Today we celebrate the feast of St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism. St. Benedict is most famous for organizing monks into a community, thus establishing the basic form in which all Western monks have lived ever since then. But St. Benedict originally wanted to be a solitary monk – i.e. a hermit – not someone who lived in community. It was only after other men followed him that he begin to establish an order for them to live in community.

That got me thinking about the difference between solitude and community, and which is the calling which leads us closer to God.

• On the one hand, many saints, such as St. Benedict and St. John of the Cross, craved solitude so that they could be alone with God – with no distractions and nothing to keep them from intimacy in prayer. Compare that to today’s culture which inundates us with noise and constant chatter, thus preventing us from entering into real meditation and contemplation.

• On the other hand, we are to be the one Body of Christ, a community which works and prays together in order to glorify God and be with him in heaven. Catholicism does not value the “lone ranger” who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps – it sees us as a united people who pray to “Our Father”, not “My Father”. Compare that with today’s culture which glorifies individualism and preaches the doctrine of self-sufficiency.

So which is it? Are we to strive for solitude or community? Each seem to have both their strengths and their dangers. I think the solution is found in communion, which is the proper integration and ordering of solitude and communion.

Communion always begins with our union with God. No human gathering can be a true union unless it is first based in union with God. This is why the saints craved solitude, because they wanted to strengthen their communion with God. This is also why the world screams so loudly today, to distract us from this communion with a flurry of the irrelevant.

From this union with God flows communion with our fellow men. A merely human group – such as the Elks club or a political party – might have a certain value, but ultimately it is meaningless without being based in our one common Father. Those who think that they can make it to heaven on their own are just kidding themselves. We need each other, but we can only help ourselves in proportion to our own communion with God.

This need for communion is universal across all vocations. The contemplative nun might spend eight hours in personal prayer a day, and a stay-at-home mom might only get in 30 minutes in a day, but they both need to base all their work on a deep and personal union – a communion – with God. Likewise, all of their dealings with others – whether it be other nuns, their children, or those in their parish – will only be fruitful and unitive if it is based on this communion with God.

God, in His great mercy, has given us a beautiful way to strengthen both types of communion – the Eucharist, which of course we call “communion.” In the Eucharist, we are personally and directly united to our Lord in the deepest way possible in this life. And in the Eucharist, we are also mystically united with our fellow brothers and sisters who receive this great sacrament. What a great gift God has given us!

No matter our vocation, let us pray for a deep communion with God which will then lead to a deep communion with others.

St. Benedict, pray for us!

A few items that might be of interest:

• Last week was the Orientale Lumen conference, which I was unfortunately not able to attend. However, many of the talks are now available online over at Ancient Faith Radio. I particularly recommend the talk by Sr. Vassa Larin.
• Fellow blogger Brandon Vogt has been giving away books, and this week’s giveways are personal favorites of mine: St. Josemaría Escrivá’s The Way, The Forge, and Furrow. Go there to get a chance to get some great books for free!
• This week’s OSV Newsweekly includes an article I wrote called Liturgical Attitude Adjustment. It is intended to help Catholics get the most out of their participation in the Mass.
• Finally, Jennifer Fulwiler over at Conversion Diary has been running a series of posts by guest bloggers on each word of the Our Father. I contributed today’s post on the word “us”.

Also, happy Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul!

Metropolitan Jonah, Archbishop of Washington of the Orthodox Church in America, recently gave a talk on importance of Christian asceticism in our modern consumerist society. It is a bit long, but I recommend that you print it out and read it in its entirety:

Among other things, living our life in Christ requires that we grasp the spiritual significance of two opposing forces with us:

1. The flesh vs. the body
2. The world vs. creation

In the current social context, and so for this evening’s conversation, let me please add another set of opposing movements in the human heart:

1. Consumerism vs. worship

Following traditional Orthodox (and orthodox) theology, the first of these terms—the flesh, the world and consumerism—refer to humanity in rebellion against God. Even when we refer to “the world” we are referring to how creation has become disordered by human sinfulness. Because of Adam’s sin and mine, my body, the creation and the works of my hands have all become estranged from God. Not only that, they have also become sources for my estrangement. As we have become estranged from God, oblivious to God, the body, created matter and the works of our hands, have become idols. They become the means of endless distraction from the reality of God, of communion with one another, and from both life and death.

