May is a month especially dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Mary’s role in the life of the Church is a point on which many of our Protestant brethren are confused. They may accept the biblical text that all generations will call her blessed (Lk 1:38) but fail to understand the special place that Mary has in the hearts of many Catholics and in our traditional devotions.
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?”