From the Writings of St. Anthony Mary Claret
The sensation of pain in
Hell is essentially very dreadful. Picture yourself, my soul, on a dark
night on the summit of a high mountain. Beneath you is a deep valley,
and the earth opens so that with your gaze you can see
Hell in the cavity of it. Picture it as a prison situated in the center
of the earth, many leagues down, all full of fire, hemmed in so
impenetrably that for all eternity not even the smoke can escape. In
this prison the damned are packed so tightly one on the other like
bricks in a kiln... Consider the quality of the fire in which they burn.
First, the fire is all-extensive and tortures the whole body and the whole soul. A damned person lies in
Hell forever in the same spot, which he was assigned by divine justice, without being able to move, as a prisoner in stocks.
The fire, in which he is totally enveloped, as a
fish in water, burns around him, on his left, his right, above and
below. His head, his breast, his shoulders, his arms, his hands, and his
feet are all penetrated with fire, so that he completely resembles a
glowing hot piece of iron, which has just been withdrawn from an oven.
The roof beneath which the damned person dwells is fire; the food he
takes is fire; the drink he tastes is fire; the air he breathes is fire;
whatever he sees and touches is all fire....
But this fire is not merely outside him; it also
passes within the condemned person. It penetrates his brain, his teeth,
his tongue, his throat, his liver, his lungs, his bowels, his belly, his
heart, his veins, his nerves, his bones, even to the marrow, and even
his blood.
"In Hell," according to St. Gregory the Great,
"there will be a fire that cannot be put out, a worm which cannot die, a
stench one cannot bear, a darkness one can feel, a scourging by savage
hands, with those present despairing of anything good."
A most dreadful fact is that by the divine power
this fire goes so far as to work on the very faculties of the soul,
burning them and tormenting them. Suppose I were to find myself placed
at the oven of a smith so that my whole body was in the open air but for
one arm placed in the fire, and that God were to preserve my life for a
thousand years in this position. Would this not be an unbearable
torture? What, then, would it be like to be completely penetrated and
surrounded by fire, which would affect not just an arm, but even all the
faculties of the soul?
More Dreadful than Man Can Imagine
Secondly, this fire is far more dreadful than man
can imagine. The natural fire that we see during this life has great
power to burn and torment. Yet this is not even a shadow of the fire of
Hell. There are two reasons why the fire of Hell is more dreadful beyond
all comparison than the fire of this life.
The first reason is the justice of God, which the
fire serves as an instrument in order to punish the infinite wrong done
to his supreme majesty, which has been despised by a creature.
Therefore, justice supplies this element with a burning power, which
almost reaches the infinite....
The second reason is the malice of sin. As God
knows that the fire of this world is not enough to punish sin, as it
deserves, He has given the fire of
Hell a power so strong that it can never be comprehended by any human
mind.
Now, how powerfully does this fire burn?
It burns so powerfully, O my soul, that,
according to the ascetical masters, if a mere spark of it fell on a
millstone; it would reduce it in a moment to powder. If it fell on a
ball of bronze, it would melt it in an instant as if it were wax. If it
landed on a frozen lake, it would make it boil in an instant.
Pause here briefly, my soul, and answer a few
questions I will put. First, I ask you: If a special furnace were fired
up as was customarily done to torment the holy martyrs, and then men
placed before you all kinds of good things that the human heart might
want, and added the offer of a prosperous kingdom
–
if all this were promised you on condition that for just a half-hour
you enclose yourself within the furnace, what would you choose?
A Hundred Kingdoms
"Ah!" you would say, "If you offered me a hundred
kingdoms I would never be so foolish as to accept your brutal terms,
regardless of how grand your offer might be, even if I were sure that
God would preserve my life during those moments of suffering."
Second, I ask you: If you already had possession
of a great kingdom and were swimming in a sea of wealth so that nothing
was wanting to you, and then you were attacked by an enemy, were
imprisoned and put in chains and obliged to either renounce your kingdom
or else spend a half-hour in a hot furnace, what would you choose?
"Ah!" you would say, "I would prefer to spend my whole life in extreme
poverty and submit to any other hardship and misfortune, than suffer
such a great torment!"
A Prison of Eternal Fire
Now turn your thoughts from the temporal to the
eternal. To avoid the torment of a hot furnace, which would last but a
half-hour, you would forgo all your property, even things you are most
fond of; you would suffer any other temporal loss, however burdensome.
Then why do you not think the same way when you are dealing of eternal
torments? God threatens you not just with a half-hour in a furnace, but
with a prison of eternal fire. To escape it, should you not forgo
whatever He has forbidden, no matter how pleasant it can be for you, and
gladly embrace whatever He commands, even if it be extremely
unpleasant?
