June 16
The Torments Of Hell
Preparation. - "Their worm dieth not," says Jesus Christ, "and the fire is not extinguished" (Mark 9. 43). Our Saviour indicates here two kinds of pains in hell, first, the punishment of the body, and secondly, that of the soul. Let us sincerely resolve to accept in a spirit of penance, all the trials that may come upon us, saying to ourselves with St. Teresa: "This is not yet hell," "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished."
I. Pains Of The Body.
Hell is a fearful abyss, closed on every side, into which not even the smallest ray of light ever penetrates. In this life fire gives light, but in the abode of the reprobate, which is that of death, the flames are obscure, and merely enable the horrible state of the damned to be perceived, together with the hideous forms assumed by the devils to terrify their victims. How bitter to these unfortunates is the remembrance of how they gratified their senses of sight and are plunged into this darkness, as a punishment for the too great freedom they gave their eyes. "To whom the storm of darkness is reserved forever" (Jude. 1. 13).
The sense of touch, or feeling, will have fire as its peculiar torment. On earth fire is the most painful punishment, although our fire was created by the divine goodness. Let us represent to ourselves the reprobate plunged into and submerged in an ocean of flames lit up by the wrath of the Almighty. It penetrates his whole body to the veins and the marrow of his bones; it is a horrible torment including all others at the same time, for the Holy Ghost designates them all by the word fire.
The other senses, besides the pain of fire, have each their particular punishment. The hearing is deafened forever by the complaints, the blasphemies and frightful howling of the other reprobates. The taste suffers an incomprehensible hunger and thirst, but shall never be gratified by the smallest bit of food or even a single drop of water. The smell is tormented by the horrible infection of numberless bodies of the damned full of corruption, heaped up promiscuously, a single one of which would suffice to cause men to die here below. O how dear have the pleasures of the senses cost the unhappy damned!
O Jesus, O Mary, do not leave me exposed to the danger of offending you and sharing the fearful doom of the reprobate. Enable me to give up the pleasures of this short life through the thought of the endless torments. Give me the strength, first, to mortify my appetite, my comforts, my eyes and my tongue, so as not to become a prey of the enemy of salvation; and secondly, to combat the lusts of the flesh, every excess in eating and drinking and all sensuality, and even, after the example of St. Paul, to inflict on my body some pain, some austerity in a spirit of penance, so as to escape the unquenchable flames. "I chastise my body, lest I become a castaway" (1 Cor. 9. 26).
II. Pains Of The Soul
The Lord does not hate the work of His hands, and not even wild and hideous beasts. "Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made" (Wisd. 11. 25). Nevertheless God cannot love, and even is bound to hate the reprobate soul. For this unfortunate soul is inseparable from her sin, which God hates, and hence she beholds herself eternally the object of the Almighty's just aversion. How fearful a punishment to be incessantly in opposition with one's Creator, with one's final end! "To God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike" (Wisd. 14. 9).
God not only hates the reprobate soul, but repels her with horror. On leaving this world she is urged on by the instinct of her destiny to go to God, and scarcely has she entered eternity than she springs forward to be united with the supreme Good, without whom she feels she cannot do even for a single moment, as she was created only to possess Him. But she hears a terrible voice saying to her: "Thou art not Mine, and I will not be thine." At the same time an irresistible power hurls her back, or rather the fearful weight of her sins drags her down into the abyss of torments, where constantly struggling with the justice that punishes her, she becomes exhausted by her useless efforts, for she shall never behold the God she so irresistibly yearns after. "Ye are not My people, and I shall not be yours" (Osee 1. 9).
The Lord not only repels her, but treats her as an enemy. Being hardened in crime, she is in continual opposition with the holiness of the Creator, who considers her as an irreconcilable adversary. "I will heap evils upon them, and will spend My arrows among them" (Deut. 32. 23). What a frightful doom! Feeling constantly urged to go to God, the damned see that they are hated, repelled and most rigorously treated by Him, without hope of forgiveness. How great an evil must sin be! It turns the ocean of divine mercy into one of endless justice and severity.
O my God, at the thought of the eternal torments, I should at least cheerfully embrace all austerities and sacrifices. But since I have not the courage to do so, I am resolved, first, to watch over my senses and inclinations, in order to avoid not only mortal sin, but also every deliberate venial sin; secondly, frequently to have recourse to prayer, especially in time of danger and temptation, placing myself under the protection of Jesus and Mary; and thirdly, to be guided in all things by this maxim of St. Bernard, that there cannot be too great a security, when our eternity is endangered. The most prudent in this case is he who aspires to consummate holiness.
