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The Southern Cross, Page 8 Fmitih Alive! Thursday, December 07, 2000 A Heaven and hell: The reality beneath the metaphors By Father Berard Marthaler, OFM Conv Catholic News Service q : k_7ociety functions on a system of rewards and punishments. The car rot on the stick. From our earliest years we learn that high grades and trophies indicate approval of good con duct and distinguished performance. the case. He wants people to take hell seriously. In theological terms, hell is “the state of those who freely and defini tively separate themselves from God,” but graphic language is needed to convey the point. The popular carica ture of hell that pictures a sinister looking devil with horns and pitch- fork does not deter humans from de- upon death. In the Catholic tradition “heaven” is a code word for life with and in God, that is, participation in the triune life and love of God. Heaven is associated with the “beatific vision,” a figure of speech based on the metaphor of see ing. In the present world, St. Paul wrote, “we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,” but in the hereafter we shall fully, as I am fully known” (1 Corin thians 13:12). a ■ ■ Pope John Paul summarized the biblical and traditional teachings: “We know that the ‘heaven’ or ‘happi ness’ in which we will find ourselves is neither an abstraction nor a physi cal place in the clouds.” It is, he con tinues, “a living, personal relation- CNS photos of tornado area (left), riot aftermath (center), and grieving students (right) from Reuters Society shows disapproval of unac ceptable behavior in any number of ways from spanking (before it became politically incorrect) to fines and in carceration. The ultimate reward for virtue and a life of service is the joy of heaven. The ultimate punishment for unrepented sin and selfishness is the torment of hell. Not long ago Pope John Paul II captured the headlines when he told an audience that hell is not a place. “It is not a punishment imposed ex ternally by God,” he said, but “the ultimate consequence of sin itself.” Sinners who, even in the last moment of life, reject God’s mercy, accept these consequences. The Bible relies upon symbolic language to portray the unspeak able torments of hell. Figures such as a fiery furnace, where the indi viduals “weep and gnash their teeth” (Matthew 13:42), and images like Gehenna with its “unquench able fire” (Mark 9:43) are intended to capture the frustration and end less pain suffered by those who de finitively and consciously turn away from God. In denying that hell is a place and affirming that language used to de scribe the pain of final damnation is not literal, it was not Pope John Paul’s intention to question the ex istence of hell or to make its tor ments less fearsome. The opposite is All contents copyright©2000 by CNS ceit and exploitation, violence and murder. Picasso’s “Guernica” presented a glimpse of hell to people of the 20th century. Street violence and destruc tion from floods and tornadoes, incur able sickness and mental distress, de structive hatred and battered women, endless expletives and screeching noises are symbols and images that communicate the horrors of hell. These, again, are only figures. The reality is worse. ■ ■ ■ We also employ metaphors to describe heaven. The Bible speaks of heaven as God’s dwelling place and uses many different images to describe it (see Psalms 11:4; 104:2; 115:16). Believers hope, with God’s grace, to arrive there see God “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). And in another epistle we read, “What we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like (God), for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). The beatific vision, as explained by most theologians, suggests in sight as well as visual sight. It im plies the kind of fascination and happiness that come from an experi ence that electrifies our whole be ing. Heaven means experiencing God as he is, and it also implies seeing all things, including ourselves, through the eyes of God. “At present I know partially,” writes St. Paul, “then I shall know ship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit.” Everything that hell is not, heaven is. —Hell is eternal isolation and lone liness, emptiness and torment com pounded by the realization that it is the consequence of selfishness and op portunities squandered. —On the other hand, in the worA of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, defini tive happiness” (No. 1024). It is life in and with the Holy Trinity, a com munion of life and love with the Vir gin Mary, the angels and all who have struggled to do God’s will. It is in this sense, Pope John Pa. 1 said, that Jesus speaks of a “reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:12) and urges his followers to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). (Franciscan Father Marthaler is professor emeritus of religion and re ligious education at The Catholic University of America.) F00DF0RTH0UGHT Many Catholics these days are skipping Sunday Mass not because they don’t think there’s a hell, but because they’re not so sure there is a heaven,” Bishop George Lucas of Springfield, III., said in a fall 1999 speech three weeks before he was named a bishop. The bishop commented: “The church’s preachers have often been criticized in the last 25 years for not talking about hell enough. Don’t get me wrong. I believe there is a hell. But I reject that criticism. The problem is not that we do not talk about hell enough, but that we don’t talk about heaven enough. Not some syrupy heaven full of fat cherubs playing harps — Who’d trade money or sex for that?! Rather we need to instill hope in the real heaven, where I will be fully myself, fully alive — a heaven that’s charged with the power of a personal God.” Bishop Lucas asked, “Is it possible to discover, here and now, in our liturgy, in our community, in our joy and even in our suffering and failure, the seeds of another world already coming to fruition?” 42 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive! Street violence and destruction from floods and tornadoes, incurable sickness and mental distress, destructive hatred... are symbols and images that communicate the horrors of hell. These, again, are only figures. The reality is worse.”