A most terrible thing about Hell is its duration.
The condemned person loses God and loses Him for all eternity. Now,
what is eternity? O my soul, up to now there has not been any angel who
has been able to comprehend what eternity is. So how can you comprehend
it? Yet, to form some idea of it, consider the following truths:
Eternity never ends. This is the truth that has
made even the great saints tremble. The final judgment will come, the
world will be destroyed, the earth will swallow up those who are damned,
and they will be cast into
Hell. Then, with His almighty hand, God will shut them up in that most
unhappy prison.
From then on, as many years will pass as there
are leaves on the trees and plants on all the earth, as many thousands
of years as there are drops of water in all seas and rivers, as many
thousands of years as there are atoms in the air, as there are grains of
sand on all the shores of all seas. Then, after the passage of this
countless number of years, what will eternity be? Up to then there will
not even have been a hundredth part of it, nor a thousandth
– nothing. It then begins again and will last as long again, even after
this has been repeated a thousand times, and a thousand million times
again. And then, after so long a period, not even a half will have
passed, not even a hundredth part nor a thousandth, not even any part of
eternity. For all this time there is no interruption in the burnings of
those who are damned, and it begins all over again.
Oh, a deep mystery indeed! A terror above all terrors! O eternity! Who can comprehend thee?
The Tears of Cain
Suppose that, in the case of unhappy Cain,
weeping in Hell, he shed in every thousand years just one tear. Now, O
my soul, recollect your thoughts and suppose this case: For six thousand
years at least Cain has been in
Hell and shed only six tears, which God miraculously preserves. How many
years would pass for his tears to fill all the valleys of the earth and
flood all the cities and towns and villages and cover all the mountains
so as to flood the whole earth? We understand the distance from the
earth to the sun is thirty-four million leagues. How many years would be
necessary for Cain's tears to fill that immense space? From the earth
to the firmament is, let us suppose, a distance of a hundred and sixty
million leagues.
O God! What number of years might one imagine to
be sufficient to fill with these tears this immense space? And yet
– O truth so incomprehensible – be sure of it, as that God cannot lie –
a time will arrive in which these tears of Cain would be sufficient to
flood the world, to reach even the sun, to touch the firmament, and fill
all the space between earth and the highest heaven. But that is not
all.
If God dried up all these tears to the last drop
and Cain began again to weep, he would again fill the same entire space
with them and fill it a thousands times and a million times in
succession, and after all those countless years, not even half of
eternity would have passed, not even a fraction. After all that time
burning in
Hell, Cain's sufferings will be just beginning.
This eternity is also without relief. It would
indeed be a small consolation and of little benefit for the condemned
persons to be able to receive a brief respite once every thousand years.
No Relief
Picture in Hell a place where there are three
reprobates. The first is plunged in a lake of sulfuric fire, the second
is chained to a large rock and is being tormented by two devils, one of
whom continually pours molten lead down his throat while the other
spills it all over his body, covering him from head to foot. The third
reprobate is being tortured by two serpents, one of which wraps around
the man's body and cruelly gnaws on it, while the other enters within
the body and attacks the heart. Suppose God is moved to pity and grants a
short respite.
The first man, after the passage of a thousand
years is drawn from the lake and receives the relief of a drink of cool
water, and at the end of an hour is cast again into the lake. The
second, after a thousand years, is released from his place and allowed
to rest, but after an hour is again returned to the same torment. The
third, after a thousand years, is delivered from the serpents; but after
an hour of relief, is again abused and tormented by them. Ah, how
little this consolation would be
– to suffer a thousand years and to rest only one hour.
However, Hell does not even have that much
relief. One burns always in those dreadful flames and never receives any
relief for all eternity. He is forever gnawed and stricken with
remorse, and will never have a rest for all eternity. He will suffer
always a very ardent thirst and never receive the refreshment of a sip
of water for all eternity. He will see himself always abhorred by God
and will never enjoy a single tender glance from Him for all eternity.
He will find himself forever cursed by heaven and
Hell, and will never receive a single gesture of friendship.
It is an essential misfortune of Hell that
everything will be without relief, without remedy, without interruption,
without end, eternal.
The Kindness of His Mercy
Now I understand in part, O my God, what Hell is.
It is a place of extreme pain, of extreme despair. It is where I
deserve to be for my sins, where I would have been confined for some
years already if your immense mercy had not delivered me. I will keep
repeating a thousand times: The Heart of Jesus has loved me, or else I
would now be in
Hell! The mercy of Jesus has pitied me, for otherwise I would be in
Hell! The Blood of Jesus has reconciled me with the heavenly Father, or
my dwelling place would be
Hell. This shall be the hymn that I want to sing to Thee, my God, for
all eternity. Yes, from now on my intention is to repeat these words as
many times as there are moments that have passed since that unhappy hour
in which I first offended You.
