Me in Heaven, my mother in eternal hell

  • Thread starter Thread starter MaximilianK
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
PatK63 said:
In the end we have to trust God’s mercy. I believe there are a lot fewer people in hell than most believe on CAF.
Click to expand...
I just don’t speculate on how many people are in Hell at all and concentrate on getting as many to Heaven as possible.
 
In Heaven, you will still love your mother (in Hell), but you will not feel sorrow.
 
MaximilianK said:
But For you, what are you thinking?
Click to expand...
I understand your angst very well. I think what we need to do, for the purposes of this conversation, is dispense entirely with the word “hell”. The word draws forth from most of us a default image of Renaissance artwork depicting fire, torture, and reptilian demonic figures prodding the unfortunate souls with a large fork. No such place exists, nor does the Catholic Church teach it, as you know.

Instead let’s talk about what has already been brought up, and has been brought up before. What we are referring to in using that particular word is the state of someone who has decided they do not want the friendship of God, so choose to remain outside of that. But here’s the problem I have with even that line of thinking. How can we or anyone choose to remain outside of, or reject, something we do not and cannot understand?

God is unknowable, unfathomable, far, far beyond our finite mind’s ability to comprehend anything remotely accurate regarding the massive, conscious energy we call “God”. What fine people like your mom are rejecting is not God, but the very flawed ideas of God which have been presented to them in this human life. Most such ideas are easily refuted by knowledgable people. In fact, CS Lewis, who hosted a weekly literary group at Oxford, had one of his own presentations, attempting to prove the existence of God, utterly demolished by another member of the group. This woman was a fervent Christian but saw serious issues with Lewis’ arguments. Even experts can lead us down a wrong way of thinking.

Here’s a quote from Father Ron Rolheiser’s book, Prayer, Our Deepest Longing.

" We live lives of tortured complexity. Inside each of us there is both a saint and a sinner and enough complexity to write our own book on abnormal psychology. Our hearts are a murky cauldron of grace and sin, angels and demons. Always, it seems, we are torn in a way that leaves us feeling unsure, guilty, and tense. It is no simple task being a human being. "

I love that last sentence. God is acutely aware of how grueling, how difficult, and how testing this life can be. Is he ready to reject someone who isn’t able to rise to the occasion? Of course not. It is we who think we are rejecting Him when we fall prey to the adversity and the turmoil and wind up making bad choices. Onlookers like yourself are, quite naturally, taken aback and alarmed by this. But really, we can be quite at ease in knowing that when these folks we love pass over to the other side they will be so embraced and overwhelmed with the love of Eternity that they will not be able to help but want to participate. And I must depart with what most people will say; that the choice to accept God must be made while in this human form. I don’t see how anything is gained by placing such limits on God’s mercy.

Blessings to you, my friend.
 
In heaven, you will enjoy the Beatific Vision. It would be helpful to read up on that and ponder it before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. In God’s presence, I do not believe that anything else will matter.

Secondly, just as we will be perfected and have a much greater understanding of God’s perfection as we enjoy His perfect mercy, so also will we enjoy His perfect justice.

We do not love as God loves. Our justice is almost a mockery of God’s justice, for He knows all, while we guess and stumble along.
“Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and just”
Click to expand...
This will be our eternal attitude in heaven, even if those whom we loved temporally are not with us. God desires infinitely more than we do that they be with Him, yet grants them and us the freedom to choose Him or to reject Him.

What part of God is less than perfect? Which part of Him should we disdain? If we should ever, by God’s grace attain to heaven, should we then worry and fret that we are undeserving? Should we say that heaven would be pretty cool place if only…

I say no. We are incapable of knowing the all-pervasive , all-permeating joy that awaits. When we are filled with joy, it will be akin to the Blessed Virgin being filled with grace.

There will be no room within us for anything that is not joy.
 
Last edited:
The OP’s concern is real, and assuring him that ‘he will forget’ is hardly a consolation, particularly when it is nowhere in Church teaching.

