If hell is total separation from God and “the gates of hell are locked from the inside” (-C.S. Lewis) then it occurred to me that Hell then would be as though the prodigal son never went back. To have taken his inheritance, squandered it off on a foolish life of sin and vice, then to be lying there in the mud so hungry that he was even willing to eat the feed of the pigs… what if he still chose never to go back home? To deny his father’s love and mercy out of pride… perhaps that is what hell is. (The Parable of the Prodigal son from Luke 15: 11-32) To live a life away from His love… indeed that must be hell.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Hell
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murdered and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” Our lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.
The Catechism seems to agree.. Hell is, to some extent, a choice.
There is always that argument, one that some of the children during the Confirmation Retreats had asked a few times: If God loves all His children, then why does he send some of them to hell? I understood this, but sometimes I find myself face-to-face with this question again. Yesterday, I had brought the question out once more and really tried to ponder and understand what the answer meant.
Another C.S. Lewis quote that stuck with me goes like this: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ ”
A father, all powerful and loving… perhaps it’s our final “no” to Him that make His arms drop to His side in helpless defeat. If we don’t allow Him to love us, then how can we possibly live in His love?