Hell Is A Choice

“I know there’s Hell.
I’ve made reservations for several people
and I call periodically to confirm them.
I also get a call when someone checks in.”
Rev. Skip Flynn

The best “confession story” of all time belongs to then newly ordained Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois from Lutcher - just between Gramercy and Paulina – Louisiana.

Two weeks after ordination, Roy was asked to hear second graders’ second confessions. All went well until a towheaded young man with a Cajun accent began, “Bless me, Father. It’s been two weeks since my last confession and this is my second confession and my sins are: I disobeyed three times, I told lies four times, I fought with my little brother. And I committed adultery fourteen times.” Things went downhill from there.

“You what?”

“I committed adultery fourteen times.”

“What?”

“Well. Teacher in school says adultery is the worstest sin you can commit. And my mother says I am the worstest little boys she’s ever seen. So, I figure I must be doing it at least once a day.”

__________

I truly love celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation with folks who haven’t been to confession in forever. I enjoy from the look on their faces when they start “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been (ten, twenty, thirty-five – you pick) years since my last confession…”

“Welcome back. Peace be with you.”

Shocked look. Followed by “I haven’t been to Mass or confession since (insert a year)” [There’s something about missing Mass that always seems to make it the easiest place for adults to start. Teenagers used to slide in masturbation right after fighting with their siblings but they don’t even consider that sin anymore.] and I’ve cheated on my spouse (insert a number) times and I….”

“Wait a minute. Please. If I want a shopping list, I’ll go grocery shopping for my mother, who’s 102.

“Tell me what’s happening in your life.”

Ahhh! A whole new idea. 

I use the original (first) The Godfather (1972) movie and Michael Corleone to explain the nature of sin – as opposed to our day-to-day peccadillos.

At the top of a blank sheet of paper I write GOD/LOVE and SELF at the bottom, explaining “In his Letter to the Early Church St. John told us ‘God is love’ and Jesus instructs us ‘Therefore, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.’ He’s setting a goal – a destination of the spiritual journey - for us.”

Holding the paper, I make one random dot on the page and ask, “If this is the roadmap of a life with the goal to go from SELF to being loving as our heavenly Father is loving, in what direction is this dot moving?” 

It’s amazing how difficult it is to get folks to identify the single dot as directionless. “It’s a Boy Scout helping an old lady cross the street to cash her Social Security check”

“Up. Toward God.”

“Wait. A second ago, you agreed it was directionless.” 

“Oh. Okay.”

“Now it’s the same Boy Scout hiding in the bushes, jumping out and beating-up the old lady to get her Social Security money.”

“Down. Toward Self.”

“Wait. I thought it was directionless.”

Using the Michael Corleone/Godfather One example, I point out that, in the beginning, he was generally a good guy – dots all over the page connected by a line with ups and downs but a generally upward movement. Living in a State of Grace. The Human Condition. 

Eventually, with lots more connected dots, I pointed out that Michael Corleone – with involvement in political corruption, fratricide, prostitution, committed and sanctioned murders – gave a whole new direction to his life – SELF – and when the curve and the direction were complete, he committed himself to a STATE OF SIN. 

On February 15, 2019, the Special Counsel’s Office of the U.S. Department of Justice submitted a 27-page “Sentencing Memorandum” for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

I won’t beat up on the defendant by using his name, but the memorandum reflects this sense of sin as a direction or state of living:

The writers noted that the defendant

“… has had every opportunity to succeed. He is well educated and a member of the legal profession, attending Georgetown University for college and law school [So much for rejecting years of Catholic education.] He was a successful political consultant both in the United States and abroad. 

“For a decade, [he] repeatedly violated the law… chose to engage in a sophisticated scheme to hide millions of dollars from United States authorities… when his foreign income stream dissipated in 2015, he chose to engage in a series of bank frauds in the United States to maintain his extravagant lifestyle,… chose to do this for no other reason than greed, evidencing his believe that the law does not apply to him. 

