Do you ever think about this?

[Rebecca_New]

I do fear Hell, but I fear the separation from God more, and I fear offending Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit more.

 

[FillTheVoid]

I believe it, because the Bible says it.

And I trust God to make the decision, I know he loves the people there infinately more than I could ever love them.

 

[Andruschak]

Many Catholics today do not believe in Hell. Even many believing Catholics tend to steer clear of the topic. I do believe in the existence of Hell, and I see clearly the works of Satan upon this earth.

Have you ever thought about just how many people will go to hell- people that you know, family members, friends? The sheer numbers.
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I have thought about it, yes. As an RCIA Candidate I have read much about it, much of it contradicting other stuff I have read about it.

In the end, I can give in to total dispair, or trust in God’s grace and do what I can.

In that spirit, I have purchased a set of Gregorian Masses for my father, who died in the Lutheran faith. When more money comes in, I’ll buy a set of Gregorian Masses for a beloved cousin, a lapsed Catholic when she died.

In that spirt, I pray the Divine Chaplet daily, I make a special effort to devote many of my prayers and works to The Church Suffering. Not being in a State Of Grace, I have no idea how much this is helping.

But as we say in AA, sometimes you can only do the footwork and leave the results up to God. For me, this seems to be one of those times

 

[blessedstar]

God’s Mercy tempers His Justice. His Justice calls for repentance and penance, His Mercy is what allows man to withstand justice because no soul that has ever lived, bar two, Jesus and Mary, can stand up to God’s Justice.

So you may very well find Stalin or Hitler or the lapsed Catholic or the non-believer, all manner of sinners, etc in Heaven (perhaps after a stint in purgatory) and you may well find that because right up until the last breath we draw, God’s grace and mercy flows like a deluge upon the earth and He looks for the slightest movement of the heart to embrace His grace.

God condemns no man, it is man who condemns himself. So we too cannot judge people nor can we presume who is in hell. By their lives we can know who is in Heaven and the Church has declared this over and over by Beatification of the Saints, but there are a huge numbers of little hidden saints in Heaven who have not been declared formally by the Church to be there.

Best not to judge and to pray for all people. We are not called to love only those we deem worthy of our love, we are called to love all people even those who mascarade as our enemy because truly we have only one enemy and that is the father of lies, satan.

We must deepen our faith in the redeeming love of God the Father, Christ Jesus the Son and the power of Holy Spirit

I think people are going to have a big shock when they find who does make it to Heaven!

Our labours here on earth for our own soul and for each other’s souls are just the beginning. God is not restricted by time, I can pray for the Holy death of my late fatehr today and God would grant it if it was His will even though it is six and a half years since my father passed away, you see God is not interest in our little perception of time. To fret endlessly about where are loved ones are is a lack of trust in God’s Mercy, to presume of God’s Mercy is to not recognise He is also Just. We accept a fairness in God’s plan, we know Him, by Jesus’ Revelation, to be Merciful and Just, but God does not go by appearances like men do. What we presume by mere appearance and make judgements upon is the folly of men, but God knows the heart and intentions of each man and appearances are as nothing to God. So we cannot deem the pious to be a saint nor can we deem the sinner to be in hell, appearances matter nothing. It is therefore prudent to take into our souls the Peace of Christ Jesus otherwise we would be driven mad with ‘what if’s’ and do an injustice to Jesus’ words to the Good Thief ‘Today you will be with Me in Paradise’. We entrust people to God’s Mercy and cease to fret.

Pray, trust, wait, hope and stop worrying.

 

[IHS]

Many Catholics today do not believe in Hell. Even many believing Catholics tend to steer clear of the topic. I do believe in the existence of Hell, and I see clearly the works of Satan upon this earth.

Have you ever thought about just how many people will go to hell- people that you know, family members, friends? The sheer numbers.

There are around 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. I cant say how many are faithful or who will die in a state of Grace. But think of that- if the world was to end this second, how many people in the world right now would go to Hell. And that doesnt even count the numbers in the past.

I once tried to imagine Hell., the unimaginable. Horror, pain, death for all eternity (all time, can you even imagine that,eternity?) I scared myself just thinking of it.

I cant help but feel some amount of anguish for all the souls who will go to Hell. Maybe even me. How can our culture toss this thought aside and make grave sin a fact of life? I cannot even begin to think…

According the parable of the seed and the sower 75% of people will enter into hell. Frightning isn,t it because that includes many of our loved ones.

 

[blessedstar]

According the parable of the seed and the sower 75% of people will enter into hell. Frightning isn,t it because that includes many of our loved ones.

That’s a very literal interpretation of a parable that isn’t meant to be taken literally. Jesus wasn’t giving a formula to work out what percentage of people will go to hell. This parable warns of the dangers against faith and to take care to not let the world steal your faith, to not be lazy and to lay good foundations for your faith, to not be led astray, to not get distracted etc.

 

[wcknight]

Although I too am concerned for eternal welfare of my loved ones and friends, I take heart in what Jesus said about His Father. IF we who are sinful and wicked treat our kids with love and kindness, how much better will God our Father who is all good and merciful treat each of us.

