Hell
Does the hell exist? Of course yes. God himself, who loves us so much, speaks to us about himself. However, there are people who think that if God is love and if God is a father, the punishment of Hell cannot exist. Those people are deeply mistaken. God is a merciful Father, but he is also just. God has made us free and therefore, if a person does not want to know anything about God and does not want to fulfill his commandments, God is not guilty of his perdition. If you lock yourself in a room and don’t let the sunlight in, who is to blame if that room is dark? God is willing us to avail ourselves of his mercy, but if a sinner willfully rejects God’s mercy, he and he alone is to blame for his damnation.
The existence of hell is a dogma of faith, that is, a truth of faith solemnly proclaimed by the Magisterium of the Church as belonging to Revelation, and therefore irreformable. Furthermore, faith clearly tells us that “the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin go to hell.”
We Catholics should not base our good conduct on the fear of hell, but on the love of God. However, it is convenient to remember that there is a just punishment. Fear should help us avoid what causes us harm. In moments of weakness and blindness, when temptation lurks, thinking about hell is convenient and profitable.
Many people live as if hell did not exist and are not interested in talking about it. They say that no one has come from the other world to show us the existence of hell, but they are wrong, since Jesus Christ himself came into the world and told us about it. Jesus calls hell “gehenna”, an Aramaic word that refers to the valley of the Hinnon, located south of Jerusalem. It was a city dump, and the fire that burned there and the worms in the garbage became symbols of eternal torment. In the gospel we can read the following references of Jesus speaking of hell: He calls it “gehenna of fire” (Mt. 5,22) “gehenna where the worm does not die nor the fire is extinguished” (Mk. 9, 46-47) ; “eternal fire” (Mt. 25,41); “inextinguishable fire” (Mt. 3,12; Mk 9,42); “fiery furnace” (Mt. 13,42); “eternal punishment” (Mt. 25,46)… There is darkness there (Mt. 8,12; Mt 22,13, Mt. 25,30), “howling and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 13,42, Lk 13,28).
Let us also not lose sight of the fact that hell is nothing less than eternal, there is no going back.
It is good to remember at this moment the scene of the rich Lump, recounted by Jesus to the Pharisees: there was a rich man who dressed in purple and the finest linen, and every day he celebrated splendid banquets. A poor man, on the other hand, named Lazarus, lay sitting at his door, covered with sores, wanting to be satisfied with what fell from the rich man’s table. And even the approaching dogs licked his sores. It happened, then, that the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; The rich man also died and was buried. Being in hell, in the midst of torments, raising his eyes he saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom; and crying out, he said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am tormented in these flames. Abraham answered: Son, remember that you received good things during your life and Lazarus, on the other hand, bad things; now, then, here he is comforted and you are tormented. In addition to all this, between you and us there is interposed a great abyss, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot; nor can they pass from there to us. And he said: I beg you then, father, that you send him to my father’s house, since I have five brothers, so that he warns them and they do not also come to this place of torment. But Abraham replied: They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them hear! He said: No, father Abraham; but if any of the dead go to them, they will be converted. And he said to them: If you do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, you will not be convinced even if one of the dead rises “(Lk 16, 19-31).
Today, God could say something like “There you have the words of the Pope, of the bishops, of your priests, who speak to you in my name. If you do not pay attention to them, it is useless for me to resurrect a dead person to warn you that there is hell and that you can go to it, because you will not pay attention.”
Javier Lopez
Javier’s Catholic website
http://
Testimonials of those who have seen hell
Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint Faustina Kowalska, Venerable Ana de San Agustín, Blessed Ana Catalina Emmerick, Lucia de Fátima, etc. They have had the opportunity to see hell. Below you can read some testimonials.
Saint Faustina Kowalska’s vision of hell, as she wrote in her diary:
“Today, I was taken by an angel to the depths of hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The types of tortures I saw: the first that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is the eternal remorse of conscience; the third is that one’s condition will never change; (160) the fourth is the fire that penetrates the soul without destroying it; it is a terrible suffering, since it is a completely spiritual fire, kindled by anger of God; the fifth torture is the continuous darkness and a terrible suffocating smell and, despite the darkness, the demons and the souls of the damned see each other and see all the evil, their own and that of the rest; The sixth torture is the constant company of Satan, the seventh is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies.These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are special tortures it is intended for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul suffers terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the way in which it has sinned. There are caverns and torture pits where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not sustained me.
