You know, God doesn't choose for you to be with Him or not. You do. God wants you to be with Him, yearns for you to be with Him, but it's your choice, and it's a choice you have to make over and over during your entire life.
Before God created all of creation, we were in God's mind and heart, and God wants us with Him eternally. But God loves us too much to ever force or coerce us. Yet, if we reject God, we are really rejecting who we are - someone created by God and made to be loved by God. That's our true happiness! Cardinal Walter Kasper says:
"Precisely in His mercy, God takes us seriously. He does not want to ambush us mortals or bypass our freedom. Our eternal destiny depends on our decision and our response to the offer of God's love. Love can court the other and wants to court the other, but it cannot and does not want to force the other's response. God's love therefore desires to be reciprocated, but people can also ignore or reject it. Because we are created for God's love, its rejection means the self-negation of the human being and, thereby, his or her total misfortune.....the loss of one's eternal beatitude. That proves the seriousness of life and the seriousness of our freedom. Our life decision is a decision for life or for death."
When we talk about the possibility of eternal damnation, we talk about the possibility of someone rejecting God at the end of life, and God's judgement ratifying that person's choice to live without God. To live without God is simply Hell! Think about it. If you lived without the Presence of God, you'd have to live in isolation without love, relationships, hope, or joy - because God is the Source of all that is good, true, and beautiful. What isolation! Hell would be a living death!
When Jesus tells the parable about the Last Judgement, and who will be saved and who will be condemned, it's an example of Jesus calling on us to take our decisions and choices seriously - it's a matter of life or death. God says in Deuteronomy 30:15, 19, "I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity....I have set before you ....blessings and curses. Choose life."
There are two truths in Scripture about God and us and our relationship. First, over and over God tells us that He is loving and patient, merciful, slow to anger; we can trust in God's mercy and forgiveness in every situation and every way. In fact, God our just judge is so merciful that, in Jesus, He died on the cross for us! But, secondly, the Scriptures are always urgently reminding us that we have to make a choice to be open to God, to allow God to be at work in our lives to bring us to ever-new repentance and growth and conversion so that we don't miss the whole point of our existence and die separated from God.
God's love is the most powerful Force in the universe. Would anyone ever reject God? Scripture and theological works do not describe any individual who is in Hell. As Cardinal Kasper says, we do not even know if Judas is in Hell. Yet our freedom makes Hell possible because of our ability to choose.
What if we're worried about our loved ones' souls? A father I know, worried about his children, says his prayer is "Father, you know I could not be happy in Heaven if a single one of my children's souls is lost." Our prayer for one another is our support system for all of humanity in their choices. And our powerful, loving prayer intercessions for one another can make a profound difference in others' lives! Cardinal Kasper tells us
"The possibility of intercession implies that our hope for the salvation of others is not a hope that idly waits; it is supposed to be an actively intercessory and representative hope for all. For this purpose, one can appeal to (St.) Paul. For the sake of his Jewish brothers, he was willing to be accursed and separated from Christ (Romans 9:3). This is not an isolated assertion in scripture. It takes up the words of Moses, who, with an eye to the infidelity of his people, says to God in prayer: 'But now, if you will only forgive their sin - but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written' (Exodus 32:32). Deuteronomy describes Moses' self-offering as an act of lying prostrate in intercession before God for forty days and nights. (Deut. 9:25). Moses, thus, wanted to jump into the breach in order to save his people.
"According to Thomas Aquinas, we can wish for and anticipate the eternal salvation of another if we are one with him or her through love." Numerous testimonials of great saints tell us about how deeply and fervently they prayed for others, not wanting a single soul to be lost. St. Catherine of Siena said to her confessor "If I were wholly inflamed with the fire of divine love, would I not then, with a burning heart, beseech my Creator, the truly merciful One, to show mercy to all my brothers and sisters?"
Does this mean that our prayers change God's mind? Not exactly. God is the One Who is, was, and always will be: for God all time is a continuous Present. God knows what our prayers and loves and anguishes will be from all eternity, and from all eternity He has chosen our prayerful intercessions to help to bring about the coming of His Kingdom of Life.
The saints in heaven join us on earth in continuous prayer for God's people in purgatory and on earth. We are the communion of saints and our prayers are our spiritual arms reaching out with the energy of love to help lift up those who have fallen into sin or despair. Our prayers reach out to comfort the doubtful and sorrowful. Think about how others respond when we physically touch them with love. Our prayers are our spiritual touches of love. We are never more like Christ than when we pray for others to our merciful God! Our prayers travel to and through His merciful heart to the ones we pray for, clothed in His loving mercy.
"God Who is mercy courts every human being to the very end; Mercy activates the entire communion of saints on behalf of every individual, while taking human freedom with radical seriousness. Mercy is the good, comforting, uplifting, hope-granting message, on which we can rely in every situation and and which we can trust and build upon, both in life and in death." (Kasper).
So we need to always keep Heaven on our minds. Keep the memory of Heaven in all our choices. With each choice we can ask ourselves if we are with God or against God, with Life or with Death, with loving mercy or with isolating selfishness, with Justice or with those who use and abuse others, especially the most vulnerable. And remember with joy that if you choose God, He will work with you and through you to bring you and those whom you love and pray for to be by His side eternally.