Thus the tragic paradox of the fall, the great tragedy of human sinfulness is this: the gifts of God have become distorted. Rather than drawing us closer to Him and to each other, we misuse the good things of God to our own harm, spiritually, morally, psychologically, socially and physically.

Continue reading…

You can also download a PDF of the talk here.

In today’s first reading, St. Paul makes this bold declaration:

But now I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again. And so I solemnly declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God. (Acts 20:25-27 – emphasis added).

What a liberating feeling Paul must have had: knowing that his life was soon to be at an end, he was confident that he had proclaimed the “entire plan of God” to those entrusted to him. He had no regrets, for he knew that the job given to him had been fulfilled.

Recently, the blogosphere was abuzz about the five biggest regrets of the dying. They were poignant, and were cause for reflection. However, I think as followers of Christ our potential regrets will be a bit different from the rest of the world:

Regret #1: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
Christian Regret #1: I wish I would have asked for the courage to live a life true to God’s calling, not the life others – or I – expected of me.

Regret #2: I wish I didn’t work so hard.
Christian Regret #2: I wish I worked harder to further God’s kingdom – in my life, in my family’s life, and in the life of all those around me.

Regret #3: I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Christian Regret #3: I wish I would have asked for the courage to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to others.

Regret #4: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Christian Regret #4: I wish I would have helped my friends draw closer to God.

Regret #5: I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Christian Regret #5: I wish that I had found more joy in living as a child of God.

When we are nearing death, are we going to be as regret-free as St. Paul? We are all called to be saints – will we be able to look back on our life and say that we did all we could to fulfill this calling? We are all entrusted with the task of sharing our faith with those we come into contact with – can we look back and say  that we have always done so?

It is never too late to start. St. Paul could live regret-free even though he was once the great persecutor of the Church, because he knew that he could proclaim with all sincerity, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7). No matter how poorly we have lived our faith up until now, we can begin again and live regret-free from now on. We just need to ask for the grace to do so and work to participate in that grace to the best of our ability.

A Florida parish is in some hot water because they accepted a request to offer a Mass for the repose of the soul of Osama bin Laden. Although praying for bin Laden’s salvation is clearly acceptable within Catholic theology, some do not believe it appropriate to pray for the salvation of this notorious mass murderer. One commenter even asks,

So Adolph Hitler is next? Why not masses for Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, too?

Well, actually, there would be nothing theologically wrong with that either. We do not want anyone to go to hell, not even our worst enemy.

Some fear that such an attitude reflects a belief in universal salvation – that all men and women (and even demons!) will eventually be saved. Known also as Apocatastasis, the doctrine of universal salvation is most associated with the Church Father Origen (although St. Gregory of Nyssa also seemed to accept this doctrine), and has been condemned by the Church. In recent times, Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar seemed to flirt with this doctrine as well, although his position is a bit more nuanced than a simple acceptance of the salvation of all people (von Balthasar also explicitly acknowledged the eternal damnation of the devil).

Do we want bin Laden to go here?

However, praying for the salvation of the worst that the human race has produced – Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden – does not necessarily imply a belief in the salvation of all. There is a difference between hoping for the salvation of each person and believing in the salvation of all persons. Let me use an analogy that I’ve used here before.

My favorite baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds, is supposed to be good this year (and so far they are playing well). Before every game, I hope that they win. However, never would I believe that they could win all 162 games, as I know that is a hope for something that is simply not possible. The reality is that they will lose some games no matter how good they are.

