In Advent we are called to prepare on different levels for the coming of Our Lord. Most obviously we look forward to celebrating His birth in Bethlehem. The meekness of the circumstances of the Nativity should inspire us to approach the manger with childlike simplicity and trust. We are also reminded to ready ourselves for His return in majesty and power to judge the living and the dead. This is therefore the time of year to reflect on the “Last Things.”
The Four Last Things – Death Judgment, Heaven and Hell – is not such a fashionable subject for preaching in our day. Death is something that modern man prefers to take place out of sight and out of mind. Rarely these days does it take place in the home, with all generations of a family praying around the sickbed. It has instead been banished to the sterilised corridors of hospitals and nursing homes. As for judgment, the thought that God might dare to call us to account is an affront to the prevailing view that, if we are to allow any existence to God at all, His role in our lives must be to affirm us in our choices and make us feel good about ourselves. Hell is hardly ever mentioned, and even the value of Heaven is debased if, as we are led to believe, we all eventually end up there automatically whether we choose to go or not.
In the Gospels, however, Our Lord Jesus mentions hell quite often. At the end of His parable of the talents, for example, the unprofitable servant is cast into the outer darkness where, in the words of Our Lord, “Men will weep and gnash their teeth” (Mt 25:30). Apparently, the Ulster firebrand Ian Paisley was once warming to his theme on this text when an old man shouted out from the crowd “I ain’t got no teeth!” The Rev. Mr. Paisley assured him: “teeth will be provided.” It was not a wholly frivolous answer. In the Creed we profess our belief in the Resurrection of the dead, meaning the reunion of our bodies and souls at the end of time when Our Lord returns in Glory to judge the living and the dead. We believe that our bodies will join our immortal souls in their destiny in eternity. So yes, teeth will be provided. Of course, we hope and pray that this will be in Heaven. But we must also consider the alternative so that we may avoid it.
That is why we priests must occasionally preach on the uncomfortable subject of hell. Not because we enjoy talking about it, or because anyone enjoys hearing it, but because we do not wish for you to go there. Neither do we wish to go there ourselves, and there is a good chance that we shall if we do not live up to our responsibility to preach the Gospel in all its fullness.
The truth is that we have each been created in the image of God. And the freedom of choice with which we have been endowed means that while we are able to embrace and treasure the gifts that God lavishes on us, we also remain free to reject them. This must be true if we consider that grace is a supernatural gift, and the nature of any gift is that it is freely given and freely received. And so, in this life, we remain able to extinguish the gift of Sanctifying Grace received in Baptism, through mortal sin. This is how a soul ends up in hell: when someone dies unrepentant in mortal sin.
We must pray, then, for the grace to hold sin in horror, and to use well the Sacrament of Penance which restores us from the death of sin to the life of the Resurrection. But we also need to remember that the Christian life involves so much more than the avoidance of mortal sin. Indeed, if this is what we reduce it to, then we become like that unprofitable servant who buries his talent in the ground. Even what he has shall be taken from him.
Maybe we are struggling with a habit of sin in one particular area. It would be counterproductive in the extreme to focus our entire spiritual energy in that one place. We can only hope to overcome our vices, with God’s help, if we are also making a real effort to practice all the virtues. Strive to live charity and humility to a high degree, and we give God’s grace the space in our hearts to work its wonders. Channel our forces on being good (and that means doing good), and we can be confident that God will give us the grace to conquer that within us which is bad.
The life of grace must be lived, so that God’s supernatural gifts may be multiplied within our hearts and souls. We have been given a participation in God’s own Divine Life so that we may build and extend His Kingdom around us, and especially in that part of Creation which He has entrusted to our influence – within our family, our workplace and home, and within our circle of friends. If we use what God has given us, His gifts will flourish and increase.
Father Julian Large