Since this is our summer issue, and our summers here are usually blazing hot, I thought it might be appropriate to write about a hot topic: Hell. Now don't run away, this is important, and it is more timely than you may think. At a time when so many people, even Christians, do not sufficiently consider the seriousness of the Lord's teaching on Hell, and some refuse to believe in it altogether, we need to affirm the truth and live accordingly.

First of all, there should be no question that there is such a thing as Hell. The Son of God (whom we can trust to know what is true and what isn't) has spoken of it many times, most often in the Gospel of St Matthew. Why there is a Hell is not really for us to argue, for it is simply a revelation of God, who is Reality itself. Why is there an Incarnate Son of God? Why is there a Virgin Mother? Why is there such a vast and beautiful universe? Why is there something and not nothing? It is all because God in his infinite wisdom has willed it so. If you don't happen to like or agree with anything God has made or revealed, that's your problem. Reality is not about what you like or don't like; it is about what is.

We can, however, understand at least a little bit why there is a Hell. People seem not to mind there being a Heaven, for everyone likes the idea of being happy forever. But it seems that not too many people like the idea of being accountable for their actions, or the idea that choices actually have consequences: good choices have good consequences and bad choices have bad ones. Most people reject the teaching on the existence of Hell because they have a sneaking suspicion that their preferred way of life would likely land them there, so they seem to think that it's better to convince themselves that such a terrible thing simply cannot be.

Our souls are immortal, so they have to exist somewhere forever. As strange as it may seem, some people don't want to be with God and serve and love Him forever. So they have to have a place to go. The problem is, in God alone is all that is good, true, beautiful, joyful, blessed, pleasant, and every other possible type of happiness. So if you reject God, you necessarily reject all that. What, then, is left? All that is evil, false, ugly, miserable, cursed, painful, and every other type of horrible torment (hence the vision described by St. Faustina below). Most people would not say that they really do want all that, but they have to get their options clear: to choose God equals happiness and every kind of good; to reject God equals misery and every kind of evil.

Another point to consider, which I mentioned in an article a couple years ago: This world is passing away, and all the things that people lust after in this world are earthly, material, and as such will not last forever. But desire is something spiritual and remains in the soul. The power of desire is a power of the soul, and the soul is immortal. If one's power of desire has been habitually directed toward that which passes away, toward that which is not of God, toward that which is against all that faith in Jesus stands for, then one will be found incapable of desiring God in the end, when God is the only goal of desire left in the universe. One must then proceed in despair to the place where people eternally lust after things which no longer exist, for they refused in this life to direct their desire toward He-Who-Is, the only true fulfillment of the deepest longing of every soul created in his image.

So in order to end up in Hell, you don't have to say explicitly: I reject God and choose everything that is not God. All you have to do is ignore God and keep your desires fixed on things that pass away, and you will be stuck with unfulfillable desires for all eternity, which sounds a whole lot like Hell to me.

People often say (and these are usually the ones who have good reason to fear Hell and are trying to wriggle out of that uncomfortable position) that a loving God would never send anyone to such a place. There are a couple things to be said about that. First, God doesn't want anybody to go to Hell—actually quite the opposite, as Scripture and the whole history of his dealings with mankind testify—and God hasn't designed things so that some people necessarily must go to Hell, as if they were predestined to damnation (for then He really wouldn't be a loving God). But because He respects our freedom so absolutely—since it is a precious element of his image in us—He will sadly and reluctantly allow us, if we so insist until our last breath, to choose that which He does not want for us, that which is not good for us and which will be for our everlasting misery.

It is we, then, who send ourselves to Hell. God doesn't compel anyone to go there. When it comes time for the judgment of our lives, He simply lets us see ourselves in the searching light of divine truth, and then we know without a doubt where we belong. If we have rejected God and chosen what is evil and displeasing to Him during our lives, we will not suddenly be able to embrace Him in love and joy at our judgment, because by then we will have lost the capacity to love Him, to run to Him in joy and gratitude, and we will finally know it. We'll be stuck with a soul that we have set against Him, and that realization will create in us a chaotic mix of despair, anger, horror, self-hatred, and a kind of all-too-late gasp—"What have I done!"—as the truth sinks in that we have irrevocably discarded the only thing that was of any value. We have missed the very reason of our being, exchanged the truth for a lie, and gambled away our heavenly inheritance for worthless set of fleeting and now-forgotten satisfactions. At that point we know we do not belong in Heaven, the place of love and of worship and of selfless joy. Therefore, in anger and despair (and a whole bunch of sour grapes), we decide that we don't want to be there, and so we flee from the face of the Lord, trying to get as far as possible from those loving yet piercing eyes. There's only one place to get that far away from Him, and that place is called Hell.

People also ask, even if they do have some sense of justice in the recognition that unrepented evil must be punished, why it has to be forever, and not just, say, a thousand years or so, which ought to be sufficient to cure anyone of his bad attitude. For one thing, it's really impossible to judge the mysteries of eternity while we're still stuck in time, because we can't even think in the right categories in order for things like the eternity of Hell to make much sense. But there are different ways of looking at it, and I'll share one of them here, since it's one of the ways I look at it, and which I already published in my first book, Joy Comes with Dawn.

