Damnation

If you were in Hiroshima right before the first atom bomb, and someone told you what was about to happen, and offered a safe bunker... whose fault IS it if you get blown to smithereens?  The guy who told you what was about to happen, and offered a way to safety?  Or your own, for not believing him, and choosing not to take him up on his offer? 

"Salvation" is literal.  We hear the word too much to really understand what we're being saved FROM, in my opinion. 

The Big Picture: Salvation, as I understand it

 

God is love.  Pure, intense, all-consuming love.  As a result of Adam and Eve's fall, I am lost, wandering in the darkness.  Yet there is this....  He loves me, He wants me - just as he wants all of His creation.  He yearns to draw me towards Himself, to transform my nature so that I may partake in Heaven with Him forever.  This is His invitation, this is His call. 

In my mortal state, I have the infancy of a divine nature -  because I am made in His image, and am loved by Him.  I am more than an animal - I have a spirit, which is immortal and divine.   I am Pinnochio, the wooden puppet brought into a state of animation, but not yet a "real boy".  The fullness of myself will not be realized until I am in Heaven with my Father in my glorified body.   To get from my mortal state to my glorified body, from a "puppet" to a "real boy", I need God's intrinsic grace and power to change me.  I must become infused by grace to transform me to this complete, full version of myself - body, mind and soul.

I envision this love of God as a great tractor beam of light, pulling me ever closer to Him.  Out in the darkness, I am wandering, separated from Him.  I may see the light, but I am not inside the light.  Through His great love, and Christ's sacrifice, and through the gift of baptism, I am allowed entrance into God's transforming light.  It is Jesus who brings me there, who grabs me by the hand, pulls me from the darkness into the light, and says "here is the Way, the Truth, and the Light.  Stand in the light.  Come to the Father through me.  I have reconciled you."  I am not lost.  Jesus has found me, and I am now bathed in the love and grace of God, standing in the light. 

But my nature is not ready for the intensity of God's pure love.  After all, wooden puppets thrown into a fire will burn.  Jesus's sacrifice on the cross took that part of us that was so unworthy it couldn't even begin, and did away with it - overcame it.  He made a bridge to that "way of light".  He led us there, and invited us in.

So I'm here, bathed in this diffuse light of God's love, being pulled and called onward toward the Father.  But what do I do?  Often, the light is too bright.  Often, I get distracted, and turn my back, or shut my eyes.  Often, I resist the pull, fight it in an effort to "be in control".  This is sin.  My actions work to separate me from God.  The devil and his minnions do their best to lure me out of the light and back into the darkness.  My will responds, yes... or no.  Far away from God, the light is diffuse, the pull weaker.  I'm still struggling with my own will, and I make mistakes, often make mistakes.  I get lost, but never so lost that I leave the light.  These are venial sins.  I am not cooperating with the "pull", which is God's will.  My journey to Him is impeded by myself, because I am resisting.  But He has not lost His grip on me.  I am still His, and I am working my way towards Him, however imperfectly. 

When I am wise, when I finally realize how I am resisting... I stop, turn towards the light, and ask for forgiveness.  This is confession, and repetance.  I turn myself back towards Him, and relinquish my petty resistance, my own will that is not in accordance with His, and begin my journey again.  As I'm now turned towards Him, the pull continues, the stuff behind me no longer matters.  I am back on the "Way".  I have been forgiven.   This is a state of grace. 

If I die while my back was still turned, my eyes still closed - I am still in the beam of light, I am still His, but my nature is not yet ready for the intensity of His love.  I have not completed my journey towards Him.  I have not been fully transformed into my "full self", and my nature is not yet pure.    And so God purifies me, prepares me "as through a fire", until I am ready to stand in His presence.  He completes the work of transfiguring my nature to be in His presence for eternity - the work that was not completed during my time here on earth.  This is purgatory.  

If, during my time on earth, I pull away from that tractor beam of light so forcibly as to rip myself out of it's pull completely, I have committed a mortal sin.  I have chosen to resist His call, and while He desperately wants me, He will not force me to Himself.  I have chosen darkness, and rejected Him.  He allows me my choice, and I remain a wooden puppet, lost in the darkness.  At the fullness of time, when the New Heaven and the New Earth arrive, my nature has not been transformed.  I am still made of wood.  I cannot tolerate the intensity of God's love, the intensity of His light, and I burn.  This is Hell.  I put myself there.

If, however, granted entrance into "the Way of light", brought there by Christ Himself, I joyfully keep my entire person turned towards the Father at all times, and float along on His will,  He will pull me  towards Himself.  This is faith. This takes an enormous amount of trust, as the process is painful.  I am often blind and can't see where I am going.  I am weak, and am incapable of withstanding such a process on my own.   So He helps me.  This is grace.  He presents opportunities on the outside to nudge me back into the light - this is external grace , and I can cooperate with it or not, using my will.   He transforms me from inside - internal grace , which is soley His doing.   He grants me earthly means of receiving His grace, gifts to help me on my journey. He grants me HIMSELF, in the form of the Eucharist , so that He may come to reside truly and physically, body soul and divinity, inside me, and transform me from the inside out. The Holy Spirit comes upon me at Confirmation , to guide and lead me, grant me strength to stay on the "Way". The Anointing of the sick heals my soul when wounded, a salve to cleanse and heal.  He graces me with Marriage , so that I may understand the nature of His love for me and His bride, the Church.  My family is a microcosm of His relationship with humanity.  All these sacraments are truly GIFTS of grace, because God wants me for Himself, wants to transform my nature.  Who am I to reject His gifts? Who am I to reject God's freely-give grace and love?

 His grace alters me as He draws me to Himself, my nature  slowly being converted to His, in preparation for all eternity in His presence.  The intensity of His love no longer burns, but rather glorifies me.  I light up, just as Jesus did during the Transfiguration, but I am not consumed.  The closer I get towards God, the stronger the pull, the more my will succumbs to His.  This is holiness.    And when I die, I will live forever bathed in His eternal love, greater than the intensity of a million suns.  This is the beatific vision.  This is Heaven.  

This is my desire.  Through His invitation, His pull, His transformation, and my cooperation. Lord, may I always succumb my will to Yours, keep my face turned to the LIGHT, so that I may be in YOUR presence at the fullness of time.