When, at the end of each year and before the beginning of Advent, the Church thinks and prays about Last Things, we do well to engage in what I call spiritual imagining. It is our human effort to conjure up in our minds and souls an image of heaven, of eternal life in joy with the Blessed Trinity.

Since St. Paul tells us that God can accomplish in us more than we can imagine (Ephesians 3:20), we know that whatever joy we can conceive of here, heaven will be even better. And that serves as a healthy spur for our prayer, our faith, and for our struggles to fulfill the moral life.

We need to remind ourselves, however, that sharing in the joys of heaven is not the automatic next step for any of us. That means resisting the ever present human temptation to try to bypass the struggle and even suffering of this life in the hope of going straight to the glory of the resurrection. Even Jesus’ own Apostles James and John were seduced by this idea. (“Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”)

The teaching of Christ is not simply that entry into heaven will require struggle and profound conversion on our part. (“Take up your cross and follow me.”)

A complete reflection on Last Things reminds us that we will be judged at the end of our lives. And hanging in balance of that judgment will be our eternal life with Christ, or apart from Him. It will mean acknowledging the reality not just of heaven but of hell.

Our modern society doesn’t like to talk about hell as a reality. Even less does it encourage us to accept that any of us or our friends or loved ones could dwell in its misery for ages unending.

Often contemporary secularism will highlight medieval images of demons and flames to suggest that those illustrations show hell to be a part of mythology that our modern sophistication has left behind.

And of course the voice of the tempter also whispers, “How could a God of love and mercy allow such a place and such a fate?”

But Jesus Himself warned all of His followers of hell and that apart from Him that will be our eternal fate. In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus describes the dismissal of unrepentant sinners into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Strong language indeed. It means that the Son of God has forewarned us of hell as a reality. It must therefore be part of God’s wisdom and God’s love.

In fact, the reality of hell is a direct consequence of God’s love and His respect for our freedom.

How can that be? God loves us and He wants, in turn, that we love Him. Heaven will be living forever that giving and receiving of God’s love. But love, in this world and in the next, cannot be imposed. It cannot be forced. By its nature it is freely given by all who love.

In order to love God, therefore, we must be free to choose to love Him. And if we are free to choose to love Him, we must also have the possibility of choosing not to love God.

What this also means is that God does not “send” anyone to hell. It is rather, one’s free choice against God. When one dies having willfully turned away from God in a grave matter (mortal sin) without repenting and accepting God’s forgiveness, one chooses hell for oneself.

C.S. Lewis famously stated that there will be, in the end, two groups of people: those who said to God, “Thy will be done” and those to whom God said, “Okay, thy will be done.”

As to the punishment of hell, once again, our limitations keep us from knowing the life to come. But the principal pain will be that separation from God, which keeps us from the love we were made for. In essence, it will be to know that we have chosen not to be with God, and then the consequences will be fully known.

The reality of hell is a valid motivation for us to learn our faith, the moral life that Jesus has shown us, and the need to love Christ and imitate Him. But it is also the reason that the world needs our example and our witness. Others need to be strengthened to choose God so that they do not encounter the reality of hell.

Our spiritual imagining of both heaven and hell is a worthy exercise as we prepare to wrap up another year. Only by reflecting on both together do we grasp fully God’s love and His justice. And we understand our great dignity because we are free to choose God and His love.