It goes like this: "Those who die in a state of unrepented mortal sin have willfully cut themselves off from God, have spurned his repeated offers of mercy and hence of salvation, and have therefore rejected the atonement of their sins that Christ accomplished on the Cross. Man is utterly incapable of atoning for sin; only the God-Man could do it. So the punishment of the damned may perhaps be understood like this: since they have rejected Christ's atonement for their sins, they now have to do it themselves, as it were. Hell is being forever burdened with your own sins, knowing—all too late—that Christ was willing to take them all away and receive you into Paradise, but you said NO. The damned have to bear intense sufferings for their sins, but all eternity won't suffice for it—try as they might, human beings cannot atone for their own sins—yet they still have to stay in Hell until their sins are atoned for. You can't enter Heaven if you are still in your sins. That's why Hell lasts forever. That's also why eternal punishment has such a different character than temporal punishment. God's 'punishments' in our lives are actually graces, helps, instructions, and purifications, but none of that applies in Hell. Hell's punishments are just that—punitive; they cannot be remedial or therapeutic. That time is past. The definitive rejection has been made toward God (God doesn't reject us; He just accepts the consequences of our freedom, even if we use it to permanently reject Him). Now all that remains is the impossible task of suffering for one's sins, which will never result in atonement."

There is clear enough testimony in divine revelation that there is a Hell, that it lasts forever, and that it is not God's will that anyone go there. But we seal our own fate by the evil and selfish choices we make in this life, thus rejecting God and everything that He would have liked to give us. Some people still try to dodge the issue by saying that even if there is such a thing as Hell, we don't have to believe anyone actually goes there. I'd like to share a couple of reliable testimonies to dispute that point.

First, a description from St Faustina, whose own comments on the vision she experienced put all those other arguments to rest: "Today I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of real torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of tortures I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one's condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it—a terrible suffering, since it is a purely spiritual fire… the fifth torture is continual darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and, despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of Satan; the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies. These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned… I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin. I am writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like.

"I, Sister Faustina, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence… I have received a command from God to leave it in writing. The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God. What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell. When I came to, I could hardly recover from the fright. How terribly souls suffer there! Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God's mercy upon them. O my Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, amidst the greatest sufferings, than offend You by the least sin." (Diary, #741)

Just in case that's not enough, there is another famous vision experienced by the children of Fatima, when Our Lady showed them Hell and lamented that many souls go there because no one prays or offers sacrifices for them. Sr Lucia describes it thus: "She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear."

Notice that she said that flames issued from within the damned souls, and were not merely around them. This is what sin does to a soul, and a soul in mortal sin is even in this life preparing that torment from within. It is as if the soul is trying to purge itself of the sin, but it is too late. A soul in a state of sin, especially mortal sin, is in an abnormal state, one that is totally contrary to the way God made it and intended it to live. So in Hell it turns against itself, as it were, trying to reject the disfigurement of it that sin has wrought, but again, all too late, and it must endure this painful inner contradiction forever. (If you use some device or appliance in a way contrary to its manufacturer's design and instructions, you will ruin it. If you use your free will in ways contrary to your Creator's design and instructions, you will ruin your life and lose your soul.)

One question that might be raised about such visions, especially the vision of the children of Fatima: how did they see forms of demons and souls when such purely spiritual realities are invisible to the material eye and have no physical form? It can only be that the vision granted was adapted by God to the capacities of those to whom Our Lady was showing it. If the spiritual realities of Hell are inaccessible to our senses while on earth, what is the point of granting a "vision" in which nothing can be seen, heard, or perceived? But this is not to say that what they did see was in any way false, imaginary, or based on their own presuppositions of what Hell might be like. The vision was given suddenly, without any preparation or indication of what they were about to see. Plus, even if the spiritual reality of Hell was adapted to the perception of their senses, it is in no way any less horrifying than the images they actually were permitted to see.

Blessed Jacinta of Fatima seemed to be the most moved by the vision. Her mission for the rest of her very short life was primarily to pray and offer sacrifices so that sinners would repent and not have to go to Hell. After the vision, Our Lady gave them a prayer to pray after each decade of the Rosary, which many Catholics still pray today: "O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell; lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of your mercy." Therefore these accounts reflect not merely the interest that some people have in the more unsavory elements of the supernatural world. The Mother of God came from Heaven to implore her children to pray so that people would repent and avoid eternal damnation. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are broken over the refusal of so many to believe in God and live the Gospel and the whole sacramental and spiritual life of the Church. It is literally a matter of eternal life and death. Blessed Jacinta, acquiring a wisdom far beyond her years through these divine experiences, said: "The sins of the world are very great ... If men only knew what eternity is, they would do everything in their power to change their lives."

Some people object that the teaching about Hell is frightening and therefore should not be preached, especially to children. Well, God didn't think it was too frightening, since He sent Our Lady to show it to three children, who subsequently became saints. It's true that there is much more to the Gospel than the threat of Hell, and the children were only given that vision after they had seen the Beautiful Lady and were taken into the Divine Light that radiated from her hands and were assured of going to Heaven. But if the teaching and preaching of the reality of Hell and the consequences of sin are eliminated, many souls are in great peril of being lost. People do not want to be afraid, so they think they must assert that Hell does not exist.

