"THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,
THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,
THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.
……
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE."
(Inscription on the gates of Hell according to the Inferno of Dante.)
Sometimes people ask me about Hell. Obviously, I have never been there and I have no plans to visit. But I have been reading Dante recently and I have been on a literary trip with Dante and Virgil as they take a scenic route through Satan’s kingdom. Perhaps next Sunday I will write a little about that journey which has influenced so much of what Western people think about Hell. But for today, I want to talk about the terror and the horror that constitutes Hell. I have met people who tell me that they have known Hell, that they have been to the Pits of Hell. I believe them. I believe that the terror of sin and sadness, the sin of despair and betrayal drags us into the place where evil controls us. Where evil and pride dominate, there is Hell.
In the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Grushenka, friend of Alyosha, tells the story of the onion. In it an old wicked, wicked woman has died and is burning in the fiery lake. Her guardian angel pleads with God to allow her to go free. God asked what good deed she ever did. The angel said that she had given an onion to a beggar-woman. God told the angel to take that same onion and offer it to her in the lake, and that she could hold onto it and the angel could pull her out so she could go to heaven, but if the onion broke she had to remain where she was. The angel goes to the fiery lake and the woman takes hold of the onion. The angel starts to pull her out and she was very nearly out when the others sinners saw this and began to hold onto her so they could be pulled out together with her. She began to kick them off with her feet and said, “I’m the one who’s being pulled out, not you. The onion’s mine, not yours.” And just at that moment the onion broke and she fell back into the lake. The angel began to weep and left.
If the woman had simply let the others hold onto her, they could have all been lifted out. But, she did not love. She was focused only on herself. The French atheist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said once that “Hell is other people.” For the woman in Dostoyevsky’s fable, that had indeed become true. But, it did not have to be that way.
For the Christian, Hell is selfishness. Hell is being alone and focusing on oneself. Hell is the state of life where I ignore others and how they feel. Hell is a state where we allow evil things to be legal in the name of being generous and open. Hell is when we show no respect for the shortcomings of others, judging them without mercy. Hell is where sin is normal, and we do not even bother to recognize that it is evil.
Every time we love, we create a gossamer line with which we may ascend to the place where God is. Each act of generosity for the sake of Christ is a lifeline – a line that not only helps the other person achieve true happiness, but also enriches us as fulfilled people. The constant practice of virtue makes us virtuous - the constant practice of sharp and mean-minded behavior makes us mean and cruel. Hell is not other people, hell is the poverty of the soul that comes from not being generous. Hell is where we are when we cannot stand other people with their weakness and their annoying ways. I am in Hell, when I think that I am the model of all action. (Continued on Page 2)
Reflection (Continued from Page 1)
The day I believe that my conduct is the Gold Standard for rest of humanity, I am locked deeply into the darkest and most horrible Hell.
In my county in Ireland, there was a famous patriot called William Smith O’Brien. He was exiled to Van Deman’s Land (Australia) in 1845 for leading a rebellion against the Crown. Smith O’Brien’s son did not share his father’s nationalism. So after his father had been taken away, the son tightened up the affairs of the estate, and became well off. He once posted a notice on the main gate of Cahermoyle, his ancestral home, directing that only his rich friends could enter through that gateway. All others should use the servants’ entrance. It read, “No papists or beggars allowed.”
The following morning, there was graffiti on the wall. It said,
“Whoever wrote this wrote it well
For the same is written on the gates of Hell.”
I like to recall the story about the great Michaelangelo, the painter of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. He knew that his work was controvertial and that some Cardinals were bitterly opposed to giving the Church’s money to a smelly and cantankerous artist. (Michaelangelo was never, ever known to take a bath.) He knew that a Roman cardinal had advised the Pope to stop the great scene of the Last Judgment and to dismiss the artist. In revenge, the artist included the Cardinal in his painting, painting his face on a Hellish creature which was half man and half donkey. All of Rome was tittering with delight at the artist’s revenge and the cardinal became the laughing stock of Rome. He went to the Pope and demanded that the artist remove the image. The Pope, pretending to be sincere, replied, “But, your Eminence, I am only the Pope. I certainly have great influence in heaven. But I am afraid that I have no friends in Hell.”