The sinner must know that he will be tortured for all eternity, in those senses that he usually uses to sin. (161) I am writing this by order of God, so that no soul can find an excuse saying that there is no hell, or that no one has been there, and therefore no one can tell what it is like. I, Sister Faustina, by order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I could speak to souls about it and to testify about its existence. I can’t talk about him right now; but I have received an order from God to put it in writing. The demons were full of hatred towards me, but they had to obey me by order of God. What I have written is a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls that are there are of those who disbelieved that there is a hell. When I came back, I could barely recover from the fear. How terribly souls suffer there! Therefore I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I continually plead for God’s mercy upon them.
O my Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, among the greatest sufferings, rather than offend You with the least of sins.”
Ana Catalina Emmerick says that it is “a country of infinite torments, a horrible and dark world”. Many times, when she went to the cemetery to pray for souls, she felt who was condemned. He says: “I saw coming out like a black mist that made me shudder from some tombs. In these cases, the living idea of the most holy justice of God was for me like an angel who freed me from what was frightening in such tombs”.
Saint Teresa of Jesus tells us: “One day a certain person died, who had lived very badly and for many years. He died without confession, but with all this it did not seem to me that he had to be condemned. While shrouding the body, I saw many demons take that body and it seemed that they were playing with it… When they threw the body in the tomb, there was such a multitude of demons, who were inside to take it, that I was out of my mind to see it and it did not take a little courage to hide it.
He considered what they would do with that soul, when they thus lorded it over the sad body. I wish the Lord would make all those who are in a bad state see what I saw, which seems to me to be a great thing to make them live well” (Life 38,24).
Lucia de Fátima recounts in her “Memoirs” the vision of hell that July 13, 1917: “We saw as a sea of fire and submerged in this fire the demons and the souls, between screams and moans of fear. The demons were distinguished by their horrible and disgusting forms like black coals in embers Our Lady told us between goodness and sadness: You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.
“Hell as definitive rejection of God”
1. God is an infinitely good and merciful Father. But, unfortunately, man, called to respond to him in freedom, can choose to definitively reject his love and his forgiveness, thus forever renouncing joyful communion with him. Precisely this tragic situation is what Christian doctrine points out when it speaks of damnation or hell. It is not a question of a punishment of God inflicted from the outside, but of the development of premises already set by man in this life. The same dimension of unhappiness that this dark condition entails can be sensed, in a certain way, in the light of some of our terrible experiences, which turn life, as they say, into “hell”.
However, in the theological sense, hell is something very different: it is the ultimate consequence of sin itself, which turns against the one who has committed it. It is the situation in which one definitively places himself who rejects the mercy of the Father even in the last moment of his life.
2. To describe this reality, Sacred Scripture uses a symbolic language, which will be progressively specified. In the Old Testament, the condition of the dead was not yet fully illuminated by Revelation. In fact, it was generally thought that the dead gathered in sheol, a place of darkness (cf. Ez 28, 8; 31, 14; Jb 10, 21 ss; 38, 17; Ps 30, 10; 88 , 7. 13), a pit from which one cannot get out (cf. Jb 7, 9), a place where it is not possible to give glory to God (cf. Is 38, 18; Ps 6, 6).
The New Testament sheds new light on the condition of the dead, above all announcing that Christ, with his resurrection, has conquered death and has extended his liberating power also in the realm of the dead.
However, redemption remains an offer of salvation that is up to man to welcome freely. Therefore, each one will be judged “according to his works” (Rev 20, 13). Resorting to images, the New Testament presents the place destined for the workers of iniquity as a fiery furnace, where “weeping and gnashing of teeth will be” (Mt 13, 42; cf. 25, 30. 41) or as Gehenna of “fire that does not go out” (Mk 9, 43). All this is expressed, in the form of a narrative, in the parable of the rich man…