A pagan friend of mine once told someone to "go to hell", so I asked him whether he now believed in hell. He replied, "of course not", explaining that "hell" is only an expression that means "something bad" but that enlightened people know that it is not a reality. I told him that I must not be enlightened, since I "knew" no such thing.
For many today the denial of hell is a selfishly motivated attempt to avoid the reality of Judgment Day. Yes, I have known some who will claim that they reject it for theological or philosophical reasons, but I have my suspicions about their actual motivations. Down deep we all would rather that there were no accountability for our sinful actions, but we also know that this is not the case.
In today's gospel reading for Mass, we hear Jesus warning people about the reality of eternal Judgment. He even goes through a specific list of cities and says "woe to you" because they refused the clear testimony of the gospel that He had given to them. Wow. He was not very nice was He? Essentially, He said, "You guys are headed to hell if you do not shape up!" Their denial of eternal judgment is what was making them lax in their faith and thus taking them right to hell.
Have you ever heard a Catholic clergyman tell that to anyone at all? Generally speaking, we are too timid to venture into the area of "hell". We do not like talking about it, and we certainly would be shocked if a priest were to say something as directly as Jesus. Some of this hesitancy is probably because we have gotten beaten down with sentimentality and want just "nice sayings"; none of that "fire and brimstone" stuff for us!
Yet, the entire context of the gospel is Jesus saying, "Hey, you are not taking eternal hell seriously; time to wake up because it is real!" I do not think I could ever speak with the perfect wisdom of Christ the way that He did while He was on this earth. Yet, I truly wish that I could speak about hell as clearly and confidently as He did. It might actually touch someone in the right way and bring them to genuine repentance. That is the very thing that Jesus was aiming at when He spoke about hell: the repentance of His hearers.
Could this be the very reason why so few people find genuine repentance today? Is it because we do not take hell seriously enough, and so, as a result, we do not see just how horrible our sins are (even the smallest of them deserves hell)? If many of these lapsed clergymen who have abused those under their care (either physically, liturgically, or theologically) had a deeper sense of their sins and a genuine belief in hell, then they likely would not have committed these terrible sins.
The word of God is clear in many places that to deny Jesus means you are going to eternal hell. Those who claim the name of Christ (especially clergymen) need to know deeply in their very souls, that their actions will be judged by the Almighty Lord someday. To bank on His mercy when you are denying the faith is presumption, since His mercy is only promised to the penitent (those trying to overcome their sins).
What is your perspective on your sins? Do you think lightly of them, and at the same time think that everyone else's sins are horrible? If so, then you are still not thinking of hell seriously, because you treat it as something for "him over there" and that is not what Jesus was aiming at in the gospel. He wants each of us to ponder the fact that if we reject the grace of God, then hell is exactly where we will end up. As sad as it may make us, hell is a reality. Let us take that sadness and turn it into penitence. Our eternal destiny is at stake.