The problem with believing in universal salvation is that it effectively negates human freedom. If all men are saved, then in truth there is no human element in the process of salvation, something which goes against Catholic teaching. To return to my analogy, if the Reds did somehow win all 162 games, I (along with everyone else) would suspect that something had been rigged. Likewise, if all men are saved, I would have to suspect that man is not truly free – his salvation is predetermined regardless of the choices he makes. And freedom is a necessary component of love; without freedom, we are simply slaves of a benevolent master, not children of a loving father.

So we can (and should) hope that Osama bin Laden is saved, as well as Hitler, Stalin or any other person who has committed terrible public sins (as well as ourselves, who commit terrible private sins). But that does not mean that we believe that all men are saved, for we know that God as our loving father respects our human freedom too much to force us even into something as blessed as eternal salvation.

Lent starts this week and that means we will be greeted by now-annual tradition from some quarters that “Lent isn’t really about giving things up – it’s about being nice”. Just yesterday I saw an article that pooh-pooh the whole notion of giving things up for Lent and said instead we should focus on being kind to others during Lent.

It is true that there are three things we are called to intensify during Lent – fasting, almsgiving and prayer – but the fact remains that in the Catholic Tradition, the focus of Lent has always been about sacrifice, specifically, increasing our sacrifices in union with the One Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. In our modern culture, there is little or no emphasis on the importance of sacrifice and suffering in the Christian life; we are bombarded with the message that Christianity is mostly about being kind to others. Lent just becomes an extension of this watered-down message.

But Lent specifically calls us to detach ourselves from this world by giving up the goods of this life. And in fact, by detaching ourselves from the things of this world, we are empowered to become more kind to others. Who do you think was more willing and able to help others – Mother Teresa or Donald Trump? The person who is weighed down by his physical desires – for food, for gadgets, for money – is less able to see the needs of others and to respond to them. But the one who has detached himself by choosing to give up the many goods of this world is able to truly be kind to others, serving them and putting their needs before one’s own needs.

So this Lent make an effort to really give up something that is difficult to give up. You may find that by doing so you will also naturally become more kind to others as well.

One of the more interesting facets of the liturgical year is that two of the first four days of the Christmas Octave are dedicated to martyrs: December 26th is the feast of St. Stephen (although it was bumped for the feast of the Holy Family this year) and today, December 28th, we remember the Holy Innocents. At a time when most people are thinking festive and jolly thoughts, the Church focuses our attention on gruesome deaths. Why is that?

Merry Christmas!

There is one event that dominates the life of Jesus: Golgotha. The Cross casts a shadow upon every aspect of Christ’s life, from his conception to his Ascension and Second Coming. When Simeon first encountered the baby Jesus, he proclaimed, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35) – not exactly something that would typically be said at a baptism or baby shower, is it?

Joseph Pieper defined an “encounter” as “something which turns up within my mental horizon in such a manner as to stand in my way, as ‘to resist’.” This is what happens in our encounter with Jesus Christ: he “stands in our way”, especially his death, and resists our fallen desires. Even when we encounter him as a little babe in the manger of Bethlehem, the Cross looms over us, resisting our efforts to relegate Christmas to a nice, comfortable story. The brutal deaths of Stephen and the Holy Innocents remind us during this Christmastime that we must encounter Christ’s Cross and take it up in our own lives.

But what also must be remembered is the other color of Christmas: green. In the merciful plan of God, His Son’s bloody death leads to everlasting life. St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents were drenched in red, but that led them to the never-ending green of eternal life. We too, when we embrace our crosses, can enter into that life with all the martyrs and saints.

Holy Innocents, pray for us!

