There's a post at dotCommonweal about hell that asks ... Did fear of hell play a significant role in your religious imagination when you were growing up? Does it still? Have your views changed over the years?
The idea of hell has loomed large in my consciousness, which would explain all my previous posts about it .... Does anyone really want to go to hell? .... Avery Dulles SJ & Hans Urs von Balthasar ... What the Bible Really Teaches [Keith Ward] ... Living in hope ... The descent event .... Galileo and Hell: do the math .... Rob Bell, Hans Urs von Balthasar, universalism ... I want everything saved ... eek! ;)
One of the scariest mentions of hell I've read was in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola -- when I first decided to read the book, I came upon the fifth exercise for the first week, a meditation on hell ......
First Prelude. The first Prelude is the composition, which is here to see with the sight of the imagination the length, breadth and depth of Hell.
Second Prelude. The second, to ask for what I want: it will be here to ask for interior sense of the pain which the damned suffer, in order that, if, through my faults, I should forget the love of the Eternal Lord, at least the fear of the pains may help me not to come into sin.
First Point. The first Point will be to see with the sight of the imagination the great fires, and the souls as in bodies of fire.
Second Point. The second, to hear with the ears wailings, howlings, cries, blasphemies against Christ our Lord and against all His Saints.
Third Point. The third, to smell with the smell smoke, sulphur, dregs and putrid things.
Fourth Point. The fourth, to taste with the taste bitter things, like tears, sadness and the worm of conscience.
Fifth Point. The fifth, to touch with the touch; that is to say, how the fires touch and burn the souls.
I worry -- will I end up in hell? Will my non-Christian sister end up there? How can I trust or respect or love a God who would send people to such a place? It doesn't help when some say God only sends bad people to hell, or that he allows people to choose freely to go there ... I cannot imagine a good and loving parent who would disavow even a bad child or who would let a disturbed child make an eternal bad choice in the name of free will. All this makes me think of a poem ....
A Word to the Elect
- Anne Bronte
YOU may rejoice to think yourselves secure;
You may be grateful for the gift divine–
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine.
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness
Which they deserved, at least, as much as you,–
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less?
And, wherefore should you love your God the more,
Because to you alone his smiles are given;
Because he chose to pass the many o'er,
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?
And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove,
Because for ALL the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love?
And are your bosoms warm with charity?
Say, does your heart expand to all mankind?
And, would you ever to your neighbor do–
The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind–
As you would have your neighbor do to you?
And, when you, looking on your fellow-men,
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then?–
May God withhold such cruel joy from me!
That none deserve eternal bliss I know;
Unmerited the grace in mercy given:
But, none shall sink to everlasting woe,
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.
And, oh! there lives within my heart
A hope, long nursed by me;
(And, should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be!)
That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round his throne abide,
Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And, when their dreadful doom is past,
To life and light arise.
I ask not, how remote the day,
Nor what the sinners' woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me, to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
