a competent and committed Psychiatrist, and challenging Clinical Psychologist, gaining maturity, and gaining a greater understanding of psychopathology from my studies in Medicine and my undergrad work in Biology and Psychology (I stream-lined into neuroscience). Medication was also very successful and I’m pleased to come down to the bare minimum of medication in recent months.

I’m seeing my priest to talk to him about multiple things that I think led me to these forums, like some confusion about my personal relationship with the Church and my uncertainty about how much my personal interpretation of my religion has deviated from what it once was. I used to hold a very strict belief about what would constitute going to Hell and what needed to be done to avoid it. I came to this thread because I’ve worried about going to Hell and about other people going to hell to a point that could be characterized as pathologically obsessional since I was a small girl and my current beliefs that I mentioned in previous posts, such as my inability to believe that a God who bestows upon us unconditional love could damn anyone to eternal suffering for sin, are distressing when I consider that maybe I’ve come to believe these things because I have subconsciously been using logic to rationalize away the possibility of Hell.

Some people have said (or at least this is how I understood their words) that sinning is choosing to turn away from God and that you can’t really love God if you choose to Sin. I welcome these challenges to what I believe because they force me to reassess my beliefs and encourage me to be more vigilant about what I believe and how I came to believe what I do believe. I have trouble accepting that choosing to do something sinful is akin to not loving God. I have chosen in the past to disobey my parents but that is not synonymous with not loving my parents.

When I choose to use contraceptives (despite not being sexually active) or choose support a patients choice for abortion It doesn’t come from a place of not loving God. What the responses I’ve gotten in this thread have encouraged me to do is to go to my priest and speak to him about this disparity between my actions and my conviction that I love God, because my actions and choices don’t seem to fall in line with loving God and I’m concerned and confused about this.

I am unhappy when my life is consumed by scrupulously obsessing over avoiding what the Church declares to be sinful and that could lead me down a path towards damnation. I feel rather lost and torn between what feels right and what I’m told is right, because they don’t line up in many instances. I am a bad Catholic because I take the Bible and the teachings of the Church with ‘a gran of salt’ and I am concerned that I may have inadvertently failed to listen to the Holy Spirit and could be allowing myself to be lead by something that is not virtuous. Perhaps I have deluded myself.

So I will speak with my priest. I have always found the guidance of my priest (whomever he might be at different times in my life and in different places) to help me sort out these instances of confusion.

I thought it was OK to talk freely about these things here and I didn’t mean to offend anyone or to be inappropriate by bringing up my history of suicidal behavior or by saying anything else that I’ve said. I honestly haven’t meant to offend.



Regards,

• Mharren

 

[wcknight]

I think if one focuses on what really constitutes a mortal sin, you may see how some souls may end up in hell. A priest once told me that you know when you have committed a mortal sin because it is like spitting in the face of God and telling Him that you never want to be with Him ever again. (given this description, I can see very few instances where I would ever commit such an offense)

I know that sounds very radical, and is certainly not what I was taught from very early on. However, consider that a mortal sin implies a complete separation from God and His graces. The Church considers it so serious that if one dies with it unrepentant, one gets sent to eternal damnation.

Given the harseness of the punishment, I can see how, one has to come up with offenses that are equally serious. So If someone spits in God’s face (or equivalent) and tells Him they never what to be with Him, where else would they end up other that Hell ? God does not force anyone to be with Him.

Murderers and rapists have no desire to be with God, and so ignore His warnings throughout their lives. IF you choose to live a life of deprivation and evil, then you obviously do not want to be with God.

Our Blessed Mother tells, us, some souls are in Hell only because no one prays for them, so if you have to save yourself or your loved ones, pray constantly. St John Vianny says, people who always pray, will most assuredly go to Heaven, People who never pray probably go elsewhere.

 

[Qoeleth]

No one knows IF anyone is in Hell. There are some who believe Hell is completely empty. There are others who say it is so full that there is hardly any room to squeeze anyone else in.

The saints tell us that there definitely in a Hell and some of them say it definitely is not empty.

No one knows who is there. We can not even say that the most horrible person immaginable is in there, because no one can say whether or not at the last moment that soul may have repented for their misdeeds.

IF you entertain thoughts of suicide or of harming yourself, then you need professional help. Mental illness is a very serious health problem, and an online forum is NOT the place to seek advice. The Church USED to teach that suicide victims were condemned. That is no longer the case. It now recognizes that suicides may very likely be cause by mental health issues, so it no longer judges suicides as an automatic excommunication.

Some one (probably in the 1960’s) made up this idea that maybe no one is in Hell. But Jesus tells us the path to Hell is wide, easy and trodden by “the many”.

It seems like any of the following could lead to Hell:

1. Doing insufficient deeds of charity (Matt 25)
2. Loving the things of this world and your life in this world (Jn 12, Jm 4)
3. Being wealthy and satisfied in the world (Luke 6)
4. Having only superficial observance of the Law (Matt 5)
5. Knowing the Gospel Law and not putting it into practice (Matt 7)

Given all this, maybe getting into Heaven is not that easy after all- maybe it really is “a narrow gate and a hard road, found by few.”