“[His] misconduct involved more than $16 million in unreported income resulting in more than $6 million in federal taxes owed, more than $55 million hidden in foreign bank accounts, and more than $25 million secured from financial institutions through lies resulting in a fraud loss of more than $6 million…committed these crimes over an extended period of time, from at least 2010 to 20116. His criminal decisions were not momentary or limited in time; they were routine…. [He] did not commit these crimes out of necessity or hardship. He was well educated, professionally successful, and financially well off… [He] committed bank fraud to supplement his liquidity because his lavish spending exhausted his substantial resources… [He] acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law… 

“[He] controlled the money at issue, he recruited others to facilitate these crimes, and he claimed a larger share of the proceeds. Further, [he] was plainly the leader. 

[His] criminal conduct was serious, longstanding, and bold. He failed to pay taxes in five successive years involving more than $16 million in unreported income – and failed to identify his overseas accounts in those same returns – resulting in more than $6 million in unpaid taxes. In four successive years from 2011 to 2014, [he] failed to report his overseas accounts to the Treasury Department and over that period he maintained 31 accounts in in three foreign countries collectively holding more than $55 million in multiple currencies. As for his bank fraud offenses, [he] defrauded not one financial institution but three…

“The defendant benefited from the protections and privileges of the law, the services of his government, while cheating it and his fellow citizens.

“… [T]hese were not short-lived schemes. [His] crimes were the product of his planning and premeditation over many years, and a result of his direct and willful conduct. [His] tax crimes by any account were serious, and… his failure to pay the taxes owed was not caused by any necessity by simple greed…  He simply chose not to comply with laws that would reduce his wealth. And along the way, each year, in order to successfully implement the tax scheme, the defendant involved numerous other people, including both witting and unwitting participants. In every scheme, [he] was always the principal, and almost always the exclusive beneficiary.” 

Wow!

Writing in the February 23, 2019 edition of The Atlantic, reporter Franklin Foer observed:

“When I first started reporting on [him] three years ago, I kept looking for a redeeming flicker of humanity… Reader, let me tell you, I searched hard to find that sliver of goodness, and it eluded me…

There’s simply nothing redeeming in [his] career… He engaged in elaborate schemes for no other reason than greed… without apparent conscience or self-consciousness….  

Double Wow!!

The Special Counsel’s Office has offered us a new way of looking at sin. 

It must be a serious wrong and we must know that it is seriously wrong. It must be considered – we have to take time to think about it. And we must act upon it. 

And, we must act upon it again and again and again – we must connect the action-dots of our lives and give our lives a direction exclusively toward self.

AA and other 12-Step programs have an abbreviated definition of a State of Sin – Selfish, Self-Centered and Self-Seeking. There’s no excuse “Oh, I was thinking of my family. I did it for them.” That justification falls apart when, in the case just cited, your mistress is 30 years younger and you’ve rented her a $9,000-a-month apartment in Manhattan and a house in the Hamptons – not far from your family, given her an American Express card and continued the relationship after your family learned of it.

As the Special Counsels paint a road map of sin, Jesus’s account (Luke 15:11-32) of the Prodigal Son and Rembrandt’s masterpiece combine to give us a deeper understanding. The Father remains constant – waiting lovingly, hoping for His son’s return. In sin, the son - like Michael Corleone or the defendant – moves further and further away. Perpetually lying, selfish, self-centered, self-seeking, genuinely incapable of concern for family or country or truth. Concerned only for self. And, in the movement away from “the Truth,” becoming progressively so self-centered, self-serving, and self-seeking that he hates and refuses to hear the call of the Father.

The great verity is that, as the movement toward self becomes more profoundly committed, more visceral, the Eternal Father waits, hoping for the sinner to “Come back to me with all your heart.” (Joel 2:12).

Sadly, the sinner moves ever further into his self-centered world. Hating the Father who waits. Arrogantly determining he needs no one and nothing but self. 

In truth, God – the Father of Jesus’ story and Rembrandt’s intimate masterpiece - waits. God does not sentence anyone to Hell. Rather, the sinner chooses Hell.

The sinner, the true sinner declares “I care neither for God nor His People” (Luke 18:5) and cloaks himself in self-centeredness, lying repeatedly to self and the world, and chooses never to return to the waiting Father. He refuses to admit “Father, I have sinned….” (Luke 15:21)

The Father waits and the sinner choses the Hell of his own construction. God does not condemn the sinner to Hell. In arrogance and pride, in his hatred for his Loving Father, the sinner chooses Hell, while the Father waits.