To tackle these questions about the end of life, let’s start at the beginning. Every one of us is created by God and is filled with his goodness and love, although, we cannot overlook the fact that we are born with original sin. This does not mean that as a person we are inherently bad, just that we, in our humanness, possess the same sin as Adam and Eve and we need to be washed clean of it through the waters of Baptism. It not only washes away our sin, but it also connects us with Christ such that we are given new life, the hope of resurrection. We must also remember that when God created us, he gave us this beautiful gift called “free will.” Free will is a good thing. God wants us to have the ability to make our own decisions in our lives and so he gave us this gift. With it we can choose whatever path in life we want to take. This includes entering into evil or good or choosing to follow God or not. All of our words, actions and deeds are of our own doing. God never makes us say or do anything. He does, however, try to guide us through the gift of the Spirit so that in our minds and hearts we know what is right or wrong.

Understand then that none of us is destined to go to hell; we get there by our own choosing. God gives us time in our lives to make right the wrongs that we have committed, to turn our lives around from sinful ways. Think about this for a moment; it has been estimated that it took approximately 11 days by foot for the Israelites to travel from Egypt to the Promised Land at the Exodus. Yet we know that it took them 40 years or approximately 14,600 days to reach their destination. Why? Because God wanted the Israelites to abandon their sinful ways and turn to him. He gave them chance after chance and they would become right with him for awhile, but then would return to sinful ways when things got hard or they got lazy. Their free will allowed them to do this. It was their choice, which ultimately kept the ones who fled Egypt from seeing the Promised Land.

Even though we may be evil on earth, it does not automatically mean that we are doomed to eternal damnation. We are given every opportunity to turn away from sin, to repent of our wrongs and in doing so know the benefit of God’s mercy and goodness that ultimately leads to eternal salvation. Think of the parable in Matthew 20 which speaks of the workers who were sent into the vineyard from the early morning to late in the evening hours, yet they all received the same wage no matter how long they worked. Jesus offers this parable to show us that whenever we turn to his Father we receive the wages of eternal salvation, even if it is at the last moment, the final hour.

Thus, we all have the ability to enter the heavenly kingdom, but only if we fully turn out lives over to God, make a full and contrite confession of our wrongs, ask for his forgiveness, and seek his love. This means that even the criminal on death row can be saved if he fully confesses his wrongs and seeks true forgiveness. I have asked others the question “could Hitler be in heaven?” I get mixed answers to this question, but most people typically say “yes.” Remember, we do not know what went through his mind or what was in his heart at the last moments of his life. He could have made a full confession and sought the forgiveness of God before he left this world and been received by our heavenly Father. That’s how wide God’s mercy is to us.

This does not mean that we can go out and do what we want, commit any evil and we will get a free “in” at the last moment, mainly because we do not know when the last moment of our lives will be. Too many people have banked on fixing their wrongs later only to find out that they never got a later time, nor a chance to amend the wrongs they did. Jesus tells us we do not know the day or the hour when the Father will come for us, so we always need to be ready.