In a few days we will be celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a good time to remind ourselves why the Word became flesh, and the Church today in the opening prayer at Mass gives us the reason for this wondrous miracle:

Father,
creator and redeemer of mankind,
you decreed, and your Word became man,
born of the Virgin Mary.
May we come to share the divinity of Christ,
who humbled himself to share our human nature,
for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

The Son of God shares in our human nature so that we can share in his divine nature. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, drawing from Scripture and the Catholic Tradition, emphasizes this connection between God becoming man and our being made like God:

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4): “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939) “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” (St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B) “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4) (CCC 460)

Too often we look at Heaven as just a really great earth: we eat whatever we want, we hang out with whoever we want and we never get sick or hurt. But Heaven is less about what we do and more about what we become. When we enter into Heaven we are transformed into a new creation: while keeping our human nature we participate in the divine nature. In the scandalous words of St. Athanasius, we “become God” – we are deified. We of course must be careful not to confuse the Christian doctrine of deification with Eastern conceptions which confuse divinity and humanity. But we must also not minimize the great transformation that will take place: we become by grace what God is by nature, all while retaining our human nature and individuality. It might seem impossible to see how this could happen, but we have a model already: Jesus Christ, who is true God and true man. By his incarnation he showed us the path which unites divinity and humanity. In his bountiful love he gives us as a gift what he has by right.

The full name of this blog is “Divine Life: Why We Were Created”. Our deification – being made like God – is the very reason we were created by God; it is the final goal for each and every one of us. The plans God has in store for those who love Him are so much more than just simple happiness and contentment. They include becoming like Him and having our human natures transformed so that they participate in the very divine life of God. This is what we celebrate at this time of year – this is the purpose of Christmas.

As I mentioned on this blog a few times last week, the big news in this area is late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart setting up his barbaric practice in nearby Germantown, Maryland. I have now attended two prayer vigils at the clinic – Monday’s drew over 300 people and Saturday’s brought in over 600. I am convinced that prayer is necessary to stop such evil, and all of our activities are worthless without deep prayer support. But I also think something else is desperately needed, something that is often neglected when we think about what we can do to stop legalized abortion in this country. That would be reparation.

What is reparation? The Catholic Encyclopedia defines it as

a theological concept closely connected with those of atonement and satisfaction, and thus belonging to some of the deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith. It is the teaching of that Faith that man is a creature who has fallen from an original state of justice in which he was created, and that through the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of the Son of God, he has been redeemed and restored again in a certain degree to the original condition. Although God might have condoned men’s offences gratuitously if He had chosen to do so, yet in His Providence He did not do this; He judged it better to demand satisfaction for the injuries which man had done Him. It is better for man’s education that wrong doing on his part should entail the necessity of making satisfaction. This satisfaction was made adequately to God by the Sufferings, Passion, and Death of Jesus Christ, made Man for us. By voluntary submission to His Passion and Death on the Cross, Jesus Christ atoned for our disobedience and sin. He thus made reparation to the offended majesty of God for the outrages which the Creator so constantly suffers at the hands of His creatures. We are restored to grace through the merits of Christ’s Death, and that grace enables us to add our prayers, labours, and trials to those of Our Lord “and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ” (Colossians 1:24). We can thus make some sort of reparation to the justice of God for our own offences against Him, and by virtue of the Communion of the Saints, the oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of Christ, we can also make satisfaction and reparation for the sins of others.

Please note that last sentence of the definition: “by virtue of the Communion of the Saints, the oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of Christ, we can also make satisfaction and reparation for the sins of others.” We can and should make reparation for our own sins, but we also can make reparation for the sins of others. And what sin today is crying out the loudest to heaven for justice? The killing of innocent unborn life through abortion.

Let me use an example. Let’s say that my children were playing roughly in the house and damaged the piano. They might be truly sorry and I might forgive them. They might ask very nicely that I pay to have the piano repaired, but until money is raised to pay for the repairs, my children will not be able to play the piano. Their contrition and their requests for repair must be combined with reparation in order for the piano to be restored. Only when they pool their money together, sacrificing their own good for the piano’s restoration can the problem be overcome. It is true that I could just use my own money to repair the piano, but by making my children use their money, I showed them the consequences of their actions.

The same is true in the spiritual life. As the Catholic Encyclopedia states, “God might have condoned men’s offences gratuitously if He had chosen to do so, yet in His Providence He did not do this.” God asks for reparations from us for our sins and the sins of the world, but too often we think that by asking for God’s assistance, He will swoop in and solve our problems for us. Abortion is legal in this country because of the sins of this nation, and it is not until we make reparation for those sins that it will once again be illegal and abortion clinics will be shut down.