What has been my gratitude to God for his kind
mercy that He showed me? He delivered me from
Hell. O, immense charity! O, infinite goodness! After a benefit so
great, should I not have given Him my whole heart and loved Him with the
love of the most ardent Seraphim? Should I not have directed all my
actions to Him and in everything sought only His divine pleasure,
accepting all contradictions with joy, in order to return to Him my
love? Could I do less than that after a kindness that was so great? And
yet, what is it that I have done? Oh, ingratitude worthy of another
Hell! I cast You aside, O my God! I reacted to Your mercy by committing
new sins and offenses. I know that I have done evil, O my God, and I
repent with my whole heart. Ah, would that I could shed a sea of tears
for such outrageous ingratitude! O Jesus, have mercy on me; for I now
resolve to rather suffer a thousand deaths
than offend You again.
The Urgency of Hell
It is of faith that Heaven exists for the good
and Hell for the wicked. Faith teaches that the pains of
Hell are eternal, and it also warns us that one single mortal sin
suffices to condemn a soul forever because of the infinite malice by
which it offends an infinite God. With these most positive principles
in mind, how can I remain indifferent when I see the ease with which
sins are committed, sins that occur as frequently as one takes a glass
of water, sins and offenses that are perpetrated out of levity or
diversion? How can I rest when so many are to be seen living
continually in mortal sin and rushing in this blind manner to their
eternal destruction? No indeed, I cannot rest, but must needs run and
shout a warning to them. If I saw anyone about to fall into a pit or a
fire, would I not run up to him and warn him, and do all in my power to
help him from falling in? Why should I not do this much to keep sinners
from falling into the pit and fires of
Hell?
Neither can I understand why other priests who
believe the selfsame truths as I do, as we all must do, do not preach or
exhort their flock so that they might avoid this unbearable eternity of
Hell. It is still a source of wonder to me how the laity – those men
and women blessed with the Faith
– do not give warning to those who need it. If a house were to catch
fire in the middle of the night, and if the inhabitants of the same
house and the other townsfolk were asleep and did not see the danger,
would not the one who first noticed it shout and run along the streets,
exclaiming: "Fire! Fire! In that house over there!" Then why should
there not be a warning of eternal fire to waken those who are drifting
in the sleep of sin in such a way that when they open their eyes they
will find themselves burning in the eternal flames of
Hell?
Zeal for the salvation of souls spurred St. Anthony Mary Claret to preach an
estimated 25,000 sermons, write 144 books, found three religious orders, preach countless missions,
and in six years as a bishop, confirm over 300,000 and validate more than 9,000 marriages. Starting
as a missionary in Spain and the Canary Islands, he was later appointed Archbishop of Santiago, Cuba,
and thereafter confessor to the Queen of Spain. But in all he did, he labored so ceaselessly, so
tirelessly, and so fruitfully for the cause of Christ and His Church that he is simply called a
“Modern Apostle.”
Miracles surrounded his work, and he possessed the gifts of prophecy and the
reading of hearts. He often saw Our Lord and Our Lady (to whom he was especially devoted), receiving
from them instruction, encouragement, and prophecies. Driven by the overwhelming motivation of
saving immortal souls from eternal damnation, St. Anthony Mary Claret directed all his energies to
this end, finding all other goals worthless in comparison.
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Her
parents, Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, were distinguished less
for temporal possessions than for their virtue, which gave them an
honourable position. From early childhood Margaret showed intense love
for the Blessed Sacrament, and preferred silence and prayer to childish
amusements. After her first communion at the age of nine, she practised
in secret severe corporal mortifications, until paralysis confined her
to bed for four years. At the end of this period, having made a vow to
the Blessed Virgin to consecrate herself to religious life, she was
instantly restored to perfect health. The death of her father and the
injustice of a relative plunged the family in poverty and humiliation,
after which more than ever Margaret found consolation in the Blessed
Sacrament, and Christ made her sensible of His presence and protection.
He usually appeared to her as the Crucified or the Ecce Homo, and
this did not surprise her, as she thought others had the same Divine
assistance. When Margaret was seventeen, the family property was
recovered, and her mother besought her to establish herself in the
world. Her filial tenderness made her believe that the vow of childhood
was not binding, and that she could serve God at home by penance and
charity to the poor. Then, still bleeding from her self-imposed
austerities, she began to take part in the pleasures of the world. One
night upon her return from a ball, she had a vision of Christ as He was
during the scourging, reproaching her for infidelity after He had given
her so many proofs of His love. During her entire life Margaret mourned
over two faults committed at this time—the wearing of some superfluous
ornaments and a mask at the carnival to please her brothers.