There certainly is such a thing as an unhealthy fear of Hell, an obsession or morbid preoccupation with the torments of the damned, or vain speculation on who is there or might be going there. But there is also a healthy fear of Hell, and this is what the Gospel and the Church encourage. A friend from Wyoming recently told me of a man in Yellowstone Park who, thinking he had a "great photo-op," fearlessly placed his child on the back of a bison bull, and was subsequently mauled by the beast, which was not at all amused by dad's cool idea. If the man had a healthy fear of large, wild animals, he would have escaped that terribly painful experience. It is similar with the fear of Hell. If we have a healthy fear of the consequences of sin, we can avoid the horrible eternity that awaits the foolishly unrepentant.

I would think that if I told people that a bridge had collapsed down the road, and if they kept driving in that direction they would go off the cliff and fall to a bloody death, or at least be severely maimed, they would be grateful for that warning and change direction. Or if I were on a ship that was sinking and warned people to get out of their comfortable cabins to save their lives, I would think they'd appreciate the tip and follow through. But no, those are negative thoughts: bloody crashes and rubber rafts in ice-cold water in the middle of the night! They only want to hear happy, positive thoughts! Well, I'm sorry, but people are going in the wrong direction, and they are in danger by refusing to exit their comfort zones, and they need to be warned. If Heaven keeps insisting on this, why do people keep ignoring or rejecting their only hope?

I haven't had any extraordinary visions of Hell, but I've read enough of Heaven's warnings to take it seriously. The Church doesn't require that we hold to any particular version of the precise nature of the suffering of the damned, only that Hell consists of the loss of God and of endless suffering in both body and soul (in the body only after Judgment Day). Isn't that enough? All you need to realize is that Hell is a million times worse than the worst nightmare, the worst torment you can possibly imagine. You think you have troubles here? Just wait! Some people don't think that the loss of God is such a great torment, since they don't pay any attention to Him in this life anyway. But they don't know who and what God is. They will discover that God is the very life-breath of all He has made. To be without God is to be like a fish out of water, flapping painfully and suffocating on the shore, but never dying, just suffering like that endlessly, desperately tormented, knowing the life-giving water you have left will never be yours again. That's only a very weak analogy of what "loss of God" means.

Anyway, you get the picture, I hope, at least enough to get you interested in doing whatever it takes to avoid such an unspeakably horrible fate. I say to myself: if I can't even bear the thought of Hell for a few moments, how could I endure being there forever? It scares the you-know-what out of me, but it's a healthy fear, for that horned beast isn't going to maul me if I never go anywhere near it!

It's still not enough to escape Hell in our own case. We have a lot of brothers and sisters out there in the Body of Christ and the whole human family. We need to pray and sacrifice, like Our Lady said, so that sinners will be open to receive the grace of repentance and thus go to Heaven instead. I have begun to see this more and more as an integral part of my own vocation. I have, over the past few years, engaged in what I call the "Last Hour Mop-up Ministry," in order to win grace for souls otherwise unlikely to be saved (http://wordincarnate.wordpress.com/mop-up-ministry/). I also have been praying the Divine Mercy chaplet for souls about to die in mortal sin, so that they may be saved (http://wordincarnate.wordpress.com/save-a-soul-today/). I offer the Divine Liturgy at least once a week so that the infinite merits of the Sacrifice of Christ will be applied to all those who will die that day who are in a state of sin, so that they will be granted the grace to repent. There's nothing we can do for the souls already in Hell, but we can work hard to cooperate with God's grace so that many souls can be saved who would otherwise have been lost. Sacred Scripture exhorts us: "Save some, by snatching them from the fire" (Jude 23).

The best thing to do is, of course, to be so deeply and consistently filled with love for God that we sacrifice our lives without reference to the netherworld and its horrors, doing the will of God and keeping our eyes fixed on Heaven. But we have to be concerned about the salvation of others. Many people live heedlessly and are speeding toward the gates of Hell. We cannot coerce anyone's freedom to choose, but we can pray and fast and give our lives for the salvation of souls. After all, how did we merit to be given God's grace and the knowledge of divine things and eternal destinies? The answer is, we didn't. It was a gift of God, likely in response to the prayers of our loved ones or some hidden saints we don't even know. Freely we have received; now it's time to freely give. You never know how may souls you can "snatch from the fire" by your prayer and sacrifice.

It's something to think about during the summer. Offer up the discomfort of the heat; open your car windows instead of running the air conditioner, as just one example of a little sacrifice. It's not easy to stay on that narrow and hard path to the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 7:13-14), but it's a whole lot better to endure the heat here than hereafter.

—Abbot Joseph

It is not difficult to confront your enemies when you know who they are. The Bible tells us that "we are not contending against flesh and blood," that is, against other human beings, but rather "against the spiritual hosts of wickedness," that is, all the demonic powers who hold sway during the time of "this present darkness" (Eph. 6:12). But since Jesus has warned us that the devil is "a liar and the father of lies" (Jn. 8:44), we have to be aware that our enemy is one who does not fight fairly. Many people who lack sufficient discernment have become deceived to the point that they do not recognize their enemy for who he is, and they even think he is their friend and benevolent guide.