What are some ways we can offer reparation? It can be any and every sacrifice:

• Take the most uncomfortable chair when you enter a room.
• Deny yourself treats after dinner.
• Do the dishes for your wife without being asked.
• Fast at least once a week.
• Go to adoration an extra hour each week.
• Get up early to pray an extra 15 minutes each day.
• Give extra help to that annoying co-worker on a project.
• Pray the Rosary in front of an abortion clinic each week.
• Give more than 10% of your income to charity.

As you can see, there are countless ways to offer reparation, and every day offers opportunities for it. If we really are serious about ending the evil of legalized abortion in this country, we need to be really serious about offering reparations.

One of the dangers of being knowledgeable about Church history and the lives of the saints is that you can cherry-pick just about any action or words used by some saint at some time in history to justify your own actions.

Don’t feel like evangelizing? Just quote the apocryphal St. Francis quote, “Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words.”

Feel like smacking a co-worker that annoys you? Just remember that jolly ol’ St. Nick once hit the arch-heretic Arius.

In other words, take some event or quote out of context and (mis-)apply it to justify just about any action you take or any attitude you might have.

One of the most common historical phrases used by certain Catholics is “Athanasius contra mundum” or “Athanasius against the world”. This phrase is referring to the fact that St. Athanasius almost single-handedly held off the Arian heresy in the 4th century. When vast numbers of bishops capitulated to the Arians, Athanasius alone strongly defended Nicene orthodoxy, and in the end was successful (although after five exiles). St. Athanasius is a great example of perseverance and standing strong for the Faith even in the face of great adversity.

However, I have often seen this phrase used as the motto of those who do not want to put in the hard work necessary to be charitable to others and to change hearts and minds. For example, when a parish priest says something that doesn’t jibe with this person’s personal theology, he will attack the priest and accuse him of heresy. And when he is ostracized by the parish, he will take heart that he has joined the ranks of saints like St. Athanasius in defending the Faith in the face of persecution.

Well, no – he’s just been a jerk and treated accordingly.

We are required as Christians to treat everyone charitably and with the best possible intentions. St. Bernard said,

Even though you see something very bad about your neighbor, don’t jump immediately to conclusions, but rather make excuses for him interiorly. Excuse his intention, if you cannot excuse his action. Think that he may have acted out of ignorance, or by surprise, or accidentally. If the thing is so blatant that it cannot be denied, even so, believe it to be so, and say inwardly: the temptation must have been very strong. (Sermon on the Canticle of Canticles 40).

In other words, don’t go looking for errors and problems in others, but instead pray for them and assume the best. That does not mean that we do not resist heresy, it just means that we always do so charitably – and even reluctantly, in the sense that we hope and pray that the other person is simply being misunderstood or talking out of ignorance.

A more accurate way to describe the 4th century would be to say that it was “the world against Athanasius”. In other words, Athanasius did not go around looking for problems and people to offend. Instead he charitably and forcibly stood up for orthodoxy and then the world attacked him. We should do the same today. We don’t need to pursue persecution; simply living the Faith usually means that persecution will come to us.

When I was in college, I was an enthusiastically devout Evangelical Christian (until I became an enthusiastically devout Catholic Christian). One day I met with the campus leader of Navigators, an Evangelical “para-church” organization in which I had been involved. This leader was in his thirties and had been a devout Christian since his teens and he was worried about me. He thought I was a little too enthusiastic about my faith and feared that I would soon burn out. He advised me that I needed to “settle down” a bit and not be so intense in my Christian walk; according to him, the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint, and therefore I needed to pace myself. I responded that the Christian life was a marathon but one in which we are supernaturally given grace to run it as a sprint.

Now I am much older, and hopefully wiser; in fact, I am now older than that campus leader was at the time of his advice. I have been a practicing Christian for over 23 years, 18 of them as a Catholic. Over the years I have often thought about this piece of advice and whether or not I now agreed with it.

