Mental Prayer for October 26, Pains of Hell

Mental Prayer Meditation Helps

Presence of God

Grace I Ask: Dear Lord, help me so to feel the pains of the damned that if I ever forget your love, at least the fear of hell will keep me from sinning.

Walk Into Hell:
SEE the bottomless pit of fire, wider than the ocean. See the damned souls enveloped in fire. Watch it scorch and burn, yet never consume. It is real. It will never stop burning. These souls I see in bodies of fire once walked the earth, as I do, in bodies of flesh.

HEAR the cries, the howls, the blasphemies. Hear the souls cursing the day they were bom with the free will with which they damned them­selves forever.

SMELL the smoke, the sulphur, the filth, the burning flesh which will be there after the body rises. Smell the stink of evil.

TASTE the bitterness of grief, of tears, the sour­ness of evil. Taste sin!

FEEL how those fires touch and burn. Feel the pain, the horror, the despair. Peel the loneliness for God - each soul made for Him - now a yawn­ing hole that will never be filled - an open wound that will never heal.

FEEL eternity. This is forever - beyond all reach of my imagination - unending - on and on ­forever.

I Speak to God: Dear Lord, help me understand the reality of hell. These souls once lived as I do. They knew what it was to have a good time. They had sorrows, joys, ambitions. They knew how to serve you. There are Catholics here who deli­berately committed mortal sin. One is enough to damn a soul forever. Dear Lord, thank you for not having put an end to my life when I would have fallen into hell. Help me never to commit a mortal sin, never to damn my soul to hell.

Thought for Today: Dear Lord, remind me of hell.
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Adapted from Mental Prayer, Challenge to the Lay Apostle
by The Queen's Work,(© 1958)