 

[vames]

Some people have said (or at least this is how I understood their words) that sinning is choosing to turn away from God and that you can’t really love God if you choose to Sin. I welcome these challenges to what I believe because they force me to reassess my beliefs and encourage me to be more vigilant about what I believe and how I came to believe what I do believe. I have trouble accepting that choosing to do something sinful is akin to not loving God. I have chosen in the past to disobey my parents but that is not synonymous with not loving my parents.

When I choose to use contraceptives (despite not being sexually active) or choose support a patients choice for abortion It doesn’t come from a place of not loving God. What the responses I’ve gotten in this thread have encouraged me to do is to go to my priest and speak to him about this disparity between my actions and my conviction that I love God, because my actions and choices don’t seem to fall in line with loving God and I’m concerned and confused about this.

I am unhappy when my life is consumed by scrupulously obsessing over avoiding what the Church declares to be sinful and that could lead me down a path towards damnation. I feel rather lost and torn between what feels right and what I’m told is right, because they don’t line up in many instances. I am a bad Catholic because I take the Bible and the teachings of the Church with ‘a gran of salt’ and I am concerned that I may have inadvertently failed to listen to the Holy Spirit and could be allowing myself to be lead by something that is not virtuous. Perhaps I have deluded myself.

Me too. You are not alone at all.
Here’s what can I tell you from my personal perspective. You say “I have trouble accepting that choosing to do something sinful is akin to not loving God”. And indeed, we continue to love God no matter what we do, as long as we see some things (considered sins by the Church) as harmless for ourselves and/or done out of charity for other people. And probably they are, as your natural sense of moral good tells you, as opposed to excessive righteousness or scruples induced by various other people. But what we should notice, IMHO, is what our own life teaches us about the consequences that persistent sinning is slowly inflicting on ourselves here on earth - what Pope Benedict calls “structures of sin”, when we allow ourselves to drift away from God, almost not realizing how and when. And then we in fact lose God, like a son loses a loving mother by growing indifferent to her, not really paying attention to her anymore, even if he is firmly convinced of his love for her (I use on purpose the example of the mother, since I myself often struggle thinking about your parallel between a God that punishes for eternity and a mother that love her daughter even if she becomes a criminal).
If one, for example, uses contraceptives once, twice, sometimes, probably such consequences don’t appear. But trust me, as I know what I’m talking about, that constant use of contraceptives for years is slowly damaging a couple’s life, before the involved people realize. The “structures of sin” lead us to create for ourselves a sort of hell on earth; we end up by despising ourselves as unworthy and hopeless beings and by tending to punish ourselves, to refuse to forgive ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, precisely for the bad life we have created for ourselves. And this cannot be pleasing to God as a loving Father - what parent is pleased if his children damage their lives? This is how I understand why the Church says that some things are sins (and why we are asked at the confessional: “how many times?”).
I cannot say that I understand and accept now all that the Church says when it comes to the “list of sins”, so I’m a “bad Catholic” too. I’m thinking here about your kind post on the thread about “Morally acceptable oral sex…” page 14; I agree with you - on the other hand I can think of a priest who would reply that such expressions of love can be good for a while, but that in the long run one or both partners will end up by being frustrated and becoming prone to cheating; probably he’s right and we’re wrong and the happy couples that resist are exceptions, as reality is never all black or white. But I guess we have to find a balance between prideful carelessness and excessive scruple and to escape that awful state of mind when we don’t know what and whom to believe anymore. Anyway, fear of Hell shouldn’t govern our relationship with God or the Church, as fear of punishment doesn’t govern our relationship with our loving mothers.

 

[mharren]

The “structures of sin” lead us to create for ourselves a sort of hell on earth; we end up by despising ourselves as unworthy and hopeless beings and by tending to punish ourselves, to refuse to forgive ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, precisely for the bad life we have created for ourselves. And this cannot be pleasing to God as a loving Father - what parent is pleased if his children damage their lives? This is how I understand why the Church says that some things are sins (and why we are asked at the confessional: “how many times?”).

That’s it EXACTLY. I found that there are a lot of sins I have engaged in that have not led to happiness and have impacted my life negatively. Masturbation I have found (when I’ve done it, I haven’t in a long time) I have found to be positive in moderation. But fornication I found to result in nothing but resent for the man I fornicated with and very damaging to any ability I have to form what I think would be a healthy relationship with a man. I never even found it to be all that pleasurable. I think a lot of the rules that we’re given are not just good to avoid going to Hell, but are also very practical. For instance, fornication. If one man only ever mated with one woman then the risk of contracting an STD is almost impossible (given that we can still contract these through other methods of communication, especially in my line of work). That’s just practical. I think waiting to make-love until marriage must deepen the commitment to one another and possibly lessen the likelihood of adultery, which is so very destructive to such sacred relationships.

