What Ever Happened to Sin and Hell?

Mark S. Roberti, Director of Stewardship

Heartland Parishes of Ellis County

Not long ago a parishioner came into my office and threw a magazine on my desk.  “Whatever happened to sin and hell? Why don’t we ever hear about it in homilies?”  I acknowledged that was true.  Sin and hell don’t seem to be in vogue any longer. I can’t remember the last time I heard a forceful homily about either sin or hell, even by preachers on television.  

Sin seems to have been de-emphasized over the years.  That being said, I was speaking to a Methodist who has recently begun looking into the Catholic Church.  He told me that the only time he hears about sin is when he comes to a Catholic service.  That struck me as interesting.  It made me realize that whether sin is mentioned in the homily or not, it is dealt with in the rubrics of the Mass, at every Mass.  Mother Church has not let us down.    

But why aren’t sin and hell spoken of more frequently at Mass?  I speculate that, in our day and age, people just don’t want to hear about it.  I’d suggest that when they do hear about it, it turns them off, and it turns them away.  Then, either they don’t go to church or they go to some church that tells them all they have to do is accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and they are saved. If they do that there is nothing they will ever do that can result in the loss of their salvations.  That’s how the predominant Protestant pitch seems to go.  Think about it: even most Protestants who call themselves “fundamentalists” aren’t really getting any “fire and brimstone” teaching anymore.  They’ve all adopted the gentle “Just accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior” approach.

Another reason we don’t hear a lot of sin and hell homilies is because there are a fair number of Catholics who are pretty scrupulous.  They feel guilt and they fear hell over the smallest sin.  Likewise, our priests sometimes don’t talk about more significant sins, like abortion, adultery, homosexuality, etc., from the pulpit because some of these people, or family members, are already pretty devastated.  They know their sin and its consequences.  They are trying to forgive themselves.  Why throw those sins back in their faces?  

All this being said, for our own sake and for that of our loved ones, we need a healthy respect for sin and hell.  We need to understand that there are serious consequences for us when we sin and/or lead others into sin.  So, I am going to dare to quote some passages describing hell from the magazine my parishioner friend slapped on my desk that day. 

This first is from Sr. Lucia, the visionary at Fatima: Our Lady showed us a huge fire which seemed to be beneath the earth.  Plunged in this fire were demons and the souls, who were like embers, transparent and black or bronze-colored, in human form, which floated about in the conflagration, borne by the flames which issued from it with clouds of smoke, falling on all sides  as sparks fell in great conflagrations, without weight or equilibrium, among shrieks and groans of sorrow and despair which horrified us and caused us to quake with fear.  The devils were distinguished by horrible and loathsome forms of animals, frightful and unknown, but transparent and black.  This vision vanished in a moment.

This next one is from Sr. Faustina’s Divine Mercy Diary: Today, I was led by an angel to the chasm of hell.  It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of torture I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one’s condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it – a terrible suffering since it is a purely spiritual fire, lit by God’s anger; the fifth is perpetual darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of Satan; the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses, and blasphemies.  These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings.  There are special tortures destined for particular souls.  These are the torments of the senses.  Each soul undergoes terrible and  indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned…I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like.  (bold portion my emphasis).

In closing, I would like to very strongly emphasize that sin is but a drop in the bucket to God’s grace and Divine Mercy.  God loves us each as though we were His only child.  He wants nothing more than for us to share all eternity with Him.  He knows we all sin.  He’s very quick to forgive and forget our sins. That’s His nature.  He sent His only begotten Son to die for us.

The point I am trying to make in this article is that it is our responsibility to not be obstinate in sinning.  Come judgment day the person who goes to hell, chooses hell.  That choice begins in this life.    

Thank God for Christmas, Good Friday and Easter! Be a good steward.  Live the Catholic Christian faith like a disciple.  Be faithful.  Be hopeful.  Trust Jesus!