In Search of the One, the True and the Beautiful

Does Hell Exist?

Mark 9:42-48 Gospel for 26h Sunday of the year, year B

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna., where 'the worm does not die, and fire is not quenched.'

In the majority of recent polls, most people are of the opinion that Hell does not exist, or if it does there are very few people who go there. They say that if God exists and he is a good and loving God, how could he send anyone into perpetual misery. The question I ask is - when it comes to what is true and what is false or what exists and does not exist, upon what do we base our judgment? Do we base it upon wishful thinking, on our likes and dislikes, upon opinion polls, or do we base it upon solid evidence either from reason, experiment, the teaching authority of the Church, or revealed truth (Sacred Scripture) ?

Relatively speaking, not many years ago - about the time that Christopher Columbus discovered America, many people in the world believed that the world was flat. Eventually when sailors sailed around the world, they realized that it was not flat all , but round. However, just because people believed that the world was flat did not make it any less round. Public opinion had nothing to do with what was true or false.

And so we cannot place our credence on any issue like "does hell exist?" on public opinion. We believe in it because it is what the Church teaches based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who cannot deceive or be deceived. As the gospel for today reveals, Jesus speaks about avoiding the fires of Gehenna at all costs for it there that the "worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." It is interesting to note the origin of the word "Gehenna". Webster's dictionary says that Gehenna refers to hell, and the origin of the word refers to the valley of Hinnom not far from Jerusalem where refuse was burned. When Jesus referred to avoiding the fires of Gehenna, it must have conjured up a vivid picture in the peoples' minds…in our times - like a dump where all unwanted things and everything under the sun is gotten rid of.

Should it worry us, the fact that hell exists? I think it should - if we are not living a life pleasing o God. St. Ignatius, in his Spiritual Exercises, insists that a meditation on hell be part of the early meditations in a retreat. He says that this is important because if we are not ready to give up our evil practices out of love, fear of punishment will motivate us. When people have strong temptations to do wrong because of the delusive pleasures of the flesh which appear so attractive, fear of hell is an excellent deterrent.

But if we are living consistently in God's grace and friendship, then hell should not frighten us… There is an excellent prayer called the "Miracle Prayer" which helps us always to be repentant and in God's grace. This can be said on a daily basis by anyone of any religion and helps to keep us in a continual state of repentance and trust in Jesus our merciful Lord and Savior. It is called the "Miracle Prayer" because saying this prayer with sincerity and fervor can change our lives and out relationship with God. I would like to close this short meditation with this prayer:

The Miracle Prayer

Lord Jesus, I come before you just as I am. I am sorry for my sins. I repent of my sins. Please forgive me. In your name I forgive all others for what they have done against me. I renounce Satan, the evil spirits and all their works. I give you my entire self, Lord Jesus, now and forever. I invite you into my life, Jesus. I accept you as my Lord, God and savior. Heal me, change me, strengthen me in body, soul and spirit.

Come Lord Jesus, cover me with your precious blood, and fill me with your Holy Spirit. I love you Lord Jesus. I praise you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I shall follow you every day of my life. Amen.

Mary, my mother, Queen of Peace, all you angels and saints, please pray for me. Amen.

(Pray this prayer every day and it will change your life.)

Father Marvin Deutsch, M.M.As sons of Adam and Eve and as human beings, we find ourselves with the problem of concupiscence which simply means we have an inclination to evil which we must resist and counteract. But it is also true that on the positive side that we have an inclination and are attracted to the good, that is the one, the true and the beautiful. But to fulfill this attraction we must be searchers. In other words, we do not come to know the truth all at once. We often learn it step by step, by trial and error. In fact, it is a life time search.

One of the things that surprises me, is that so few people are searchers. Most seem perfectly content to believe what they have always believed, or to accept whatever they have grown up with whether this be true or false. For me, it has been quite different. Although, I was born a Catholic, I am a Catholic today, or as a matter of fact, a Catholic priest, not only because of the fact that I was born into the faith, but also because I became totally convinced of the truth of the Catholic Church. In my youth I went through a period of darkness in which I had many doubts about the Church and God. But the more I studied, the more I searched, and the more I prayed, the more I became convinced that the Catholic faith was the true faith and the only one that made perfect sense leading us to our destiny, eternal life with God.. .

