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| Dore's Sketch of the Rich Man and Lazarus |
Yes, we need things in order to live, but all we can take with us in death are our good deeds. As the saying goes, you never see a U-Haul trailer following a hearse to the cemetery.
The reality of death challenges us to answer the most important questions in life: how shall we live and what shall we do? And so, Jesus urges us to make sure we have our priorities straight. Seek first the things of God.
The so-called last things—hell, purgatory, and heaven—are challenging beliefs in Christianity. How can we say at the same time there’s an all-good God, and there’s a hell? Think about it. Yes, scripture describes the last things.
But Dante’s The Divine Comedy also imaginatively reveals how he awoke in a dark wood (perhaps a midlife crisis) where Virgil led him through earth to hell (remember Dante’s famous line, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”). They saw sinners going to the abode of Satan. Then Dante ascended to purgatory, and finally, with his beloved Beatrice, he climbed the spheres of paradise and into the dazzling vision of the Triune God.
The Divine Comedy is a masterpiece in poetry, not easily readable but profoundly instructive about life. Heaven and hell answer the question of justice. Many good people die without receiving in this life a reward for their goodness, and many wicked people die without paying for their wickedness. If there’s justice, there has to be someplace where wrongs are righted, and someplace where good is rewarded.
So what are hell, purgatory, and heaven? The language is best understood symbolically. God does not “send” us to hell; we freely choose to go (unwisely). Also, while accepting the possibility of hell (in light of the dynamic between God's unconditional love for us and our human freedom to reject that love), we don’t have to believe that human beings are actually “in” such a “place.” In fact, we hope all human beings will find salvation.
If we peel away its fiery imagery, hell can be described as the absence of God, the failure to realize our true selves, whereas heaven is the ultimate fulfillment of our true selves. In heaven, we participate in the mystery of God.
Purgatory then is a “purification” in which we become our true selves. And judgment is our own recognition of what is right and wrong in ourselves.
Finally, we believe that in the mystery of death, God will transform our earthly selves, like Jesus, into a new, indescribable heavenly reality. St. Paul put it well: “No eye has seen, no mind has ever imagined … what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Yes, Jesus wants us to be indescribably rich: “rich in what matters to God.” (Luke 12:21)