The vast, amorphous, and fundamentally incoherent ensemble of beliefs and practices known as "new age" spirituality is a fertile field from which the enemy of the Kingdom expects an abundant harvest. There's not much new, however, about the new age package. Much of it is actually old hat. It is little more than a syncretistic mishmash of old, tried-and-failed "isms" like gnosticism, paganism, and spiritualism. A dose of theosophy and a touch of witchcraft are available for those so inclined. Add a bit of science, technology, and a smattering of eastern religions to the mix, and you're among the enlightened. Practices range from more or less innocuous flower-child stuff or positive-thinking/visualization techniques to actually going off the deep end into wiccan nature worship and creepy occult arts.

All of it, however, expresses a basically self-centered approach to encountering spiritual powers for the sake of manipulating them to one's own advantage ("attracting abundance" is one way they put it). There is no place here for the true God, but instead you discover a veritable pantheon of mostly anonymous "spirit guides" and masters at your service—though they may adopt the names of famous spiritual figures of the past or even of your dead relatives. All the above elements are generally selected a la carte and served up in best-selling gobbledygook (or gobbledy-books) by the rising stars in the contemporary zodiac.

New age spirituality is a trendy, fad spirituality ("spirituality lite," if you will), which already is considered passé by most intelligent and serious seekers of truth who may have dabbled in it out of curiosity or a misguided spirit of adventure or rebellion against tradition. But such a flaky form of spiritual life will not stand the test of time, nor will it be of any use in the face of the hardships that try men's souls, for which the power of the Cross of Jesus is our only source of strength and fruitfulness. In the meantime, however, it is claiming numerous victims for the powers of darkness, and it is not the will of the Lord that any of those He created should perish. No matter how much you enhance your aura, and no matter how well-aligned your chakras are, it's just not enough to make you fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Therefore I believe I ought to try to expose some of these deceits, not only because it is my business to help save souls, but also because some of my own dear loved ones have been deceived and are turning away from the living and true God and all the means of salvation with which He has enriched his Church. The new age hydra has far too many tentacles for a thorough investigation here, so what I will do is simply examine a few basic points on which people become deceived and gradually withdraw from the truth. Most of what follows is based on my experience with people who actually profess or practice these things.

It is not easy to find common ground for any sort of fruitful dialogue with new age adherents, because they don't speak the same language Christians do. Or rather, the danger is that they often do use the same terms, but they conveniently attach their own meanings to them. So if we advise them to believe in God, they will say they do believe in God (but they mean something else by "God"). Similarly, if we exhort them to believe in Christ, they may say they already do (but they mean something else by "Christ"—or even if some do mean Jesus Christ, it happens that they also believe in Shiva, Krishna, Oprah, and Deepak Chopra). They may occasionally quote from the Bible if they find a passage that seems to support their viewpoint, but they'll leave the rest of it untouched. If we cite the Scripture "God is light" (1Jn. 1:5), they will heartily agree (but what they mean by "light" is not what the Bible means). So they sometimes agree in terminology, but not in the meaning of the terms. This is how the devil makes himself a slippery opponent; the ground is always shifting.

In the light-filled, non-judgmental, optimistically sin-free spiritual environment of new age spirituality, one of the oft-repeated bromides is "we are loved." This is fine at first glance, for we are loved, but the trouble is, they don't usually get around to saying by whom we are loved. It's just a feel-good sentiment that relieves them from accountability to God for their actions. We are loved. By whom? The "Universe"? I know, it sounds dopey, but that's one of their favorite ways of not having to say "God." But the universe can't love; only persons can love. And only the tri-personal God can love all of us all the time. The universe is a breathtaking collection of stars, planets, and space, harmoniously ordered for our delight and for reminding us how wonderful our Creator is. But matter and energy can't love us. God, however, can and does love us, and He would be very pleased if we would love Him in return—or at least not insult Him by substituting impersonal creation for Himself. He also teaches us what love means: the reciprocity, the responsibility, the sacrifice that genuine love requires. New agers like to be loved by the universe. Go ahead, universe, make my day; just don't impose any responsibilities on me.

They also like to attribute other activities to the universe, like arranging fortuitous events in our lives, creating "synchronicities" in our experience. But the universe doesn't do this. It can't. It's only a universe. God can, though. What do they have against naming God, attributing personality to Him? Is there perhaps a sneaking suspicion that a personal God might have some uncomfortable questions for them about their faith or morals that the "universe" would never think to ask? Can't have that. We are loved.

It seems at first a good thing when someone who may never have had much interest in God or religion begins to become "spiritual" and to adopt a set of apparently higher values. It is normal that an inner spiritual longing would at last begin to surface. We are created by God in his own image, and we are therefore meant to know and love Him, to seek that which is beyond ourselves, for the human soul was designed with the capacity to embrace eternal life. Before the advent of Jesus Christ, who is the definitive revelation of God, man could not be faulted for reaching out to "the divine" (another term used to avoid the word "God") in various ways of his own devising, for God's Word had not yet become flesh. His existence was known through the things He made and his obscure activities in creation, so man was left to his own creativity to fashion a response.