Not so long ago, I was talking to a very well educated Chinese man in California. We got on to the subject of Father Mateo Richi, an Italian Jesuit who worked in China around the year 1600. My Chinese friend was an expert on the subject and a professor and librarian at a University. In our discussion we talked about Mateo who was trying to convince well educated Buddhists Chinese, that the Catholic Church was the true Church of God. He was a master in the Chinese language and also the Chinese way of writing using picture characters. Mateo Richi was highly respected by the Chinese and his arguments were very convincing. However, he had little success in converting the Chinese. Were they searchers? It seems that they were very hesitant to accept something new.

In my discussion with my well educated Chinese friend, I found out that he was a convert to the Catholic Church, and so I asked him why he had become a Catholic, expecting him to say that he was convinced that having read all about Mateo Richi, he was convinced of the truthfulness of what the Church was teaching, especially about Jesus Christ as the son of God and Redeemer and Savior of the world. But he didn't say any of these things. He said he became a Catholic because his wife was Catholic and he wanted to be more closely united to her. And so there went my theory right out the window, that all people are inclined to be searchers. Even though all human beings have an attraction to the one, the true and the beautiful, it does not mean that all carry out this attraction.

At the present time I am reading the autobiography of Father Richard, John Neuhaus, (book title - Catholic Matters) who unfortunately died not too long ago. Fr. Neuhaus was a Lutheran pastor for 30 years, all of which time he was searching for the truth. He was received into the Catholic Church on Sept 8th, 1990 by Cardinal John O' Connor, who was then Archbishop of New York. A few years later, Fr. Neuhaus was ordained a Catholic priest and became a wonderful advocate of the truth of the Catholic faith, something he had been searching for all his life. He was a searcher and had to follow that wherever it led him. And so that brings up the question - why are there so few who are searchers of the truth?

Today, the popular notion in our confusing world of ideas is that there is no objective truth, that all truth is subjective, which means that what is true for you is not necessarily true for me. Even though our ideas are contradictory, we both have the truth. Pope Benedict XVI calls this "the dictatorship of relativism". The problem seems to stem from the strong desire to protect ones own lifestyle. If there is something that I am doing and which I do not want to give up, then I have to defend it by any means possible, and of course the best means is to say that what I am doing is perfectly all right and true for me. Thus you have people who believe that abortion is perfectly o.k. even though it is obviously killing a child in the womb of its mother. Yet, people who refuse to believe that this is wrong, will use euphemisms in an effort to cover up and hide behind an evil act. They will call abortion "reproductive health care", Since they don't want the child, they must find a way to make it look all right to do what they want to do.

A definition of truth which I learned in the seminary many years ago which is not a popular notion today is - "Truth is the conformity of the mind to reality." The truth does not begin in the mind, but outside the mind, and unless the mind sees it the way it is, it does not have the truth. For example, there was a time when most of the people of the world believed that the world was flat. This did nothing to make the world less round. The simple fact was that these people just did not know the truth. Aristotle, the great philosopher who lived about 300 years before Christ, coined the definition of man as a rational animal. Rational means that we, through a process of thinking called logic, come to know the truth. It is not rational to think that 2 plus 2 is 5. It just isn't, and there is no way we can defend that false conclusion.

And so we are rational by nature. Also St. Paul says in Romans chapter 2, that the law of God is written in our hearts, which means that we are inclined to seek the true good and to avoid the evil. When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus if he was king of the Jews, Jesus replied that his kingdom was not of this world, that the reason he came into the world was to bear witness to the truth, and those who were of the truth would hear his voice. Pilate responded, "What is the truth" (John 18:37-38). Pilate probably was a fore-runner of the thinking of relativists today. Actually the answer is quite clear in the gospel of John, Chapter 8. Jesus says that his word is the truth and if his word is in us we will have the truth and the truth will make us free. We just have to be seekers and searchers, that's all, and be willing to give up a life-style that is contrary to the truth. Remember, Jesus has promised: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7-8)

Fr. Marvin Deutsch, M.M.