If someone has committed many mortal sins in their life, when they face God in the judgment will they necessarily go to hell?
I think a good number of people ask this question, fearful that if they have committed mortal sins they will be deserving of hell.
The answer is of course no, mortal sins of themselves do not send a person to hell, so long as the person repents and is sorry for the sins when he comes to the judgment.
If mortal sins automatically sent people to hell, hell would be full and few people would go to heaven.
The Catechism is clear on teaching that only the person who does not repent of his mortal sins will go to hell: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (CCC 1033).
God is always merciful, and he wants us to be with him forever in heaven. Indeed, he wants all to be saved. He wants his house in heaven to be full. He says this through St Paul, who writes that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). All we have to do to be saved is to repent sincerely of our sins, and God in his mercy will welcome us home.
Naturally, our sorrow must be genuine, with a true conversion of heart. This implies that we are resolved to do all we can to avoid falling into the same sins again, even though we know that, in our weakness, we may very well fall again.
As the Catechism puts it, contrition is “sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again” (CCC 1451). For example, we must be prepared to remove any near occasions of the sins we have committed.
We can understand this if we consider how good earthly parents will always forgive their children who have done something wrong but come back sincerely sorry.
They are understanding when, after the children say they are sorry, they go back and do the same thing again. And again. After all, parents know themselves and they know how often they have been sorry for something but have gone out and done it again.
Mind you, it is not that we are creating God in our own image and likeness, making him out to be like us but only much better. He made us in his image and likeness and he shares with us a heart capable of loving and forgiving. Again and again.
If we come before God with true sorrow, he will always forgive us and welcome us back with great rejoicing, as he explains in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
The son had squandered his inheritance and had lived loosely with women, but he returned to his father to tell him he was sorry for what he had done.
His father ran out to meet him, embraced him and kissed him, gave him the best robe, put shoes on his feet and a ring on his hand, and celebrated his return with a banquet of a fattened calf, “for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:11-24). This is an image of God the Father welcoming back the sinner, no matter how many or how serious the sins he has committed.
We see this too in the prophecy of Ezekiel: “Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die… Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit: Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God; so turn, and live.” (Ezek 18:26-28; 30-32)
So it is very clear that mortal sins of themselves will not send anyone to hell. God wants the sinner to repent, so that he can be with him forever in heaven.