Homily on Mark 5: 21-43
The headline boomed in bold all-caps— Archibishop Discusses Hell ! Well, I couldn’t resist. After all, it’s not everyday that you get to hear an Archbishop talk about the Lake of Fire and eternal damnation! Curiosity peaked, I rolled up my sleeves, and started reading. My concept of hell, I suppose, is being stuck with myself forever and with no way out. Whether anybody ever gets to that point I have no idea. But that it’s possible to be stuck with my selfish little ego for all eternity, that’s what I would regard as hell. [1] For Williams (and I think he is spot on here) hell is the loss of relation. We are created to be persons in relation, not just individuals , and there is a very real sense in which to cease to be in relation is to cease to be at all. Indeed, the Greek for person is prosopon —literally “toward-the-face.” True personhood consists of facing the other, of being face-to-face. So Sartre was wrong; hell isn’t other people, it’s being fac...