My conclusion? I still think I was right.

It is true that we must be prepared for the long haul in our Christian life and that this involves patience. It might take years to overcome certain weaknesses and sins in our lives, and our goals for our Christian life might take decades to accomplish. But I do not think we are ever to “settle down” in our Christian walk and pace ourselves. That would be like the man who was given one talent and buried it in the ground; we are to use our talents to further the Kingdom of God at every opportunity.

Look at the lives of the Saints – did St. Francis of Assisi ever settle down? Did St. Catherine of Sienna pace herself? Did St. Ignatius of Antioch live life carefully? Not at all. These saints intensely followed our Lord with every fiber of their being every single day of their life. Although they were running a long race, they – with the help of God’s grace – ran it like a sprinter on steroids.

So if we are ever tempted to settle down for the long haul, let us remember that we should treat each day as if it is our last here on earth and run the race with intensity and fortitude. We can trust that God will always be there to give us the strength we need to last until the finish line, and we can say with St. Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Heaven
Seventh in a seven-part series
(Previous posts in this series: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI)

Now we reach the end of this series on the Last Things and the topic turns to the intended end of every human being: Heaven. Each human person is made to be in communion with God, and Heaven is this communion. Everything that prevents that communion in this world – our sins, the sins of others, our fallen world – is wiped away and we have direct and total access to our loving Creator.

One thing I do NOT want to do in this post is to try to describe Heaven. Any type of description I could muster would fall so far short of the reality that it would be laughable. In most instances in which a mystic has a vision of Heaven, they are very reserved about describing it, for they know that no human words can even begin to describe the bliss of Heaven. Even less can a non-mystic like me attempt to put in words the unimaginable joy that is Heaven.

But one thing we can say about Heaven is that it is the fulfillment of all of man’s desires and hopes. Man was created for God and only God can satisfy his heart. As St. Augustine wrote, “our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee” – and Heaven is the only place in which our hearts can truly and completely rest in God. A very lame analogy would be the frustration found in a person who loves a certain activity but cannot enjoy it – say the artist who is not able to paint or the author who is unable to write. If they are able to engage in their preferred activity, then they experience fulfillment and contentment. Heaven is the fulfillment of every man’s deepest desires and wishes – and not just partial fulfillment like an earthly activity might be, but a total and complete fulfillment.

Another aspect of Heaven that must always be remembered is that if Hell is complete alone-ness, then Heaven is complete communion – with God and with others. God made us in His Trinitarian image, and we are not complete unless we are in communion with others. Our salvation is not something done on an individual basis; we are saved as a Body, and Heaven is the Body of Christ in its fullness. In our fallen world it is hard to imagine interactions with others that do not include bickering, fighting and conflict. But in Heaven we will be completely united to our fellow men in total peace. We will offer the unending worship of God as one Body and our joy will be complete.

As we live our daily lives in this fallen world, let us always keep our eyes on our final destination and prepare ourselves – and others – for the place that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

Purgatory
Sixth in a seven-part series
(Previous posts in this series: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V)

Today’s topic is technically not a “Last Thing”, for purgatory is never the last stop in anyone’s life. It is simply a way-station on the road to Heaven. Eventually purgatory will be emptied out and will cease to exist. But it fits in a series about life after death, as many of us will inhabit purgatory for at least a little while after our deaths.

Purgatory, of course, is a particularly Catholic doctrine: Protestants reject its existence and Eastern Christians conceive of a “middle state” quite unlike the typical Western depictions of purgatory. What do Catholics believe regarding this purging state of the after-life? Like our discussion of Hell, it is first important to state what the Church has defined in regards to purgatory. There are only two definitions:

1. The souls of the just which, in the moment of death, are burdened with venial sins or temporal punishment due to sins, enter purgatory.
2. The living Faithful can come to the assistance of the souls in purgatory by their intercessions.

