A map of Jerusalem showing Gehenna to the south

Homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Jesus frequently used physical realities to explain and transmit spiritual realities. Jesus compared the divine life of sanctifying grace to “living water”. Whenever Jesus performed a healing miracle, he declares, “Your sins are forgiven you,” for the healing of the body becomes an outward sign of what has happened to the soul. In the same way, Jesus used physical images to explain eternal life. Jesus compared heaven to a kingdom, a pasture, and a wedding feast. The physical image that Jesus repeatedly uses to describe the alternative to heaven is Gehenna. Wherever you hear ‘hell’ in today’s Gospel, the underlying Aramaic and Greek word is actually Gehenna: “… it is better to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to gehenna…”

Gehenna is a real physical place. Jerusalem is built on a mountain, Mount Sion. To the east, Mount Sion runs down into the Kidron Valley, which is adjoined by the Mount of Olives. To the south, Mount Sion runs down into another valley, in Hebrew called the Valley of Hinnom, and in Aramaic and Greek called Gehenna.

In the 700’sBC, Gehenna was the place where many of ancient Israel’s political and religious leaders worshipped the false God Moloch. Moloch was a god of the Canaanites, the people who lived in the Holy Land before the people of Israel. The worship of Moloch involved child sacrifice. In particular, the children would be made to “walk through fire” (cf. Lev 18:21), that is, they would be sacrificed by fire. The Old Testament describes how King Ahaz, who reigned between 745BC and 725BC, went down to Gehenna and there burned his children in sacrifice to Moloch (2 Kings 16:3). As a result, Gehenna became known to the Jews as a place of sin, death and fire.

Gehenna is the physical place that Jesus uses to explain the alternative to heaven, what we call ‘hell’. Jesus describes hell as a place “where their worm does not die nor their fire go out.” A worm is an instrument of corruption, a sign of death. A worm that does not die signifies that hell is a place of eternal death. Likewise, fire is a source of suffering. A fire that does not go out signifies that hell is a place of eternal suffering. Just as Gehenna was a physical place of sin, death, and fire, so hell is a spiritual place of separation from God, eternal death, and eternal suffering. It is the alternative to union with God, eternal life, and eternal rest enjoyed in heaven.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (nn. 1034-1035) explains:

“Jesus often speaks of ‘Gehenna,’ of ‘the unquenchable fire’ reserved for those who, to the end of their lives, refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost… The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer… ‘eternal fire’. The chief [suffering] of hell is separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.”

We rarely hear talk of hell anymore. This is somewhat understandable. It tends to make us uncomfortable. There is sometimes a sense among Catholics that hell is something childish and old-fashioned, something we have now grown out of. We struggle to understand how hell is consistent with God’s love. And yet the fact remains: Jesus taught that there are two eternal destinations open to humanity, one of which is hell. Jesus took hell very seriously and so should we.

God is not a tyrant. He does not force anything on us, even things that are good for us like eternal life. Instead of forcing and imposing, God proposes and invites. God constantly offers us love, which we remain free to accept or reject. “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him,” (CCC n. 1033). Those who love God and die in his grace continue to share God’s life eternally. Those who love themselves and die without grace continue to be separated from God eternally. Hell is not so much something God chooses for us as it is something that we choose for ourselves.

Jesus is straight with us. We will have to make sacrifices to avoid hell and enter heaven. “If your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off… If your foot should cause you to sin, cut it off… If your eye should cause you to sin, tear it out…” One of the fathers of the Church, a priest named Origen, took this teaching of Jesus too literally. He struggled with lust, so he castrated himself. As a result, the Church has never canonised him, even though he was one of the greatest teachers of Scripture in the history of the Church.

Jesus is using exaggeration to drive home his point. Avoid sin at all costs. Deal with the things that are obstacles to your love for God by making sacrifices. Do whatever it takes to avoid hell and attain eternal life. Jesus is not encouraging us to cut off parts of our body. Rather, he is encouraging us to cut off those false loves that compete with God’s place in our heart.

The examples Jesus uses for things that cause sin are all good things. Our hands, feet and eyes are good things, gifts from God. Herein lies a profound spiritual insight. Most of our sin involves the misuse of the good gifts of God. God gives us good things to help us love Him, but these good things often become obstacles to loving God. We are all inclined to love the gifts of God more than God Himself. We must all be willing to renounce any good thing that becomes an obstacle to our love for God.

The mobile phone is one example of a good thing that has become a spiritual obstacle for many people today. True, our phones help us achieve many tasks quickly and easily. Governments and workplaces are arranging society so that you need a phone to access basic services. Yet our phones also cause of so much sin: sloth through doom-scrolling, vanity, envy and pride through social media, anger through the news media, and lust through pornography.

For some of us, it might be possible to cut ourselves off from a smartphone entirely. If that’s not possible, and your phone is an obstacle to your salvation, then consider cutting off your phone at certain times or in certain places. Start with meals and bedrooms. Introduce a family rule that meals and bedrooms are tech-free times and places. Have a common public area where you charge your phones. I try to put this into practice myself. I try to avoid having my phone or tablet in my bedroom, and I make a point of leaving my phone in my car or at the door when I go to visit parishioners for meals.

Saint John of the Cross taught that “at the end of our life, we will be judged on love.” To attain eternal life and avoid hell, we must be ready to make sacrifices out of love for God.