Wrestling with the reality of heaven and hell

 CS Lewis in his book, "The Great Divorce" wrestles with the reality of heaven and hell. As we notice in the Letter of St Peter Christ dies to save people from prison. The text can be read in many ways but it refers explicitly to Spirits. The commentators offer many plausible explanations of this scripture that can refer to the condemnation of the fallen angels, those who refused to go into the Ark and then repented, or whether it is simply those who have died before the resurrection who are to be freed from the reality of hell or alienation from God. 

CS Lewis uses the image of waiting at a bus stop in a drab place known as Grey Town waiting for a bus to take them to their final destination. When on the bus they are brought to a cliff that overlooks a beautiful valley with majestic mountains in the distance. When they get off the bus they notice that the grass is not moving and feels sharp and painful to walk on and people are torn between returning to Grey Town or crossing the river.

As they experience this reality there is a biting spirit that can cause doubt, confusion, anxiety, and torment that God can actually offer eternal life and love. The Paradox is that some people prefer to be miserable rather than humble and grow attached to the things of life: their own personal property or talent, their own ability to have influence over others, or simply an attachment to grief or the by-products of sin that seem more real than God.

God desires for us to be free and not shackled to a reality of our own creation that is not real. This is where we notice Jesus entering the desert to confront the temptations that we all wrestle with. He does not want us to be blackmailed by evil spirits into believing we are beyond redemption. God reaches out to us this Lent to not doubt the Covenant that he does not seek our destruction but our liberation. This promise is born out whenever we see the rainbow in the sky. We are called to be people of faith, hope, and love who seek the Kingdom of God.

Avoiding contagion

 Over the last years of the pandemic, we have been very conscious of seeking to protect ourselves and our communities from a virulent disease. This saw people being isolated from each other through lockdowns and the inability to make meaningful contact with others. After these years of enforced isolation, we can some of the trauma and fears that caused people to shape their lives around outbreaks of the disease. Yet even as we emerge from those days we can still be conscious that while the disease has disappeared we have adopted a very different lifestyle. While there is less suspicion of each other there can be a lingering doubt of how we are called to live in this modern age. 

In the reading from Leviticus, there is the belief that moral corruption led to physical illness that caused people with leprosy to be pushed to the margins of their community. The belief that a person suffered sickness due to sin can still linger in our own imagination. We know from modern medicine that there are some links between lifestyle and disease but they are not as explicit in identifying a person with their disease. This can be seen that there have been many public health campaigns to change people's behavior that bring into focus the dangers of what we allow to enter our bodies. Yet it is a person's choices that make the greatest difference. What emerges from a person's heart most shapes their own commitments and how they think through issues that affect their own health.

This is probably why the virtue of mercy is at the heart of faith. Jesus sees the heart of the person who desires to be clean. He acknowledges the desire to be cured. Yet as we see in the Gospel this is not just seeking Jesus as a healer of sickness but a person who calls people to a profound encounter with God. In our own age, this is a challenge for our own times. How do we seek out the good of another that acknowledges the need for healing at all levels of society, personal, social, and communal? The call is to be people who not only recognize our humanity but how we are called to model ourselves on Christ. To see the divine life that sustains our human life. This allows us to be people who rather than focusing on the cause of suffering can seep into the heart of the person and isolate them but rather see the heart of the person who seeks to alleviate suffering. In this, we see the transforming power of the love of Jesus who seeks to heal the person rather than see them consumed by their suffering.

With Every Breath I Take

 Starting a new year we can sometimes need to pause and take a breath. There seem to be so many things that are added to our agenda that our minds might feel like exploding with information and tasks that we need to undertake. There can be a focus on the many things that besiege us and that seek to question where we find our worth. Is it the years we have lived, the money we make, or the experiences that we have accumulated? They can be a sense in which we are dragged along from morning to night just taking on one thing after another. Yet it raises the question of what we focus is it on suffering or what makes us joyful.

Paul reflects on this in his letter to the Corinthians where he examines what we preach with our lives. This is not just about trying to measure the worth of the Gospel by how much we work, how much we earn, or how much time we spend on a particular project. Rather he looks at how we surrender ourselves each day to the Good News that frees us up to grow in relationship with God and each other. This helps us to reexamine each day what it is that we are seeking to live in our daily lives. That we are called to share in the blessings of the Good News.

In the Gospel, we notice a similar reflection on whether it is the busyness of daily life or how we find space to focus on what is important not just what is urgent. Thus we do not find our worth just in who seeks us out but in the time when we can be renewed and recreated each day. Thus we seek to become people who prayerfully reflect on who we are called to be and how we can become present in our activity. In allowing us to be at home with God our lives do not become an endless list of tasks or activities. We open ourselves up to God who transforms our lives into Good News.