What is interesting is what is NOT defined: there is no description of what happens in purgatory, how long someone stays in purgatory, or how exactly our prayers help those in purgatory. All we know for sure is that purgatory exists and our prayers help those in that state. Over the centuries, however, many mystics and saints have written powerfully about purgatory, and while their writings are not dogma, they can be helpful for our understanding of what purgatory might be like.

The main purpose of purgatory is purging. Every sin that a person commits leaves a stain on them. A mortal sin leaves a deadly stain, one that separates the soul from God. But even a venial sin is a terrible thing and wholly opposed to an all-holy God. No one who is burdened by even a venial sin and its stain can stand in the presence of the All-Holy One. Some Christians argue that what God does is simply ignore our sins or “cover” them with the righteousness of Christ and this action allows us to be in the presence of God. But this cannot be the case, because it would be a lie – God would be declaring someone pure who is, in fact, not pure. God does not simply cloak our sins for all eternity, He purges them from us, thus making us truly holy. One analogy is that purgatory is like a shower which cleanses us and prepares us for our entrance into heaven.

But the image of a shower is a bit weak, as most visions and images of purgatory in the Catholic tradition include the concept of pain – purgatory is seen as a place of suffering. Why is that? I think our own experience here on earth should answer that question: when are we ever made better or purged of imperfections and it is NOT painful? Think of the Olympic athlete who must prepare his body for competition: the process can be extremely painful. Think of the process of becoming holy in this life: do we not have to be disciplined in our prayer life and offer up our sufferings for our own salvation and the salvation of others? Even Christ had to go through his passion for our salvation. Simply put, the process of purging is almost always a painful one and purgatory is no different. But one thing to remember is that purgatory will also be a completely joyful state, as the souls in purgatory know with certainty that they will one day be with the blessed in heaven. There is no chance of rejecting God or even committing a sin in purgatory, and this alone brings deep joy to the heart.

This month of November, please remember to pray for the souls in purgatory – especially those souls who have no one else to pray for them.

The next post in this series will be the last one, as we look at the goal of all human existence: communion with God for eternity in Heaven.

Hell
Fifth in a seven-part series
(Previous posts in this series: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV)

In our series on the Last Things, we now turn to the most distasteful of doctrines in our age: Hell. There is no belief more scandalous to modern ears than the eternal fire of Hell; nothing appears more contradictory today than the idea of an all-loving God who sends people to an everlasting punishment. It just seems so arbitrary and extreme: why punish someone eternally for something they did over a brief period of time? How can that be loving? Many modern Christians – including many Catholics – have tried to minimize and even forget the existence of Hell, hoping that the doctrine itself will eventually be consigned to its own eternal place of rejection.

Yet anyone even slightly familiar with the teachings of Jesus and the Scriptures know that it is intellectually dishonest for the Christian to ignore Hell. Hell, and its denizens, are throughout the Bible: from the presence of Satan in the Garden of Eden to the final defeat of Hell’s armies in Revelation, Hell has a starring role in the story of Salvation History. Jesus himself was constantly at war with Satan and his demons, and often warned his followers that Hell awaits those who reject God. The Gospel writers present the overthrow of Satan and Hell as a main part of Christ’s mission.

So how should the modern Christian view Hell? First, it is important to recognize the guidelines the Church has insisted upon throughout the centuries:

1) There is a Hell.
2) It is where those who reject God spent eternity.
3) Satan and the other fallen angels inhabit Hell.

In other words, we cannot reject the existence of Hell, we cannot say that it is only temporary, and we cannot say that it is empty (the doctrine of apokatastasis). Each of these beliefs can be tempting for the modern Christian, but they must be rejected as contrary to the Deposit of Faith.

But it is also important to remember that our conceptions of the after-life – be it Hell, Purgatory or Heaven – are all colored by our cultures and times. We have not been given a definitive look at any of these states of the after-life, only glimpses which reflect as much the perception of the one who receives it as they do the reality they represent. Nothing in this life can prepare us to understand the after-life, so all descriptions of a place like Hell must be taken as imperfect, limited attempts to explain in human language the indescribable. So visions of Hell from saints and mystics from the Middle Ages are not doctrines that must be accepted at face value, but instead should be seen as imperfect attempts to explain the unexplainable (and likewise, all modern attempts should be read in the same light).

One reality of Hell that has been recognized more and more over the centuries is that its inhabitants choose to be there. St. Catherine of Genoa was one of the first saints to teach this. From her mystical experiences, she realized that Hell’s doors are locked from the inside; in other words, those who are in Hell are not forced against their will to be there – they prefer it to Heaven. This realization of the nature of Hell was also brilliantly depicted in C.S. Lewis’ classic book The Great Divorce (a book I highly recommend). But how can that be? Why would anyone choose Hell over Heaven? Ultimately, it is because a person becomes so self-focused that they would prefer their own company over the company of God – and Hell is nothing if not a self-centered realm.

Satre once famously wrote that “Hell is other people.” The opposite is true: Hell is complete and utter aloneness. We are made for communion with others and most of all for communion with God, and Hell denies any communion with anyone, including with God. And this is what the resident of Hell wants – to be completely focused on self to the exclusion of all others. Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov cried out: “Hell is the suffering of being no longer able to love”, and this is an accurate description of Hell: we were made to love and for Love, and Hell rejects all forms of love for the pitiful facade of self-love, which is no love at all.

One final note about Hell: the Church has never declared that an individual person is in Hell. As members of the Church Militant we are obliged to pray for all the dead, no matter what their lives may have been like. This obligation knows no exceptions, for to exempt someone from our prayers is to limit love. We should hope for the salvation of every man and must leave final judgement to the only true Judge, Jesus Christ. When we contemplate the reality of Hell, the only person we should picture there is ourselves.

Judgement
Fourth in a seven-part series
(Previous posts in this series: Part I, Part II, Part III)

Immediately after death each one of us will be asked to give an accounting of our lives. There are two fundamental directions our lives can take: towards God or towards self. God, who is complete justice and mercy, will decide which direction our lives took and will grant us the fulfillment of that direction. This is Judgement.

The event of our judgement is a difficult concept for modern man to accept, for we are incessantly told that we must judge no one and no action. Yet it will be a judgement which determines our place of residence for all eternity. Every action in this life has tremendous meaning, and all our actions – ALL of them – are considered when it comes to our judgement. The magazine we stole as a teenager, the elderly man we helped find his home when we were in college, the friend we ignored in a time of crisis – all these actions and every other one will be used in determining our final home. At Judgement, light will be shone on every thing we did – and everything we could have done but did not.

When we face judgement, we no longer have any opportunity to change our lives for the better. The final chapter has been written and the book is now closed on our life. It is important to note that God’s judgement is not a superficial look at our lives, simply balancing our good and evil deeds and seeing which one comes out on top. Instead God takes a full look at the life of each person who faces judgement: every mitigating factor, every influence, every decision made in knowledge or in ignorance. All these things will be considered. And there is no appeal possible, and there is no appeal needed, for each person who is judged knows that the judgement is true.

One of the great mysteries of God is how He perfectly integrates justice and mercy. In our finite world these two realities often seem to be opposites and at loggerheads. Yet in God they are one reality: His justice is His mercy and His mercy is His justice. There is no tension or conflict between them. And at our judgement God’s justice and mercy will together determine the final outcome of our lives.

Yet every life is imperfect and selfish in some way and thus every person “deserves” to be found guilty of rejecting God. So how can anyone be saved? God judges each person through a special “prism”: the Passion of His Son, Jesus Christ. In a way, one could say that God wears blood-colored glasses at judgement, and the blood is the redemptive blood of Jesus. Under our own power, we could have no hope for salvation, but in light of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, we know that God can transform us and make us holy, as Christ is holy. It is only by the power of Christ that we can have any hope to hear the judgement, “well done, good and faithful servant…enter into the joy of your master.”