This morning’s sermon, delivered by a priest who was elderly at the time of Vatican II, was an exercise for a voice in search of a point. Poor priest never found it, but he did reach a conclusion at long last. Somewhere along the line he made a stop over in eschatology.
“Remember,” he said, “God will always love us. Even if you and I were to go to hell, He’ll still love us for all eternity.”
Hold on there, father. Isn’t one of the torments of Hell the absence of God’s love? If the damned can comfort themselves with the thought that God still loves them, how damned are they? But what comfort is it to know that God loves you but He’s still planning to leave you in stewing in the devil’s soup pot forever? Doesn’t that make God’s love part of the torment? I’ve known people who’ve used love as a means of torturing others. Very neurotic people. Does this mean God has issues?
The priest didn’t dwell on this subject though. Before I’d finished formulating my questions he’d moved on to the evils of the internet one of which, although he didn't mention it, is probably that smart-alecks in the congregation go home right after Mass and poke fun at the sermon in a blog post.
I'm going to hell.
Yes, you're going to hell (you;;l be in good company though)... but don't worry, Lance, God will still love you.
... seriously, do religious folks really believe that childish tripe?
On another topic, based on the title, I thought the post was going to be about something Atrios had done. Go figure.
Posted by: Frenchdoc | Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 02:33 PM
That's OK, Lance. The penthouse in the building I'm leasing in Hell will be open soon. No AC, but it's got a killer view of the Lake of Fire.
Posted by: SAP | Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 02:34 PM
I think the fires of Gehenna thing and the love of God thing are from different paradigms - I suspect that he's going with the God loves you but you've chosen to cut yourself off from that love, which means it still exists but it can never reach you because you decided you wanted it that way thing.
CS Lewis was very fond of that one.
Posted by: julia | Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 02:51 PM
"I'm going to hell."
Which reminds me of Huck Finn's line "All right then, I'll go to hell," said when deciding to help Jim.
Rex Stout in "Death of a Dude" has a character argue that that sentence is the most important one in American literature. Wolfe disagrees, but (naturally) feels it's worthy of discussion.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 03:42 PM
It sounds to me like you're already putting yourself through purgatory going to Sunday mass.
Posted by: Dan Leo | Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 03:55 PM
Intertia. Pure intertia.
At the current point in your priest's life, he's got too much comfort with the messages he's been taught to teach -- "God loves you" "worry about Hell" that their conflict doesn't even trouble him.
The same way that we celebrate the High Holy Feast of Christianity using pagan fertility symbols such as eggs and bunnies. Inertia.
PS: Bring your resume. Considering how furiously Hell must be expanding with its burgeoning clientele, I'm sure there are great staffing opportunities. Hell has many jobs, lots of heat, warm feelings for John McCain, and plenty of old people -- it's like Arizona.
Posted by: Sabutai | Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 07:19 PM
"Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." -Mark Twain
And from now until the day I die, if anyone mentions Vatican II, this is all I will be able to think of:
First you get down on your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Do whatever steps you want, if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff.
Everybody say his own
Kyrie eleison,
Doin' the Vatican Rag!
Posted by: Geoduck | Monday, March 24, 2008 at 04:23 AM
Oh, Geoduck,, a fellow Tom Lehrer devotee! You and me both, my friend.
Incidentally, this is from the Catholic Catechism: "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'hell.'" So it sounds as if God will still love you, but you will have chosen not to enjoy it.
Lance, you may be thinking of "anathema" (pre-1917 anathema, that is; now anathema is pretty much synonymous with excommunication): imposed only by the pope, who would declare, "We separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment." But there was still the possibility of salvation, in that last clause, and the anathematized were encouraged to repent and rejoin the community of the faithful.
Posted by: Karen | Monday, March 24, 2008 at 08:18 AM
Lance,
God doesn't send you to hell. You send yourself.
Ergo, it's very possible that God could love you, even while you burn and rot and are eaten by maggots and have to listen to Barack Obama speeches for eternity.
Posted by: actor212 | Monday, March 24, 2008 at 05:07 PM
Heaven and Hell are both filled with forgiven sinners.
Posted by: Andrew | Monday, March 24, 2008 at 08:10 PM
In Hell, we will look exactly like our driver's license photos.
Posted by: Andrew | Monday, March 24, 2008 at 09:07 PM
I was told by my friend that he is taking me to Jewish hell!
It's the only hell with air-conditioning!!
YAY for Robert!
UM
Posted by: Uncle Merlin | Monday, March 24, 2008 at 09:40 PM
It's all so sillilly temporal and small when you really look at where we are.
Last Wed morning at 2:12 am EST a star became visible for 30 minutes in the night sky. It had exploded 7.5 billion -- YES I wrote BILLION years ago! It is now the farthest object ever seen by man. Half way across the Universe, half way to the known edge of the Universe.
Up until now the farthest object was 2.5 MILLION light years away. This is a WHOLE OTHER order of magnitude of time.
Earth as a celestial body was not even formed yet, when this star died! No oceans, no continents, no core, no surface! THE SUN wasn't even formed yet. NO SUN!! That wouldn't happen yet for another 3 BILLION years! SO no solar system either!
And until last Wednesday we had no idea this star ever existed. It took 7.5 billion years to reach us and yet it took only one instant for the Universe we know to change, first it was not there and in the next instant it was in "our" experience.
Think on that; what a contradiction. 7.5 Billion years/One instant of experience.
Whatever we think about life the universe and everything it will always pale in comparison to actual experience.
The Universe is really big, it takes in alot of everything.
Posted by: Uncle Merlin | Monday, March 24, 2008 at 10:08 PM
I've been going and still go. Every Sunday, not just Christmas and Easter. But in these waning days of the American Empire, I am more and more bugged by what Gandhi expressed so succinctly: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians."
Posted by: Honour Amongst Steves | Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 12:08 AM