When most of us hear the word “hell,” we think of the place of the damned, what the Catechism defines as the “state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed” (CCC 1033). So it might be a bit confusing, if not outright shocking, to find in the Apostles’ Creed the statement that Jesus “descended into hell.” If hell is the definitive state of exclusion from communion with God, how could this apply to Jesus, who is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God?”
When one thinks of making a pilgrimage, it’s easy to think of such far off places as the Holy Land, Rome or Fatima. When you think of going to see great sites of religious history, it’s not surprising if the mind first ventures to the Middle East or to Europe, where great dramas of history have played out for so many centuries and in so many ways. But those of us who live here in the southeastern United States are gifted with our own history, our own memorials, and moments of religious significance.