I believe Hell is real and a possibility for any of us

[ProdglArchitect]

Sometimes my mind needs to be washed out with soap. There were times before I came back to the church, that I had the morals of an alley cat. I don’t think it’s funny at all. There is no doubt in my mind at all that had I not come back to the church I would be going to hell. I still worry about it.

I pray the Lord gives us credit for trying our best to mend our ways.

I think this is true of most people who come back to the faith. I know it’s true for me as well.

 

[anon67074017]

This reminds me of a story a dear priest we know tells. Here’s a bit of a transcript of the story, since I happen to have an audio recording of it. Perhaps it’ll be of interest.

Father’s words:

One of the most frightening things that I’ve ever come across in my whole life happened to me some years ago. I was sitting in the confessional, and this man presented himself and said that he was a militant homosexual, a sodomist, as well as a molester of children. And he said to me that God designed him this way, and that he had absolutely no control over it. God made him this way!

I kept saying to him, “no! no! no! Jesus Christ is Lord! He is Lord over every foul and pestilent spirit that can ever attack the heart of a human being.” I said to him, “for instance, I have a murderous spirit. But, by God’s grace, I have never murdered anybody.” But he kept insisting that God designed him and made him this way.

Well, this went on for a long time and, naturally enough, I couldn’t give him absolution. He came back week after week after week and, on the seventh week, something extraordinary happened. In the confession room, he reached out, grabbed me by the beard, and pounded me on the floor. And while he held me down on the floor, he said to me, “you’re right. You’re right about everything you’ve said, that Jesus is Lord, even over the homosexual spirit.”

And then he said, “Judgment has already been passed on this world, and the judgment in question is this, that the light came into the world, and men preferred the darkness because their deeds were evil.” And then he said, “I prefer evil.” Now that’s what frightens me most. I think that many people know their deeds are evil, but they are choosing the darkness.

Why would someone willingly and deliberately choose evil over the infinite mercy of Christ?

 

[christofirst]

I also recall Billy Joel’s song, “Only the Good Die Young”, where he says “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.”

One question. You mentioned the conscious not being completely dulled, do you mean conscience or conscious?

Conscience, but it was too late to edit when I reread the error. When I first wrote the sentence, it was something like “still conscious of…” and then I reworked it to mean conscience without changing that key word .

We also have quite a few examples of famous people who led notorious lives and then had what appeared to be a conversion either later in life or even on their deathbed. People see all the “fun” these rebels had, and they want to have it both ways as well (a life of sinful pleasure and Heaven). The trouble is, no one knows exactly when their life will end, just as no one knows whether or not these celebrities are undergoing an extended stay in Purgatory now wishing they’d straightened out their lives sooner.