But the time is long gone for having a legitimate excuse for making things up as we go along. God has revealed Himself fully and for all time in his only-begotten Son, who has a name, Jesus Christ (we are not "collectively the Son of God," as a tired old new-age mantra goes). Now that God has spoken his definitive Word, who in turn revealed the Father in human words, we reject Truth itself if we still want to devise a contrary spiritual world-view based on our subjective preference or some kooky ideas we got from a book on the "metaphysical" shelf at the bookstore. "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin" (Jn. 15:22).

Truth. There's another equivocal term in the new age lexicon. But that equivocation is precisely the problem, because it adds relativism to the already numerous confused ingredients in the new-age gumbo. A sure-fire dialogue stopper is the "my truth, your truth" response. You can have the clearest, most cogent and rationally or theologically irrefutable position on any point of Christian doctrine, but it will go nowhere when faced with: "Fine. That is your truth. My truth is different." But if truth is one, which it must be by definition, then "my" and "your" are illegitimate qualifiers. If mine and yours are different, then we're not talking about truth, so use another word. New agers often confuse truth either with one's subjective perception of reality or with mere opinion or conviction.

No one questions the fact that people perceive things differently, due to a variety of factors in the senses, the mind, or even chemicals in the brain. But again, to say what you perceive is true for you, and what I perceive is true for me, is to empty the term "truth" of its meaning. If new-age relativists can't find better words to describe what they are talking about, their position will be incoherent to people who actually know what words like "truth" and "reality" mean.

"Reality" is another equivocal term—it doesn't really mean reality. The tech-term "virtual reality" seems to have become a kind of updated expression of the "all is illusion" tenet of some oriental religions. This position would be merely corny if it had no spiritual consequences. This "reality is not real" approach is a kind of self-insulating one, a self-generated refuge from the stress and pain of life. It is understandable (though still not acceptable) that people who have endured many stressful trials and painful experiences would hope to discover that all of that is illusory and that one can create one's own comfortable "reality" with the proper attitude, visualization techniques, and the avoidance of all "negative energy."

There certainly is no harm, and there's even some benefit, in trying to see the bright side of things and trying to overcome tendencies to despondency or other bad fruits of stress. But it is counter-productive to try to create a whole new world-view just so you can feel good about yourself and try to protect yourself from pain. One should have the courage to face actual reality and not anesthetize oneself by buying into the lie that it is all illusion. Let's face it, life is hard, people can be malicious, we will sometimes get sick or experience setbacks and even tragedies: in short, we will suffer.

The answer to all this, however, is not to call it an illusion and then float up to a higher consciousness. The answers are in the Holy Scriptures and in the grace of God, who is able to transform the harshness of life's sufferings into something eternally meaningful, fruitful and even redemptive (but we don't need redemption, see below). The one who believes in Jesus faces reality squarely and accepts its challenges, knows that there is such a thing as objective truth, knows that the word of God is normative for all times and places, and lives accordingly in the peace and joy that come from hope in the complete fulfillment of all of God's "precious and very great promises" (2Peter 1:4). God has prepared such beauty and joy and inexhaustible wonders for those who love Him and are willing to accept the truth of his word and put it into practice. Why throw it all away for a hodgepodge of dubious beliefs which constitute little more than a spiritual tranquilizer?

Another dish, an oriental one, in the spiritual smorgasbord of new-age lunacy is reincarnation. I feel embarrassed for people who talk about their "past lives" and even throw away good money on charlatans who profess to be able to unlock the secrets of their previous incarnations. Don't they know how ridiculous they sound? Sacred Scripture dismisses the whole charade in a single sentence: "It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27). If God has already spoken clearly and settled the matter, why do they go off on these flights of fancy and even incorporate them into their spiritual world-view? In many of the beliefs they embrace, there seems to be a deliberate rejection of Christianity, and this rejection somehow seems to be the passkey for entrance into their bizarre club.

We come now to the heart of the matter. All the preceding considerations manifest various errors, delusions, contradictions, fuzzy thinking, and the often loony concepts and spiritual immaturity that characterize new age spirituality. That is quite enough to require urgent and thorough repentance and conversion. But there are other elements that even more directly place the soul in danger of damnation, especially for those who have left the Church for the sake of their new, evolved, higher consciousness. They boast that they have left behind all the superstitions, fears, and restrictions of their childhood religion, when all that's happened is that they've abandoned the frying pan for the fire.

Here's the crux of it. They don't believe in sin, judgment, or Hell. Those are all negative, stress-producing concepts that have no place in their enlightened and tranquil "I'm OK, you're OK" world view. There is no evil, I've heard them say. Everything is good, and we are good, and when we die we'll move on to a still higher plane of consciousness (if our karma doesn't require us to come back as a gorilla or a frog), without passing through any sort of disagreeable experience like judgment. For then we would have to give an account of our lives to our Creator, and we don't want that. Yet God has every right to make just demands upon his creatures. It is his delight to reward those who are faithful to Him, and it is his right to punish those who are obstinately defiant. This is real reality, like it or not.

