C.S. Lewis: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell” (C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce [New York: Macmillan, 1946], 72–73. Italics in the original).
Fr. Adam Voisin's Stuff
Homily for the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
So, as we've been hearing for the last couple of weeks, Jesus, once again, is using very strong, very dramatic, and challenging language to emphasize the importance of the decisions that we make in life, the choices that we make that have an impact on whether we are a follower of Christ, whether we attain our eternal reward in heaven or end up eternally separated from God in hell, we remember a couple of weeks ago, Jesus said, "If any want to become my follower, if any want that, we remember that it's not just by default that we're a follower of Christ, there has to be that desire, I have to want to do it. If any want to become my follower, so we have to make a choice, a decision, then what do we got to do?" Well, they got to take up their cross, Jesus says, "And follow me." And he goes on, he says, "If any want to save their life in this world, we'll lose it for eternal life, but the one who loses his life in this world will save it for eternal life." So, again, there's the emphasis on the choice we get to make, and that's really what our whole life here on earth is about, is telling God by the decisions and choices I make, what I do and what I don't do that, I want to spend eternity with him in heaven. And we get to choose that, we get to choose whether we go to heaven or hell. Our whole life is about orienting ourself in one direction towards heaven or away from God and away from heaven. You know, a lot of people, I think, have this idea that when it comes to heaven and hell, like, you know, at the end of our life, God looks down and he sees, "Oh, there's a good person, so I'll reward him and let him in heaven." There's a bad person, well, punish them and send them to hell, and that may be the case, but that's not the way Jesus speaks about it, that's for sure. Whenever Jesus speaks about these things, he always emphasizes that we choose, we get to choose, which one we want. Is my life oriented towards heaven by the choices and decisions I make, or am I telling God by the decisions and choices I make that you're not important? Your will is not important in my life, I have other things I want to do. You know, that's what Jesus means, when he says those who save their life, those who do whatever they want to do in life, well, they lose it for eternal life. But the one who loses their life, the one who makes the sacrifices to be obedient to God in this life, well, they're the ones who will save it for eternal life. C.S. Lewis spoke about this idea that we get to choose whether we go to heaven or hell. C.S. Lewis, the great 20th century Christian apologist, he put it this way, he said, "There are only two kinds of people in the end, those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in hell, choose it. Without that self-choice, there could be no hell. So we choose, do I want to orient my life towards God or am I telling God you're not important and I am orienting my life away from him? And then God will give us exactly what we want. We hear about the importance of the choices we make again in our gospel today. Jesus says, 'If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you're thrown into the sea.' He's speaking here about scandal. Scandal, when we normally use that word in English, we mean something really public and shocking, like a political scandal, like a Watergate, what a scandal, or something like, 'Oh, those famous people got divorced, what a scandal,' but that's not really what scandal means. So is my behavior or attitude, the things I do or don't do, that lead someone else to do evil, to sin. And this is a reminder to us that we have a responsibility to others, by the way we live our own lives. We have an impact on others. We'll have an impact on whether others will want to know God and love God and obey God and attain eternal life, or by our life we could convince others that God is not important, by the way we live our own lives, and that sends them away from God and eternal union with God as well. So we have a responsibility and we get to make that choice, how am I going to live my life? And here's maybe a point of reflection just in our own time of prayer to ask, 'What's my life? What's my life look like? Are the people around me more inclined to want to be with God or not? By my actions, by my attitudes and the things I do in my life.' And then Jesus goes on and uses very dramatic language. And he says, 'If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell to the unquenchable fire.' And he says the same thing about a foot or nine. Now obviously Jesus is not telling us to amputate our body parts if they're causing us to sin. Okay? So don't do that. The church doesn't teach that. You'll notice that in the main faithful Catholics have the same number of body parts as non-Catholics. So don't go cutting off body parts unnecessarily. If it's a medical intervention, fine, but don't go cutting off body parts and stop sinning, Jesus is obviously using very strong and dramatic language to make a point. And the point is to take sin seriously. It's something that we need to pay attention to and to take even drastic measures like cutting off a hand to take drastic measures to avoid in area of sin in our life. And when we do that, we spoke about that a couple of weeks ago, whenever we're trying to be faithful to God, there is a cost involved. If I'm going to lose my life in this world for Christ in the sake of the gospel, there's going to be a cost in this world because I want to do whatever I want to do. I don't want to have to do what God wants me to do. So there's a cost to it, but it's worth it. Think about what would the cost be in cutting off a hand? You'll notice I have two hands. I've never cut one off, but I could imagine there'd be a lot of cost. First of all, it would hurt a lot and then I would have only one hand. So there'd be a big cost involved in cutting off a hand. Well, the same thing goes with sin that we have to take it seriously and be sincere in our fight against it to obey God, to obey what God wants us to do. So that seems to be the point pretty clearly that Jesus is making, not to play games with sin in our life. And here's maybe another point of reflection to ask, well, is there some area of sin in my life that I need to get serious about and stop and do whatever it takes, do whatever it takes to stop committing that sin even to the point of taking drastic measures and even if there's going to be a cost involved. Here in this world, now the cost is worth it for eternal life, eh? Now, even if we strive and we make this effort, we're really, you know, giving it an honest go. Well, we're weak, so we're still going to end up sinning. We're not going to become perfect overnight and maybe never this side of heaven. And Jesus knows that. He knows we're our weaknesses and he knows that we stumble and fall along the way. So that's why he's given us a whole sacrament just for that, the sacrament of confession that we can go to as often as we need over and over and over to receive his mercy and his forgiveness. And he's always there waiting to forgive us of our sins and give us the chance to start out again anew within making a new effort to be faithful to him. Again, the point it seems Jesus is making pretty clear at least over these last few weeks and of course in other places in the gospels is that the choices are. The choice is yours and mine. Will I be faithful to him? Will I make the sacrifices and life that are necessary to be faithful to him knowing that those are the very same sacrifices that tell God, "I'm taking you seriously in my life and I want to spend all eternity with you in Heaven.