Is almost everyone in Hell?

[Ridgerunner]

Thank you. This helped me as well.

I have terrible fears about the future and even more terrible fears of what happens when I die.

I was raised atheist and came to the Church late. In fact one priest I know called me the Prodigal daughter.

I was and still am a sinner.

Pardon me for adding this.

We do have reason to fear for our souls when we die; perhaps more than we even imagine. I recall someone saying a sin or a good deed, either one, is like a pebble thrown into a wide pool. There is the immediate splash, but the ripples will go all the way to the edge of the pool, however far away they may be.

What do we really know about our sins? If I cheat somebody, for instance, does he realize it and give way to hate? Does he, unable to retaliate, perhaps beat his wife, his child? Might the wife divorce the husband and live in adultery? Might the child learn to do as his father did? How wide do the ripples go? We never know in this life, but we will know at our judgment, whatever that may be like, and it will be a massive revelation.

In a similar way, the good things we do ripple out to places we can’t see. If I even so much as pray for a person in sin, might it activate an influx of grace to that person? Might it result in his saving his soul? Might God, who remembers everything, remember that and give you the grace of salvation? I, at least, think God does that sort of thing, and I am far from being alone in thinking it. Much better people than I have thought it.

If I give to some worthy charity, or to the parish, I have no idea at all what the ripples are from it. Maybe some child somewhere in the third world gets pennicilin one time only, but lives because of it and grows to be a benefactor to many. We don’t know.

But first and foremost, in facing the terror of our judgment, we MUST accept it that God is a kind and loving God. He is NOT the vengeful God of the Puritans. (Did you ever read “Sins in the Hands of an Angry God”? It takes the breath away.) God doesn’t need your money. He doesn’t need for you to become famous. He doesn’t even need for you to convert half the world if that isn’t His plan for you. He wants you to love Him. Well, we could say, I can’t see Him. I can see my dog, I can see my child, I can see my spouse. How do I love a God I can’t see, and especially when I am told by so many that He’s just waiting to slam me into hell for something i don’t even know for sure I did, or trip me up and send me to hell at the least expected moment?

Well, I’m no theologian, but I can read. It’s the “little steps”. We are assured by some of the saints that if we love God, we needn’t worry. Was it St. Augustine who counseled “Love God and do as you will”? That doesn’t seem like the greatest advice, except that if we truly love God we’re less likely to sin, and if we do sin, we’re likely to repent. Obviously you do repent, Sarcelle, or you would not have said what you did.

How do we get to a deeper love of God, or to love of God at all? I think (and many saints have thought) it was by offering events in our lives to God even if, in the moment, we don’t see a lot of benefit in it. I step outside and it’s cold, so I tell God I offer my momentary discomfort to Him and for the conversion of sinners. I take a hamburger instead of a steak and tell God that, though it’s pretty small stuff, I offer that slight sacrifice for the conversion of sinners or that some starving fellow elsewhere might get enough to eat for one day. Maybe I can someday work up to fasting a whole day for the same thing. I can offer Him my cold, my flu, my fatigue, even my worry, my wanting a beer but not drinking it, along with my joy in drinking a beer when I have one.

Is this persuasive to God? Well, it’s not converting all of China or banishing hunger from the earth. It’s not walking on hot coals or wearing a hair shirt or giving everything to the poor and preaching on a street corner. But it’s something, and God knows we’re doing what our strength allows us to do, and He knows why.

As I said before, God doesn’t really want anything from us but us. We are His love. He wants our love, such as we can give, and wants to return it in immeasurable quantity. “Ah, He might say to us, you thought what you gave to me was nothing. But I’m God, and it touched me beyond your understanding, knowing your weakness. Here, be happy beyond measure forever.”

So, do you think He’s watching behind a tree to throw you into hell if He gets a chance at you? No. That’s not God. That’s not what a lover does. That’s His enemy, who wants you to think of God in that way so you will reject Him as unfair.

Be of good cheer, Sarcelle.

 

[RPRPsych]

You are familiar with what you choose to think she said. But I’ll grant that if one ignores a good part of what she wrote and said, one could miss a great deal. Even Pope John Paul II said the depths of her thought have not yet been fully plumbed.

Parenthetically, “Modernism” = Religious relativism essentially. It does not = any thought more recent than that which was prevalent during the papacy of Pius V.

:clapping: