Hell: Understanding What’s At Stake

We are blessed to share that our good friend and frequent guest, Fr Patrick Behm, has joined us as a guest contributor! We will be posting some of his homilies as bonus content, confident that they will provide some great spiritual nourishment! Check out our website (under the blog tab) to find more of his homilies from week to week! We will also have small group questions available for each homily!

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Homily with Fr Patrick Behm, theme music © Fred Shellabarger & Kara Kardell
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Where is Hell?

A while ago, I stumbled upon a video series by Fr. Chad Ripperger on the Four Last Things—Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell—and it changed my life. I went from a Catholic who would identify herself as lukewarm, to one truly desiring more than anything in life, to inherit the riches of the eternal kingdom and live a life of virtue (still working on it… with Christ all things are possible!).

After watching these videos, and acknowledging how transformative learning about the realities of Heaven and Hell were, I found myself asking “Where is Hell?”

NOT “Where is Hell” in terms of a physical location… but where is Hell in the Church? Where are the homilies about Hell? Where is the healthy daily meditation about the reality of death? Many Saints used to have skulls in their living spaces—not out of a morbid interest for deadly décor—but to remind themselves that this life is fleeting, and we are invited to meditate on death and eternal life to come. Where has Hell gone? Is it ridiculous to WANT a homily about Hell occasionally?

Here is my reasoning… and genuine fear with the lack of conversation and teaching on this topic:

The Devil will never cease in the pursuit of souls (1 Pet 5:8); he chose eternity apart from He who is Love (God) and wants to drag each person to that same fate. How? Spiritual warfare; leading us to turn away from God in sin… yes, of course! But also, by getting the majority to ignore him (the Devil) and to believe God and evil are not real and thus sin is not real. Perhaps we see this in the wide-spread belief that every person is “in a better place” after death. How could we know that? — (apart from those canonized of course).

The only conclusion to this dangerous (and false) mentality that is a result of the culture of silence is… If God is not real and there is no such thing as sin, then naturally we can live however we choose and there will be no eternal consequence! This is the opposite of Truth!

The Devil loves hiding in the darkness… because he can do SO MUCH damage from the shadows.

Therefore the Church is called to teach Truth! “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28: 19-20). Hell is a real place, and there is every possibility that our souls may go there after death.

Now, these teachings are not meant to incite unhealthy fear! They are meant to grow the love we have for the one God who desires nothing more than our eternal beatitude in Heaven! (Latin: beatus meaning happy, blissful, fortunate, flourishing.) How so? Because the joy and eternal blessings we are made for in Heaven comes by being united to Him who is LOVE, surrounded by nothing except God himself, and wanting nothing for ourselves apart from unity with God. If this is Heaven, then Hell is the antithesis; Hell is being completely separated from God… completely separated from Love.

As we bring ourselves to learn more about the realities of the afterlife, it should bring us to understand the deep love God has for us. So great is his love, that if we choose ourselves in this life—meaning if we choose to ignore his will, separate ourselves from his love, his mercy, his grace, as evident by how we live our lives—he will honor that free choice. He will grant us this choice to live apart from his love eternally. And he grants this OUT OF LOVE. God is love (1 Jn 4:8), and can do nothing but love us. Even love us to Hell…

But God’s same response goes for those that desire to inherit eternal life and strive for that union of Love with the Spirit in this life. “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk 11:11-15).

God has great gifts in store for us. One of those, if we so choose, is eternal beatitude in heaven! Perhaps one of his greatest gifts on earth, however, is his mercy! Christ came to call sinners (Lk 5:32). An understanding of death, judgement, Hell, or Heaven should ultimately lead us closer to God’s eternal love! It should encourage us to RUN to his endless mercy. The Church has an endless outpouring of this grace and mercy in the Sacraments. God desires you to live with him one day in Heaven. He knows we are sinful and that we can’t do it apart from him… so he GIVES US HIMSELF in the Sacraments to help us along in this “valley of tears.”

The more we understand and meditate on our own death, the greater our love for God grows and our hearts are prepared for the transformation God intends to bring in and through us!

For more on the Four Last Things be sure to check out Fr. Ripperger’s series!

Biblical evidence for Hell:

·         Mt 3:12

·         Mt 25: 41, 46

·         Mk 9: 47-48 (referencing Isaiah 66:24)

·         2 Thess 1:6-9

·         Rev 20:10

·         Judith 16:17

Click for more passages and quotes from the Early Church Fathers.

Depiction of Mt 7: 13-14