“We are overwhelmed by words, by superficial pleasures, and by an increasing din, filled not by joy but rather by the discontent of those whose lives have lost meaning” (Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, #29).

I don’t believe that my life has lost its meaning, but there are certainly days when I feel overwhelmed. Network and cable news fill me with a profound discontent—sometimes with disgust. Unremitting, ubiquitous rage is the sum and substance of the 24 hour news cycle. Superficial pleasures are celebrated, and sold, by the news and entertainment media. Real joy is nowhere to be found. 

Sound bleak? Yes indeed. What’s the answer?

Some urge us to flee “the world” and to seek refuge in monastic enclaves designed to keep the world out. This is not the way of Pope Francis who, as a good Jesuit, counsels a much more active solution—one of engagement and accompaniment, “being in the world but not of it.”

I discuss this question at some length in my book, The Benedictine Way, which reflects on my 50 years’ experience with Benedictine monks and their distinctive form of spirituality. 

Much of what Pope Francis says in his new apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad), on the call to holiness, is a discussion of how Christians should live in a world gone to ruins. The answers are simple but not easy. They can be found if we search for them and if we imitate the words and actions of Jesus, Mary and all the holy women and men we call saints. As we read in John 3:16-17:

God so loved the world that he gave his only-­begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Does Hell exist? What about Heaven? And who inhabits these two places (or states of being) in the afterlife?

It’s a mystery. Our faith tells us that being in Heaven is being with God for all eternity. Hell is the opposite—being cut off from God forever. Our faith also tells us that God’s love and mercy are available to everyone in spite of our sins if only we turn to God and seek the divine mercy. No sinner, regardless of the evil that he or she has done, will be denied God’s forgiveness, which is the gateway to Heaven, if only we repent. 

So who has been, or will be, condemned to Hell? And what will that be like? 

Catholic teaching says that those who absolutely refuse to repent and accept God’s forgiveness end up forever damned. “The fires of Hell” (an image, not an actual description of what Hell is like) are therefore occupied by those who have resisted God’s every attempt to reach out to them in love and offer them the transformative experience of conversion and reconciliation with God. 

Are there people who refuse God’s love to the bitter end? We must admit the possibility—maybe even the likelihood—based on our human experience. But we must also acknowledge that there is a chance (maybe even a good chance) that God’s love, which we know is stronger than death, is also strong enough to overcome (by persuasion, not by force) the stubborn resistance of the most recalcitrant sinner. 

This is what Divine Mercy Sunday celebrates: the amazing grace of God that can save every wretched human being (like me) from the powers of Hell. 

Why are people so threatened by the idea that Hell may, in fact, be empty—a place of everlasting misery that no one inhabits because, in the end, every sinner ultimately chooses to repent and be saved?

We have no idea who—if anyone—is in Hell. We have only the vaguest ideas about what the experience of eternal damanation might be like. To be cut off from God’s love forever is the unthinkable consequence of the ultimate sin unto death— refusing God’s every attempt to offer divine mercy. Surely this ultimate sin is not easy to commit or, once committed, to sustain. The saving grace of God surrounds us at every moment of our lives here on earth and beyond. Who’s to say that  anyone, including the evilest people in human history and Satan himself, will continue to resist the persistent, powerful overtures of divine mercy culminating in the Day of Judgment?

I believe in the existence of Heaven and Hell. But I couldn’t begin to say who inhabits these two “places” of everlasting joy and eternal damnation. Who am I to judge? 

My job is not to judge but to pray. So, I pray that every man, woman and child will open their hearts to the grace of God—sooner or later—and accept the amazing gift of divine mercy which frees us from the consequences of our selfishness and sin, and which ensures us a place in the heavenly homeland forever.