Hell Is Real - Part One

Each year in October, I dedicate a lesson in the eighth grade catechism class I teach to the subject of hell. I felt the need, many years ago, to start this as I saw the season and celebration of Halloween to be centered more and more on the glamorization of evil and the devil. I wanted to have a very real, frank discussion with these young adults preparing for Confirmation as to what hell really was, who the devil is. I can tell you without a doubt that this lesson, above all others, keeps their attention the most.

You may be saying to yourself, “Who cares about that? I don’t have to worry about hell. I’m not that bad.” This is one of the most dangerous attitudes out there today and couldn’t be further from the truth. St. Teresa of Avila, great mystic and Doctor of the Church rightly said, “I saw souls falling into hell like snowflakes.” To believe in the certainly that you are “at least better than the guy next to you”, is a perilous and very foolish gamble with your immortal soul. Satan, the father of lies, wants nothing more than for you to live in your lukewarm complacency.

With how notably the devil is working in our world right now to gather sorry souls into the ranks of eternal damnation, I again feel compelled to share this very grave and very real lesson. So, I will break this discussion up into three parts, as there are so many important facts to cover. This first installment will focus on the definition of what this place of punishment is and why it came to be, the second details the tortures of hell, and third, we will discuss what eternity is. Remember always, each one of these sobering realities is not presented for us to fall into despair, but to rouse us from our natural, human complacencies, and to awaken within each person the great need to pray earnestly for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of each and every soul.

So first, what is hell? Very basically, hell is “the absence of God”. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (n. 1033). I would ask my students to picture what that is. It’s hard for mere humans to envision an absence of God, as He is Omnipresent—He is everywhere, in everything. There is no place we can go that the truth and light of God cannot be. But still, try and picture, if it were possible, a place on this earth where God would not go: it would be very dark, wouldn’t it? Tremendous fear would consume you in that dark, closed alley in some lawless city with no help—no justice against intrinsic evil. You would feel such oppression, despair, grief, loneliness, and paralyzing fear. Still, these images don’t even begin to explain it.

It is true we humans have an impossible task to understand fully what hell really is, as we are finite, and while we have seen and heard about many disturbing things in our society, we still cannot comprehend the magnitude of this place of punishment. Many will say they do not believe in hell. How could a loving God condemn someone to hell? Well, actually, if truth be told, God does not condemn us to hell, we condemn ourselves. C.S. Lewis said the gates of hell are locked from the inside. Despair and distrust in the love and mercy of God are the horribly sad keys that doom a sinner behind those permanent doors.

I almost laugh at those statements from misguided people, as the devil couldn’t be more pleased with the ignorant mindset of his nonexistence. But make no mistake, our God Who is forever merciful and loving, is at the same time the God of justice. And He will judge you. Yes, every single one of us will stand before the eternal majesty of God. Divine Justice cannot be swayed. He cannot be bartered with. It cannot be undone.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41).

But why was this horrible place created? It began before this earthy existence began—with the fall of Lucifer and his angels as a place of punishment. (See Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28)

I remember as a child my saintly mother would teach us about Lucifer and how he was the most beautiful and gifted of all the angels in heaven. But his sin changed even his appearance. She would say that if we truly were to look on the face of Satan, we would die of fright. Woe to a world that mistakenly blinds itself to his true nature. I can hear her voice as she described his fall into pride with his words: “I will not serve”.

These four words are central to all sin really, and I shutter as I look all around me today and see this damning declaration at the heart of our society. People say I will not serve, as they twist and warp and justify all manner of sin to their own liking: abortion, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, adultery, pornography, bigotry, premarital sex, gluttony, rage, immodesty… And what’s so abominable is many of these atrocities are motivated by some twisted version of what the world calls “love”. The father of lies is hell-bent on convincing us that first, he does not exist, and second, true happiness comes only through being centered on self. All things can be justified in the consuming pursuit of self.

But, make no mistake, if we live our lives saying, I will not serve, there is a consequence to that, and it is called hell. It is real. It is horrific. It is forever.