Being a parent, I know I would be very forgiving of my kids misbehavior. I would NOT be strict on every technicality, I certainly would not send them to eternal damnation except under the most heinous of crimes and even then it would only be if I thought they were totally hateful and evil and could not possibly turn from evil.

So if I, a sinful person, will tolerate misbehavior with leniency and mercy, how much more merciful with be God who is all good and more merciful.

 

[trogiah]

Jesus talked about hell in the bible more than he talked about heaven! .

I respectfully disagree with your assessment, though I’ll admit I haven’t counted all the references to both.

But I know that Jesus began numerous parables with the phrase “The kingdom of God can be likened to…”

And he said that his purpose in life was to “teach the good news of God’s kingdom…”

And he told his disciples to say to people who would listen “the kingdom of God is at hand.”

We are told to “seek first the kingdom of God” not to seek first the avoidance of hell.

The way to avoid condemnation is very simple, though not necessarily easy. “Those who forgive will be forgiven.” “If you want to avoid judgement, stop passing judgement”

Seek God’s kingdom, practice forgiveness and mercy, and spare yourself undue anxiety of condemnation.

peace

Jim

 

[trogiah]

That is quite a prayer, and I agree it would help if we do prayer for everyone, especially those who could potentially be damned.

While this is apparently a noble deed to pray for everyone. This brings up an interesting question. Some folks in history have notorius reputations, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, mass murderers, serial killers etc, etc some folks clearly led lives that were especially evil. While no can say for certain if any of these repented before their demise, how does one include such folks in their prayer list ?

I can’t recall anyone ever advocating prayers for folks who committed truly wicked and evil deeds on a mass scale.

I question whether God is really all that impressed by the “scale” of the destruction “caused” by some of the notorious historical figures. I just saw a documentary on Russia under Stalin and it was absolutely incredible the brutal treatment that humans inflicted on one another in that situation. What occured to me was that Stalin had many people that, for whatever reason, bought into his vision, and that was why the scale was so great.

When Jesus was confronted by Pilate who said “Do you not know that I have the power to condemn you to death or to save you” Jesus answered “You would have no power whatever unless it came from on high - therefore he who handed me over is guilty of the greater sin.”

Like Pilate; Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot only had the power they had because circumstances lead many others to follow their lead. I think we should not be so certain that these people were so much different than ourselves. Anytime we may think, “wouldn’t it be nice if that group of people that I don’t have anything in common with would just stay out of my life” we are much closer to being like them than we might care to admit.

 

[Damascus]

First of all Matthew 7:14 says:

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Secondly-

I really don’t think we should say this person or that person is going to hell because of x, y, or z that they’ve done. We need to keep our own noses clean and live out our lives as servants to each other and in love as Jesus taught us.

I think hell exists, but it is not a big sulphury place, rather isolation from God. You can isolate yourself from God here and now if you choose to, I know some people who seem like they’ve put themselves in hell already!

First off, I would like to tell you that you may have done severe damage with this post OP with all due respect.
For starters:
You have narrowed God’s providence to your parameters.
Not good to do IMHO.
You may have scared a prospective Christian out of Christianity let alone the Catholic faith with this post.
Not good to do IMHO.
You are a very intelligent poster and know quite a bit more than the average joe here about our faith.
You are aware that many will be in heaven (even if most are going to Purgatory first) and you are aware that Catholics are not the only ones who will be there.
So why the post?
Yes, everyone should be aware of Hell. You are correct that many dont put enough thought into the subject.
Yet, we ought to be not only worried about “am I going” but as good Christians praying that as many people as possible will some how some way, and it is a mystery, get to heaven through Jesus Christ our Risen Lord that we just cant see how or why they will.
Keep St. Dismus in your thoughts more often and pray. Its usually the smart guys that have this Hell issue. Many saints have been through this agony over this issue.
This is actually a sign that you are not so much fearing Hell and worrying about humanity, it is all too often a sign that you are doubting God’s providence and faith in his plan.
he is not wrathful, and is merciful
And I remember reading something recently that said basically that even if the doors of hell were left open for anyone to leave, not a soul would leave.
Why? Because they want to curse God eternally more than anything else.
They are not nor do they want to be reconcilled with God.
I know that is hard to swallow.
But so is vegamite.

 

[Genesis315]

I was reading Cardinal Dulles the other day on Hell. He made an interesting point. For all we know 99.9999% of people will go to Heaven or 99.99999% will go to Hell or some percentage in between, but there’s a reason God doesn’t tell us how many (most of the warnings in Scripture are just that, warnings, they are not meant to be predicative.). If we knew almost everyone went to Hell, we would fall into despair. If we knew almost everyone were saved, we would fall into presumption (I think today we border on the extreme of presumption). Likewise, He doesn’t give us a set number who will be saved, because then it would be a competition for limited number of spots and no one would help each other.

So, the best thing to do is not to speculate on the salvation of others, but rather to work out your salvation in fear and trembling while bringing the saving Catholic faith to who you can