The implications of their denial of these essential revealed truths are disastrous for their eternal destination. If there is no sin (we are all little sparks of divinity), and if there is no judgment (the Universe is non-judgmental), and if there is no ultimate consequence for doing evil in this world, then "salvation" is a meaningless term and we have no need for a Savior. Jesus Christ, then, was a fool (or perhaps just a deluded, though good-hearted, fellow) who died tragically to no purpose, thinking He was saving the world and reconciling sinners to the Father. If we thus reject Christ as Savior because we think we have no need of a savior, all is lost. It is pointless and ultimately harmful to assert that we have no sin. To do so is falsehood and self-deception: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1Jn. 1:8-9). Instead of denying the obvious (to others, at least) fact that we are sinners, why not just turn to Him who takes away sin? Only thus can we truly have joy and peace of mind, for we are living in the truth. But if we once believed the truth and then subsequently chose to follow the lying spirits who deny the reality of sin and promise a judgment-free passage to bliss, things become worse. "For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them" (2Peter 2:21).

The Apostle comments on this frightening state of affairs. He does not hold out hope for "those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt… there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment and a fury of fire… How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified…?" (Heb. 6:4-6 and 10:26-29). It is one thing to be guilty of moral failures while struggling honestly to live the faith. It is quite another to declare that you have no use for the Savior, affirming in effect that all Jesus taught about sin, judgment, and the hereafter is simply false.

Finally, I have a few words about another severe danger that returns us to the beginning of this article and our warfare with the deceptive spiritual enemies. It's this whole business of "spirit guides" whose sage advice is "channeled" from the beyond by those thus gifted. This is very popular and very foolhardy. They have no idea what kind of spirits they are dealing with, and since nothing is evil to them (and hence they see no need for discernment) they welcome anything that comes sliding down the channel to them from the "spirit world." Just because some spirit says he is your dead grandmother or Mahatma Gandhi, do you have to believe it?

Sometimes new agers speak of angels and spirit guides more or less interchangeably, which is another error in discernment, for the spirit guides are most likely demons. OK, so maybe they are angels—fallen ones—but people don't usually mean that when they speak of angels. No one should trust them, even though it may at first seem that they are benevolent and helpful. Demons disguise themselves as angels of light, as the Apostle warns (2Cor. 11:14), and the gullible fall for this ruse repeatedly. The demons use a classic "bait and switch" technique. They offer you one thing and give you another. They win your trust by doing something apparently beneficial, or uttering some prediction that seems to come true. The more you trust them, the firmer their hold on you will be. Then they will start doing things you do not find so beneficial, but it's too late—you've already signed on with them and they will not leave you alone. And if you knew what they have prepared for your ultimate ruin, you would never have come within a mile of that first "channeling session."

I don't know how people who are otherwise intelligent can lack all discernment and good judgment when it comes to invoking unknown spirits. But is there a way to tell good spirits from bad? Of course. First of all, never go to anyone who is a channeler of spirits. You will never get the truth (or you might get some half-truth that actually deepens the deception), and you will never hear from God that way. But the Bible gives a bit of advice in the way of a basic principle or two, like this: "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh [that is, that He is the incarnate Son of God] is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist…" (1Jn. 4:1-3). To "confess Jesus" also means to hold to all that He said and did for our salvation. The evil spirits cannot do this and will not advise anyone else to do it—one reason being that to confess Jesus is to reject the evil spirits!

The Church is our guide in these matters, which can sometimes be complex. It is sinful folly to trust lying spirits when the Church offers 2000 years worth of accumulated wisdom, which stems directly from the revelation of God in Christ. When we follow what God has revealed through Jesus and what is authoritatively taught by the Church, we know we will not be deceived. The true spiritual guides are the saints whose writings and whose intercession help us to live in the truth. In the history of the Church there have been some cases in which Christ or Our Lady or one of the saints has come from Heaven to give a message to some chosen soul. But such cases are always discerned, monitored, and carefully investigated for a long time by competent authorities who judge their authenticity based on strict criteria to guarantee no deviation from what God has already revealed and what has been handed on in the Church's tradition. There are also people in the world today who are filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit and are faithful to the tradition of the Church, who can be helpful spiritual directors as well. Why turn to dubious spirits who tell you whatever you want to hear (as they gradually pull you along the path to perdition), when the whole of Heaven is waiting to help?

We don't need a new age, especially one that promotes old errors and lies. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). We can and should always go more deeply into his inexhaustible mysteries, and He will never be superseded by some new "master." The new age would relativize or reject Him altogether. Much of their literature (I use the term loosely) implicitly or explicitly denies essential truths of our faith, like the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the redemptive value of Jesus' death and resurrection (for example, the "Course in Miracles"). These are all clear warning signs that this stuff is not of God.

It seems to me that new agers are not all "bad people." In fact, some (at least) are in many ways good people, only spiritually misguided and deceived, some very seriously so. Dialogue with them may prove difficult or even impossible, due to the reasons given above, or simply because they don't want the negative experience of dealing with someone who doesn't receive the same vibrations they do (or who can cogently expose their counterfeit spirituality for what it is). Therefore we turn to prayer and sacrifice, which can unmask and bind the demons that are deceiving them, and hopefully they will find true enlightenment. Then we offer the Sacrifice, that of Christ, for them, so that He will cleanse and open their minds and hearts, and then they will know the truth that will set them free. We worship the true God, so that his will may be done in those whom He has made, those for whom He sent his Son as their Savior.

