“Respect.” God has made us free and respects our freedom to chose his Kingdom or not. Now the Kingdom of God is not a mere abstraction. It has some very specific values and these values are realized and experienced perfectly in heaven. The values of the Kingdom of God include: Love, kindness, forgiveness, justice to the poor, generosity, humility, mercy, chastity, love of Scripture, love of the truth, worship of God, God at the center and so forth. Now the fact is that there are many people in our world who do not want a thing to do with chastity, or forgiveness, or being generous and so forth. And God will not force them to adopt and live these values. While it is true that everyone may want to go to heaven, heaven is not merely what we want, it is what it is, as God has set it forth. Heaven is the Kingdom of God and the values thereof in all their fullness. Hence there are some (many?) who live in such a way that they consistently demonstrate that they are not interested in heaven, since they are not interested in one or many of the Kingdom values. Hell “has to be” since God respects their freedom to live in this way. Since they demonstrate they do not want heaven, God respects their freedom to choose “other arrangements.” - Msgr. Charles Pope of the Diocese of Washington D.C.

There was a large group of people. On one side of the group stood a man, Jesus. On the other side of the group stood Satan. Separating them, running through the group, was a fence.

A short reflection on how Jesus' call to carry our cross is really a call to be the best version of ourselves.

While I was studying the art of spiritual direction and the rules of St. Ignatius of Loyola, one of the older priests stood up and said that the devil only has two lies. The first lie is that “you are not good enough,” and the second lie is that “you are alone.” He went on to explain that we know that these are lies because with God everything is possible and Jesus is “Emmanuel” (God with us). It was this priest’s conviction that all our sins come down to believing one of these two lies from the devil.

Satan appeared before a small town congregation. Everyone started screaming and running for the front church door, trampling each other in a frantic effort to get away. Soon everyone was gone except for an elderly gentleman who sat calmly. Satan walked up to him and said, "Don't you know who I am?" The man replied, "Yep, sure do." Satan asked, "Aren't you going to run?" "Nope, sure ain't," said the man. Satan asked, "Why aren't you afraid of me?" The man replied, "Been married to your sister for over 48 years."