I’ve been abstinent for four years now, minus a rape that happened about a year ago, and I’ve been much happier. I’ve found masturbation to actually be ‘healing’ in ways, sort of like healing myself from all the meaningless sex I’ve had. And being abstinent has given be time to recover from the original rape when I was a kid after which I engaged in so much fornication, almost like I did it to defy what had happened to me. I know many people will say this is evil and I respect that, but it doesn’t feel evil to me and I don’t see the harm.

I want a good life for myself and to one day have a husband. I am timid about having my own children because of heredity concerns but I think then I would like to adopt (if I am approved). Giving up drugs and parties and the people I used to engage in these things with I find has led to a discovery that I actually don’t care much for those things, I’m not sure if I ever did. I didn’t stop doing things because I felt guilt but by proxy of stopping these sinful behaviours my life has been better in just about every way. I got the opportunity to discover the wealth and men and expensive things and an indulgent lifestyle not only lead to nothing concrete or meaningful, but also lead to boredom.

I think that abandoning a lot of these behaviours (and there are so many more in similar veins) have also lead me back to the Church as of late, and maybe that will lead me to stopping other behaviours. Now that I spend more time loving myself I think I am much better at loving others. And I am going to listen to both my own conscience and the moral teachings of the Church, but they may not always fall in line with one another, in which case I will go with what feels right, but I will always endeavor to question both.

It may seem odd, but I am also thankful for the hardships that have been imposed on me and on the hardships I have brought myself. I have learned much from them, and one thing I have really learned, and it could be wrong, is that I need to always consider that I could be wrong, which means other people could be wrong, and vice versa.

We didn’t eat the whole apple of knowledge and I’m content not to know everything. I’m also content with the knowledge that there is no way any of us can know everything. That’s for God and God alone. I will proceed with doing what I think is right while taking into consideration what I am told is right, and let God judge me (not that I have a choice) and most importantly I will continue to pray. Balance in all things, including personal beliefs and the beliefs imparted by the Church. I know this is ‘wrong’ but the Church is not God, it is one way of understanding God. I can’t believe that the word translated and passed down and amended and conveyed over such a long period of time and changes by mere men could ever be completely correct. I can follow the Church with trust, but not blindly. I can’t follow myself blindly either. I need a balance between both.

But that’s just me.

Regards,

• Mharren

 

[yunat]

In addition to continually striving to obtain my own salvation, which is a daily struggle (and I consider myself a true practicing Catholic…), I worry and fear for family members and close friends who have no real interest in their faith or no deep concern about where they will end up after this life. These are kind, loving and generous people, just with no interest in “religion”.

I love these people dearly and want to find a way to at least save them from hell, even if it means a very lengthy stay in Purgatory!

It is possible that my prayers and sacrifices for them alone would be enough to save them from hell, even if they may not ever come to a spiritual awareness and realization themselves? Can my true love for them, as imperfect as I am, through my constant prayers and offerings for these loved ones actually make some kind of difference in their own salvation?

Why worry about it?

They’re obviously not worried about it.

If God wants them in Heaven, he’ll allow them in. If he doesn’t, he won’t.

 

[vames]

I’ve been abstinent for four years now, minus a rape that happened about a year ago, and I’ve been much happier. I’ve found masturbation to actually be ‘healing’ in ways, sort of like healing myself from all the meaningless sex I’ve had. And being abstinent has given be time to recover from the original rape when I was a kid after which I engaged in so much fornication, almost like I did it to defy what had happened to me. I know many people will say this is evil and I respect that, but it doesn’t feel evil to me and I don’t see the harm.

I’m sorry about what happened to you… you must be indeed a very strong person!!
I don’t know their exact motivation to speak about evil, so I can only speak about the following risk: as time goes by (and time is a great healer), we discover that certain things we do to heal ourselves, to forget or to defy what happens to us can sometimes have the same meaning of self-punishment. Been there, done that: like in “I was tainted/I tainted myself anyway, so I don’t deserve better”. Engaging in fornication, forcing ourselves to be abstinent for many years, masturbating, hurting other people, drugs&parties and so on can sometimes repeat and prolong the initial trauma, like some kind of “self-rape” - regardless if the initial trauma was about allowing ourselves in abusive relationships (our fault) or about rape (others’ fault). But you know this already very well, as all your messages show a person well-equipped to protect herself. I wish you peace and all the best.

 

[wcknight]

mharren, No, the Church is not God, BUT God leads His Church through the Holy Spirit.

In this day and age, we need the guidance of our Church more than ever. So many folks just do what feels good or feels right, to the point that abortion and contraception is just some arbitrary choice that everyone is entitled to.

Morality is more than just everyone doing what they think is correct. There are moral laws that are absolute. It sounds like you are a very decent person, but letting what feels good or feels right could lead you down a slippery slope.

 

[Haerticle]

Best not to speculate, as others have said. Best to realize, in this very moment, that evil is evil, and it is your choice to give it up. I have the firm hope that no one will end up in Hell, but I see its reality as something now that should be ever present. Not as a boogeyman, but as the moral imperative to do right…