New age philosophies and practices are indeed old hat and without merit. But if they were merely old hat, passé, or harmlessly silly, we could simply wait patiently until reason and good judgment prevailed. But they are in fact weapons wielded by the enemy of our salvation, by which he ensnares gullible souls and leads them down paths which end up in his own infernal abode. Let us then be vigilant, prayerful, always giving the example of the true blessedness of life in Jesus Christ. We ought also to invoke heavenly warriors like St Michael to do battle with those "spiritual hosts of wickedness" who disguise themselves as angels of light. Let us pray that no one will ever reach old age still embracing the new age, for the sooner they are delivered from deceptive "spirit guides" and harmful falsehoods the sooner they'll get back on that life-giving path to the Kingdom of Heaven.

—Abbot Joseph

A question haunted me, sparking the answers making up this article. The question was how to remember the Gospel when you hear it proclaimed during Holy Mass or Divine Liturgy. The answers are several. Some are about memory and mnemonics, others more particularly about gospel proclamations.

Some ways to remember a proclaimed Gospel passage are ways of remembering nearly anything one might hear. Look for clues on good practice in using memory, and for mnemonic methods, and do some experimenting, and see how it goes. For example: (1) Read the passage an hour or a day earlier, before hearing it proclaimed, and see if you can get some of it into memory. (2) If some word, phrase, or sentence of the proclamation strikes you, tune in to it and start repeating it (in your heart, of course—no fair disturbing your neighbors). (3) At least in imagination, use several senses: take a keyword or two, and imagine repeating it aloud, seeing it written, perhaps write it with one finger upon the palm of the other hand, imagine hearing it over again, or as it might taste when written atop a cake, etc.

If you're so inclined, and willing to prepare, you could apply a powerful mnemonic system—e.g. by preparing one or more places in your imagination or memory in which to store one or several points or phrases from the reading that you will hear. This has to be done well in advance, and could take a little practice, or perhaps a lot of practice, depending on the method you choose. You're free to experiment, for if you're forgetting the gospel passages every time you hear them, why then, you've got nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

A number of spiritual writers have pointed out the advantages of attempting to gather little, and keeping it, rather than trying to grasp the entire whole, and losing it all. I've seen this applied to one's private meditation, to one's reading in preparation for discursive meditation, to hearing the Gospel being proclaimed, and even to a monkey trying to grab goodies from a narrow-mouthed jar. The most pointed would warn against greed; the simplest, in favor of what in fact works. If the mind just can't handle so much, then give it what it can handle. Better a little, than none at all.

One answer is that one may have to fight the homily, for not every homily helps us to remember the gospel passage just proclaimed; some homilies even tend to erase it, so that—halfway through the homily, one finds oneself asking, "What was the reading we just heard?" Obviously, a homily should normally be the friend, not the enemy, of the gospel reading, but if it's an enemy, why we've got to fight it. When a homily is making you forget the gospel by drawing your thoughts and feelings far from it, and towards things worldly (or even towards resenting a homily that proves to be a distraction—for that's exactly what it is), why not tune it out (along with resentments), dig in, and attend to whatever you can recall of the gospel, and in the privacy of your heart, work on keeping that memory, and on applying it to your life? (Do this, and you could even become a fine homilist, yourself!) Our Savior's parable of the Sower is appropriate to your plight; and one recalls his admonition against judging others. The more general principle, here, is to "Remove the Obstacles" to your goal of remembering.

Another principle is to "Reinforce the Memory," and another way of doing this is with the help of friends, family, or neighbors. One can look to form a friendly group for mutual help, a group—more or less informal, I should suppose—that one finds encouraging rather than discouraging for one trying to recall some main points of the reading (and perhaps the homily, when you hear good homilies or sermons). Failing a group for memory (and perhaps for light and friendly discussion), one can at least attempt it solo: not too long after the service, one can practice and help memory by seeing how much one can write down, jotting any bits and pieces down as they come to mind. One might then read the gospel passage, and see how one has done, and fill in some gaps or receive some inspiration.

A little success in recalling what one's heard, combined with good humor and friendship, can rather snowball into miniature, spontaneous "parties" in which friends can pleasantly interweave thoughts and saying from sacred scripture into their informal conversations. That's good fun, when it happens: an enjoyable pastime.

Of course, anything one does by way of studying the bible, or of prayerfully reading it, or of learning some of it by heart, way ahead of time, will contribute to recognizing the passage being proclaimed, and to having places in mind or heart for remembering it; one may already have it by memory, and enjoy the satisfaction of "reading" it from one's heart, along with hearing it proclaimed in church! (I would recommend setting oneself to tolerate the different translations, lest the variety become a distraction. You'd be surprised how many years one can spend, seeking "just the right translation" for one's private reading, for example, before even beginning to learn or at least read passages. It's a legitimate concern, but not when it serves more as a perfectionist's self-distraction, than a real help for one's soul.)

One can also ask for help. One can ask help from others who have the same trouble, and perhaps help one another; one can ask help from others conspicuous for their ability, though sometimes they are not even aware of how they manage it. One can ask help from saints and from the Lord, through prayer and by showing a willingness to try.

