473. Thirty-fourth Friday of Ordinary Time

Meditations no. 417 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The reality of hell and the possibility of being damned.

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him.

Thus St John writes in the Apocalypse, describing the eternal punishment which the Lord has reserved for the evil spirits and for those who die outside of God’s grace. For there is a hell. -A statement which, to you, might seem unoriginal and trite. -I’m going to repeat it for you: there is a hell!

Echo it for me, at the right moment, in the ear of that companion of yours… and of that other one.

It is good for us to meditate on this truth of our faith. According to the general decree of God, the souls of those who depart the world in actual mortal sin go soon after their death to hell, where they suffer the pains of hell. Christ, who came not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him, clearly reveals the existence of hell: Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Though hard to accept, the reality of hell is as certain as the Word of God that revealed it. Today’s Gospel at Mass reminds us: heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

We must not forget that it is possible to receive damnation. Though we live inundated by God’s grace, we always bear in our heart the fomes peccati, the “tinder of sin”, and even worse, the inexplicable evil of the creature whose pride leads him to rise up against God. Jesus warned his closest disciples, whom he loved with a special love, to be on guard: Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Hell is a truth taught us by Christ himself. It is so sad a truth that he warns us: If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Our Father wrote: Our Lord wants us to fight more, on a broader front, more intensely each day. We have an obligation to outdo ourselves, for in this competition the only goal is to arrive at the glory of heaven. And if we did not reach heaven, the whole thing would have been useless.

The sufferings in hell.

The greatest pain of hell is what theologians call the “pain of loss”, which consists in being deprived of the beatific vision, totally removed from the sight of God and from the hope of someday enjoying so immense a good. Total separation from God’s love is the worst possible misfortune for a creature destined to share in the intimate joy of God’s own life. Words cannot express the suffering this entails. In this life, our fallen human nature keeps us from fully grasping to what degree God is our true last end, the one and only Good capable of satisfying our longing for happiness. In hell, the soul sees this truth perfectly, but has no way of remedying the situation, since its voluntary separation from God is now final and permanent.

Together with the “pain of loss”, the “pain of the senses” adds its suffering to the woe of the damned. Sacred Scripture represents this suffering in different ways. Hell is compared to a gloomy prison where the reprobate are chained; a place of torment where there is continuous weeping and gnashing of teeth; a lake of fire and brimstone that boils endlessly… Special stress is given to hell’s inextinguishable fire: a real fire, not a metaphor, mentioned twenty-three times in the New Testament. The fire of hell is an instrument of divine justice and as such has dominion over the condemned and their souls. St Thomas offers a possible explanation for this mystery. The fire of hell receives from God the power to establish a bond that detains a spirit and thus it has a penal effect on it by hindering it from fulfilling its own will, that is, by hindering it from acting where it will and as it will, This explanation closely concurs with Sacred Scripture, which describes hell as a prison where the reprobate are kept against their will.

Reflecting on the sufferings of hell leads us to a healthy fear of mortal sin, the only cause leading to eternal damnation. And although this fear is servile and imperfect, it does not displease the Holy Spirit. Sacred Scripture says that it expels sin and is the beginning of love. Though not the highest motive for Christian conduct, we should not forget that it can be an effective defence against the lure of temptation.

Certainly, we have to help everyone face the eternal truths: death, judgement, hell and heaven. And we do so. But a soul in Opus Dei is not afraid of life nor afraid of death, since our spiritual life is founded on the sense of our divine filiation: God is my Father. He is the author of all good, and he is all Goodness.

This awareness of our divine filiation gives us strength to fight and, with God’s grace, to conquer at least our pride. It doesn’t ever lead us to be lax, presumptuous, or neglectful, but just the opposite. It helps us to have a sensitive conscience and be deeply contrite, with the sorrow of love. And the mea culpa each night - which is personal! - is not an offence against God and the Church: it expresses more love, more trust, more humility, more serenity.

This is the holy fear of the Lord, enduring forever that our Father wanted us to have. We have a horror for sin because we are afraid of hurting our heavenly Father. Ours is a fear that stems from Love. Our Father wrote: If I love, there will be no hell for me.

Purgatory: purification before entering heaven.

It is a divinely revealed truth that sins are followed by punishments. God’s holiness and justice inflict them. Sins must be expiated. This may be done on this earth, through the sorrows, misfortunes and trials of this life and, above all, through death. Otherwise the expiation must be made in the next life through fire and torments or “purifying” punishments.

Purgatory is entirely different from hell. Rather than a punishment, purgatory is a place of purification, since nothing unclean shall enter heaven. In purgatory, souls still not perfectly prepared after death to enjoy the vision of God are purified from the stains of sin.

Purgatory shows God’s great mercy and washes away the defects of those who long to become one with him, our Father wrote. He also taught us to consider purgatory as a manifestation of God’s paternal love for us. He liked to compare the reason for purgatory to the love of a mother who picks up and places her baby in a tub of water. She baths, perfumes, and then dresses the toddler, who ends up like a portrait of heaven.

The Church teaches that the souls in purgatory suffer temporal punishment, with the complete certainty that these sufferings are leading to the full possession of God. Purgatory itself is of limited duration, since it will no longer be necessary after the final judgement.

In purgatory, suffering and joy co-exist. Suffering, because souls detained there yearn to see God but are unable to do so. They no longer find any satisfaction in created things, but only in the Creator. And their desire to possess him is intense. Each soul in purgatory cries out with the Psalmist: O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where no water is. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

A good resolution from this time of prayer can be to pray for the holy souls in purgatory, in order to alleviate their sufferings and hasten their entrance into heaven. Some of our brothers and sisters, relatives and friends may be there, as well as so many others who perhaps didn’t have the spiritual help that we have. It is our duty as Christians to help the holy souls to be freed as soon as possible from their painful punishment. We should offer for them, following the order of charity, all the suffrages we can, especially the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

Moreover, by accepting life’s sufferings in expiation for our sins, we can in a certain sense have our purgatory here on earth, and thus be prepared to enter heaven quickly. Our Father wrote: The great Christian revolution has been to convert pain into fruitful suffering and to turn a bad thing into something good. We have deprived the devil of this weapon; and with it we can conquer eternity.

Let us ask our Blessed Lady to foster in us a healthy filial fear of God, and to strengthen us so that we make generous atonement, here on earth, for all our sins.