St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

If God truly wants everyone to be saved and is working hard to make that happen, how do we explain the existence of Hell, which is a dogma of our faith? It's simple, though tragic. God wants all of us to be saved, but He won't force us to be saved. To force us would be to destroy us, because it would mean taking away our freedom, without which we would no longer be human.

Just as some of the angels rebelled against God, using their God-given freedom to separate themselves from God's friendship and set up their own false ideas of right and wrong, so human beings are capable of doing the same thing. The fallen angels, Satan and his demons, rejected God's offer of fellowship. Now they still exist, but they are permanently cut off from God's love and truth. That state of existence is what is called Hell.

Human beings were also given the gift of free will. By that gift we can either choose to obey the laws of God's household and thereby enjoy the glory of His friendship. Or we can give in to the devil's lies and follow in his footsteps - as concentration camps like Auschwitz prove.

Fr. Gabriel Amorth, longtime exorcist for the diocese of Rome, tells of an interesting experience about this point in his book, An Exorcist Tells His Story. Fr. Amorth's mentor, Fr. Candido Amantini was finishing up an exorcism one day. He said to the demon, "Now go back to the Hell which God has made for you."  The demon, seeing an opportunity for an insult, answered him. It said, "You know nothing! He didn't make Hell; we did."

The fact that God wills everyone's salvation is the source of our life-mission. As the Catechism states, "At every time and in every place, God draws close to man" (CCC #1). In other words, Providence is always at work trying to draw each person into His friendship, or to deepen that friendship where it already exists. One of the most important ways God does that is through inviting us to be partners with His Providence, to take part in this saving mission.

Just as we share and collaborate in the concerns and projects of our human friends, so too the mature Christian, because he loves Christ and is living the life of grace, accepts God's invitation to collaborate in building up Christ's Kingdom,  in helping others discover and experience the Gospel, starting with family members, friends, and colleagues. As Christians, this is our most important work, our life-mission, because as Christians, friendship with Christ is our most important relationship. Unfortunately, because the results of this activity - telling others about Christ, trying to build up the Church and Christianize culture - are not always immediate, we tend to push this responsibility to the back burner.

Today Jesus is asking us to bring it to the front and turn up the heat.  Many of our neighbors are in desperate need of the mercy, truth, and grace of God - just like the little girl in today's Gospel. Our job is to connect those needy souls to Christ just as the Canaanite woman did, through our prayers, through our example of Christian living, and through our concrete actions. But first we have to reconnect ourselves to Christ - so let's pray from the heart and ask God to give us courage and a renewed awareness of our true life-mission.