All told, I think humility helps. One may, after all, simply be unable to remember much, or perhaps one has simply not come across just the right key to unlock a good way for digesting, committing to memory, and recalling Gospel passages proclaimed. Good humor may be the best help for this: to accept the situation gracefully, and to keep one's peace and joy while bearing it, while remaining available and open to eventual developments. Surely it is similar to the perpetual quest for ways to pray and meditate, and to many other quests pertaining to our spiritual lives.

—Br Seraphim

Some would say that Americans are rather naïve about persecution—perhaps on the basis that many Americans are well-to-do and "soft," not wishing to hear about such things; perhaps on the basis that many Americans are content to receive their news from a biased main-stream media; or perhaps on the basis that Americans are somewhat famous for having only a very short-term and American-centered memory of history.

Admittedly my own knowledge of history is not very good—it was my worst subject in school—so if you find yourself in this category, you certainly have my sympathy! In our monastery, however, we receive some glimpses of the news about the persecution of Christians, world-wide, from non-mainstream media, for the purpose of praying a little better for our persecuted brothers and sisters, for persecuted churches of any denomination, and for our persecutors. From these sources, we can learn of recent persecutions of the more atrocious and barbaric sort (for example, in countries where Christians are raped or murdered, have their churches burnt down, have acid thrown into their faces, etc. and without recourse to legal or police protection—indeed, sometimes with police participating in the persecution), as well as of the sort where churches and our Faith are simply and completely outlawed, so that you go to prison or to execution if you are found in possession, say, of a Bible. However, let's leave all that aside. If that were to occur in these United States of America, we may hope there would be a gradual approach to it, with lesser forms of persecution, before any sudden or very harsh form fell into place.

It looks very much as though we're already a fair way along the gradual approach, as it is, but what else could there be? How else can it look?

Our monastery belongs to a Church—the Ukrainian Catholic Church—which has endured first-hand more than a little persecution. So, I thought some readers might want a little glimpse of what could happen to us Christians in these United States of America, should the pendulum continue its ponderous swing away from the enjoyment of civil rights and towards a less user-friendly form of government. I will just summarize a little from a chapter of Serge Keleher's book, Passion and Resurrection—the Greek Catholic Church in Soviet Ukraine: 1939-1989, published in L'viv in 1993 ("Greek," because we are an Eastern church). (That was the period following the death of Joseph Stalin, one of the less delicate persecutors.)

In this period, some bishops and priests were released from prison, and so could attempt some church work, but always with the police after them, since our Church remained illegal then. Thus, one form of persecution is the closing of churches, arresting clergy, and declaring churches to be illegal.

What of monasteries? Some monastic communities began reorganizing: they would live together, or near one another, in small groups, in secular apartments (another form of persecution is the confiscation of monastic properties), taking secular employment. Government realized this, and another form of persecution we see: harassment by means of occasional imprisonment, frequent fines, house searches, and the like.

Some churchmen began long campaigns of writing the government to protest the criminalization of our Church; this resulted in frequent arrest and punishment.

The Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate was flourishing in this period, with many monasteries and seminaries, but that came to a sudden halt in 1959, when N. Khruschchov renewed its persecution; our church (nominally "Russian Orthodox") didn't suffer quite so badly, as about half the parishes and several monasteries were closed: an heroic and sacrificial campaign by the faithful was required, though, to keep anything open. (The people attended the church for the sake of God, not for the sake of the priest, and would maintain their Catholic identity despite the churches' being officially Orthodox. If the priest did not enjoy their confidence, they would not receive sacraments from him, but from illegal, underground priests.)

But the government employed pressure to keep people from attending Church. There were too many people to imprison them all, but there were other ways. You would find available only poor jobs, at low salaries; you'd be assigned the worst of housing; you'd often be denied social benefits, and could not hold any public office in your workplace, where trade unions were very important in society; and your children would be routinely denied higher education. There you see a people offering a great sacrifice to maintain their faith and their churches. You also see some of the kinds of persecution that can occur, short of violent abuse.

A sober look at Western culture, with respect to the possible persecution of the Church, is something like going outdoors into unusually cold or windy weather: "bracing." That's a euphemism, of course, but one can indeed brace oneself to some extent for persecution or for martyrdom.

In the Western world today, have we seen in recent times anything like an approach to persecution? Well—would some of these do: the outlawing of prayer in schools, and a general pressure against prayer in public? More and more frequent legal suits against peaceful expressions of faith or morals? The promotion of legalization and acceptance of contraception, abortion, euthanasia? (News from Europe indicates that the consent of the patient is often not obtained, before applying euthanasia, rules notwithstanding.) The increasing promotion of atheism? Teaching familiarity with Islam while discouraging familiarity with Christianity? Discrimination by the news media by not reporting, or slanted reporting, of protests against abortion, and playing up the sins of priests while omitting mention of the same sins by teachers, psychiatrists and other professionals? Well… it could be worse.

Our hope, however, is still in the Lord, who made heaven and earth. We still know that there really is life after death, and a judgment, and either heaven or hell to await each soul in eternity. If we die for our faith, we will die towards heaven. Perhaps we can take others along. It's worth praying and sacrificing for.

—Br Seraphim

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