“What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings." Psalm 84:5-6
Fulton Sheen, a well known Catholic bishop n the 20th century was of the view that modern man deny hell because they deny sin. Furthermore he noted that the denial of punishment is a denial of the sovereignty of law. Likewise the denial of hell is a denial of the sovereignty of God. He observed that saints fear hell but never deny it and that great sinners deny hell but never fear it. He described three possible destinations that await us at death:
1. Hell - Pain without Love
2. Purgatory - Pain with Love
3. Heaven - Love without Pain
Bishop Sheen felt that the modern man is accommodating a creed to the way he lives, rather than the way he lives to a creed. He also reminded us that the Devil is never so strong as when he gets man to deny there is a devil.
Our beliefs determine how we live, what we do with our lives and how we face death. It is therefore of critical importance to have a right perspective of hell, purgatory and heaven. Bishop Sheen shared the following truth:
“Remember that in God there is no future. God knows all, not in the succession of time, but in the “now standing still” of eternity, that is, all at once.”
Quantum physics can help us to understand the above observation of Bishop Sheen. God is beyond time. Perhaps we need to understand hell, purgatory and heaven not as something we will experience only after we die but as experiences that we have in the here and now. In this regard, the parable of the prodigal son gives us some valuable insights.
Hell is separation from God and a godless life is hell on earth. When the prodigal son chose to leave his father, he was actually going to hell even though he thought he was enjoying life with wine, women and song. Without God, our hearts are empty and we will seek to fill it with our addictions - to alcohol, gambling, sex and so on. We become slaves of our desires and pleasures and we suffer pain without love.
By God’s grace, He draws us back to Himself through times of suffering - pain with love. Such times are to purify our hearts and to help us to come to our senses like the prodigal son. We see our need for God’s mercy and grace. Through repentance, we turn back to God and we are born again as children of God through our faith in Jesus Christ. And so we can enjoy the heavenly banquet with our Heavenly Father through the ritual of the Holy Communion in the here and now. We will experience love without pain and perfect love casts out all fear.
How we see God determines how we respond to what happens to us in life. If we see God as an angry Judge, we will live graceless lives. We will turn away from God like the prodigal son or we will serve God with a fearful and grudging heart like the elder brother. Jesus came to show us that God is our Heavenly Father who wants us to be the best that we can be. And to do so, He will have to prune away the unproductive areas of our lives so that we can bear the fruit of love more abundantly.
We can live as human beings seeking spiritual experiences - crawling through life like a caterpillar. This is hell on earth. When we receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, we go into the stage of the pupa - to be regenerated and transformed. This may be a time of suffering - physical, emotional, social or spiritual - a time of loss and pain. It is purgatory here on earth.
As our minds are renewed and our hearts regenerated, we will live transformed lives. When we see life from the perspective of a butterfly rather than a caterpillar, we will be in heaven on earth. It is a futile exercise to try to understand what heaven is like. It is more fruitful to be God’s answer as we pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Hell, purgatory and heaven are not the places we go to when we die. They are the states of being that are determined by our relationship with God. When we live our lives without God we are already in hell even when we have health, wealth and power. When God is first and foremost in our lives, we are in heaven even when we are suffering, in poverty and powerless. When we have faith that God is calling us back to him, our valleys of weeping are our purgatory where God is purifying us for life in heaven.
When we live with the fear of death, we are slaves of Satan. When we are possessed by the love of money, we are slaves of the world. When our egos are on the throne of our hearts, we will be controlled by the fear of men. But when Jesus is enthroned in our hearts, the perfect love of God casts out our fear of death. We will be filled with God’s love so that we will love people instead of things. And the fear of God will keep us from the fear of men so that we can become the persons that God has created us to be.
So let us learn to live with the fear of God, to be filled with the love of God and to love others in the power of the Holy Spirit during this season of Pentecost.
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