Transcript of Abbot Clement= s Talk on Monday, November 28, 2005

A German intellectual wrote an article about his belief. He basically said since you cannot prove that God exists and you cannot disprove that he exists that he is an agnostic. Then he went on to say that he believed in hell. He says that all you have to do is watch TV. How a person could not believe in God and believe in hell is rather strange at first sight. When you think about it what= s hell? Hell is the absence of God. Condition where God is not allowed to penetrate, not that he can= t, but man refuses to be open to God= s presence. That= s hell. Of course, the places of hell are I hope not just in TV. I hope that every time you watch TV you= re not totally absorbed by hell but sometimes you ought to be, I think.

If you look at our history in the last 100 years or so, you know that there= s been a number of places that point out hell. Auschwitz, I was there, was such an impression on me I could hardly even pray. It was so horrible to see what they had left in signs, hair and shoes. It was absolutely horrendous. Then you have the Russian Archipelago, Stalin and Hitler and you have Saddam Hussein and you have things going on in Africa right now. Those places are really hell. Where the lord’s revolutionary army is in Uganda it is absolutely hell to live there. A lot of these places that have started to help the people to be liberated from being subject to God. So it’s an arrogance that man has decided that he has all that he needs to shape his destiny and there= s no end to his capacity to control and shape his life without God.

But we don= t only have to think of those things. Every abortion clinic is another hell. Every effort to be doing this cloning is another movement toward hell. Then we have all kinds of other things like drug addiction, etc., where people fry their brains in over ten years, it= s hell for them. Just talk to their parents.

So it= s clear that there= s plenty of places to make us think seriously about the need for redemption and salvation. But we live now. Jesus already came. That for the church is not simply negative. The church is not simply the group of people where the Lord lives and stops the advancement of hell. It= s quite positive. It brings heaven, that is if we take seriously that Jesus came already and that Paul= s statement no longer I live but Christ lives in me, then we have the power to bring heaven in our life. That= s the way we should look at Advent. Not just to prevent hell but to bring heaven because where Christ is as one of the little ejaculatory prayers in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Litany says Jesus is the house of God and the gate of heaven.

So what does Advent call us to? I think simply to intensify our life especially along two lines. One is personal prayer, learning new modes and different ways and asking for the grace of prayer because prayer first of all makes us see things in right priority. It makes us see that we cannot live without grace. It makes us see that we cannot live without Christ. It makes us see that the interior life is primary to all the things we do.

Then we ought to think about confession. Again this is the place where we receive God= s mercy and prepare for the coming of the Lord. There we have some things that other things can= t do. It= s important to have psychiatry, psychology and consulting, etc., but it doesn’t bring us reconciliation. It doesn’t bring us forgiveness. It doesn’t bring us spiritual purification. So we ought to reflect on how we are taking advantage of the sacrament of reconciliation and in those two thrusts, I think we have the power to have a heavenly Advent.