Answers like ‘we will understand perfect justice’ are too abstract. They also don’t really work. Say someone deeply loved by you committed a grievous crime and was executed, after flawless due-process. Would the fact that their death was ‘just’ make your grief any less?

OP, I know this is probably not much help. But consider that the consolations of Heaven are perfect. In His everlasting arms, all your griefs will be perfectly eased. This might be what Scripture means that "He shall wipe all tears from their eyes. " Nothing about forgetting or wanting to.

ICXC NIKA
 
I agree with you. You cannot be happy unless Gd erases your memory of your mother, brother, etc. or, in His mercy and for your sake, enables them to be in heaven with you.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
I agree with you. You cannot be happy unless Gd erases your memory of your mother, brother, etc. or, in His mercy and for your sake, enables them to be in heaven with you.
Click to expand...
Happiness is a state of being in humans corresponding to their relationship with God. Therefore, no matter what the rest of Creation’s relationship to God is, if you are in the right relationship with God, you will be happy.
 
Actually Scripture is clear, God will wipe away all tears so there will be no unhappiness or pain in heaven. It is outside our understanding.
 
Gd made us in His image. This means, among other things, that we are capable of caring for and loving some others (particularly, family and close friends) as much as we love ourselves, just as we believe that Gd loves each of us as much as He loves Himself. Therefore, what happens to our loved ones is just as important (maybe even more important, in the case of loving parents and their beloved children) as what happens to us. Thus, if our loved ones are not happy, we cannot be happy; indeed, our own happiness is not even as important as that of our loved ones.
 
Last edited:
meltzerboy2 said:
Gd made us in His image. This means, among other things, that we are capable of caring for and loving some others (particularly, family and close friends) as much as we love ourselves, just as we believe that Gd loves each of us as much as He loves Himself. Therefore, what happens to our loved ones is just as important (maybe even more important, in the case of loving parents and their beloved children) as what happens to us. Thus, if our loved ones are not happy, we cannot be happy; indeed, our own happiness is not even as important as that of our loved ones.
Click to expand...
Happiness is a state of being resulting from the right relationship with God. Therefore, no matter what the relationship to God of the rest of the cosmos is, if our relationship to God is proper, we will be happy.
 
Love is willing the good of another. It doesn’t necessarily have an effect of happiness (with the exception of love of God).
 
Why doesn’t it? You don’t feel happiness, indeed joy, when you help someone else, even a stranger, and even more so, a loved one? I’m not saying that the effect of feeling happy is the main reason why you help others, but, in my experience, it most always has that effect.
 
Last edited:
It is certainly beyond my understanding even though I have faith that Gd will do what is just and merciful.
 
This sounds rather selfish, does it not? It almost seems that what you’re saying is that so long as I am happy due to my being in a right relationship with Gd, it doesn’t matter what happens to the rest of the universe. I contend that if you don’t care about the rest of the cosmos, particularly those you love, then you are NOT in a right relationship with Gd.
 
Last edited:
Isn’t the idea of Hell against charity? Let’s forget about those in Hell.
 
It is Christian dogma to believe in the existence of hell, and therefore, if you are Christian, you must accept the idea and justify it by trusting that Gd has a reason for its existence. It is, however, controversial as to how occupied hell is.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Why doesn’t it? You don’t feel happiness, indeed joy, when you help someone else, even a stranger, and even more so, a loved one? I’m not saying that the effect of feeling happy is the main reason why you help others, but, in my experience, it most always has that effect.
Click to expand...
If you define happiness as a feeling, we are talking about different things here. See my definition of happiness above.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
I contend that if you don’t care about the rest of the cosmos, particularly those you love, then you are NOT in a right relationship with Gd.
Click to expand...
I contend that if you don’t love all humanity, you are not in a right relationship with God. See my definition of love above.
 
We are both too contentious! But there it is…

Surely you don’t love all people equally. I think this shows one of the differences between Christianity and Judaism. Christianity paints people as they ought to be, whereas Judaism paints them the way they are, warts and all. An overgeneralization of course, but there is some truth to it, I think.
 
Last edited:
I was of the understanding that the Jewish faith teaches there is no hell. Am I incorrect?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top