The depths of hell?

We bring down so-called condemnation upon ourselves. WE separate ourselves from Love – I do it all the time when I isolate and fall close to despair. THAT is hell - deliberately cutting ourselves off from avenues of Love. Hell is the absence of Love. Not because we hate God, not because of so-called sinful actions for which we do not receive Sacramental confession with the proper formulae. But because we do not believe we deserve Love. It is our own inner feelings of guilt and shame – exaggerated and blown all out of proportion in our minds, pounded into us from so many arenas - that cuts us off from God, the Eternal Lover. THAT is the “free will” that’s always talked about. And it is formidable. We do not grow horns and maniacally laugh with a pitchfork when we are in this hell, we do not/cannot get “tricked” into hell by some imp named Screwtape. We push Love away ourselves when in this hell, because Love is so very beautiful and we can sometimes become convinced that we are so very ugly. We become convinced of this sometimes by the very religious institutions that should be trumpeting God’s love rather than God’s condemnation. We refuse strenuously yet somehow longingly – because what does Love want with someone like us??  We are beloved children of God, before ANYTHING – who could be worthier of joining with the very source of Love??

As a Christian priest and sometimes-sufferer of this Hell, I cannot believe nor will I ever teach that an All-Loving God puts us in this state as punishment nor that this state is eternal. We all deserve Love. Even the people we hate deserve Love. Because our first role is Beloved of God. Hell is our own banishment of Love.

THE SANCTIFYING LOVE OF GOD WILL WAIT FOR US, however long it takes.

Daily Mass Readings 

Acts 16:22-34

Psalm 138:1-2ab, 2cde-3, 7c-8

John 16:5-11