Hell and Charity

There are, St. Augustine tells us, two basic alternatives in this life: either we can love self to the point of forgetting God, or we can love God to the point of forgetting ourselves. The first choice results in the self-exclusion of heaven otherwise known as hell; the second – Heaven and eternal joy. How could a person choose hell? I mentioned this the other day but I want to build on it - Because of Original Sin we have a fallen human nature. Now, instead of our passions or feelings propelling us toward good and away from evil they do just the opposite – we have a strong attraction to sin and an aversion for the things of God. This condition puts us in great danger. God will not force us to choose him. We must freely choose friendship with him. But in our fallen state, we have this aversion to the things of God and are drawn to sin. If we do not reverse this trend it will grow stronger until death, at which time we will still have an aversion to Him and reject Him. This is why we need to practice the virtue of Charity – the virtue of choosing God for God’s sake. There is a powerful Image of our Particular Judgment from CS Lewis book The Last Battle. Aslan the Lion, the who represents Jesus Christ, comes to Judge all the creatures of Narnia. Behind him stood all the stars so that Aslan’s huge black shadow streamed away to his left. As the creatures came rushing on, they came right up to Aslan. One of two things happened to each of them. They all looked straight in his face, and when some looked, the expression of their faces changed terribly. For some, it was fear and hatred.  They did not find in Aslan what they wanted. They swerved to His left and disappeared into His huge black shadow – an image of hell. But the others looked in the face of Aslan and loved him. They found in Aslan what they had always wanted loved and sought. All these swerved to His right, into the light of Heaven. If at death the soul has spent its life seeking and choosing God, loving God, then it gets what it wanted – union with God in heaven.. On the other hand, if a soul has spent its life choosing itself over and against God and neighbor, then at death it gets what it wanted: Itself and that is All! (That is Hell).  As we said before, there are two basic alternatives in this life: either we can love self to the point of forgetting God, or we can love God to the point of forgetting ourselves. We want, therefore, to build the habit of loving God to the point of forgetting ourselves - this is the virtue of Charity Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. With charity, we are saying to God, I love you; I want your good; I want to do something for you Lord. Jesus I want to offer you a gift. Now this may sound crazy because what can you give God that he does not already have? Well, there is something he does not already have fully – and that is you. God is waiting for you to give yourself totally to him. It is hard to do it all at once, so we can begin by making the habit of giving ourselves to him in little ways each day and this builds the habit of giving ourselves to him completely. Begin each day with the Morning Offering by which we give to God our prayer, work, joy and suffering “O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all my relatives and friends, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father.” Amen. Throughout the day renew the offering of our prayer, work, joy and suffering by saying, “Jesus I offer this to you; Jesus I accept that for the love of you.”