The Priest at Prayer, May 16

The Priest and the Eternal Truths

HELL

First Meditation - Hell really does Exist

I. Reason can lead us to the threshold of this terrible mystery. The human soul, being of its nature immortal, is capable of everlasting reward or punishment. Having left the body, it is no longer "in via", and the good or evil accruing from past deeds changes from act or habit to a state of permanency. Death is a kind of photo­graphic "fixing bath" of the soul; grace or guilt are engraved upon the conscience ineffaceably; and the soul would more easily be smashed to atoms than forfeit the imprint of virtue or vice with which it left this mortal life. Having lost its former flexibility for good or evil, the soul harbours within its deepest depths and through­out its being those supernatural or perverse qualities of which it was found possessed at the hour of death. Beyond this life souls do not change their moral status; the eternal renders them unchangeable.

My soul, wouldst thou be for ever and ever what thou art to-day?

II. But human reason has eyes too weak for the contem­plation and scrutiny of the eternal, so let the Faith, let God, speak.

Wouldn't it be an absurdity, a scandal, sheer madness, for Christ to have died merely to obtain for us temporal goods, or to deliver us from transitory evils?

A human life united personally, substantially, to the Divine Word, and therefore, the Life of a God; a life more precious than all creation; a life prized at the infinite value of the Godhead; such a life could reason­ably be spent only to avert an evil that is, in some sense, also infinite; it could be given in ransom only to purchase a glory that is boundless and unending.

O Lord! Thy Divine Blood, so cheaply spilled along the path of the sinful children of Adam, trampled under­ foot "sicut stercus in via" by every passer-by; O Lord! Thy Body shattered and nailed to the wood of the Cross, like a captured bird of prey to the lintel of a farmhouse door; O Lord! Thy holy Cross is for my reason and even for my finer sensibilities the unanswer­able argument, that for the obstinate sinner there await eternal torments. . .

III. Not for a moment throughout the long life of the Church will you find this dogma of Hell unaccepted or unwitnessed to by the Church and all her children: Ecumenical Councils and local Synods, the Fathers, ecclesiastical writers, the Symbols of the Faith, the arts and letters; they all bear witness to belief in Hell, with a steadfast, unswerving conviction, notwithstanding the dread and terror this belief inspires. It is in every age a leash on which the Church keeps her children subject to the fear of God, even in the midst of soft, corrupt, and hostile civilisations. Shall I deny that unchallenge­able fact?

My God, it is only by wrenching myself away from this Holy Mother's loving bosom where, as in a downy nest, Thou didst lay me almost as soon as I came into the world, that I could possibly deny or even call in question the existence of that appallingly mysterious "Second Death ", the name given to eternal damnation by the Beloved Disciple. I believe it, Lord, and I confess I it; aid Thou my unbelief.

IV. But, . . . is there any dogma of our Faith recorded in the New Testament more fully and in terms more peremptory than that of Hell?

St. John, in the Apocalypse, makes frequent mention of the pool of fire, which is the second death, where the enemies of God and of the Lamb will finally be cast. In accents of ancient prophecy St. Jude speaks to us, in his Canonical Epistle, of sinners who are like "fierce waves of the sea, with shame for their crests; wandering stars, with eternal darkness and storm awaiting them ".­(Jude, 13) And St. Paul assures the Thessalonians that Christ will avenge Himself on evildoers by condemning them to eternal punishment. (cfr. II Thess. i)

How God longs for me to meditate upon His eternal chastisements! For He knows my heart so well! Like the sea: calm and beautiful at caress of dawn, rippled by the gentle breeze, held in check by the sandy shore; but in the evening, how it swells and hurls its billows with thunderous roar against the strand! What havoc, if
uncontained by strong resisting jetties and breakwaters!

V. It would take many a sheet merely to copy out from the New Testament what Christ, our Lord and God, has told us of Hell's torments and of their endless duration. Over fifteen times He deals with Hell either explicitly or by implication: He speaks of "eternal torment", "everlasting fire", "the worm that dies not", "the great gulf fixed between", "weeping and gnashing of teeth" . . .

So I must choose: either confess that there is indeed an endless punishment which I can incur, and incur soon if I offend God grievously; or, if I deny its existence, I must jettison all my faith as so much useless ballast, disbelieve in Christ, and even account Him a common quack or a victim to delusion. Shall I dare to choose the latter?

Jesus: until I come across another Master better qualified to teach than Thou, of longer standing, of greater power in word and deed, whose life is more admirable in virtue, whose wisdom shines more resplendently; I abide, dear Lord, by Thy divine teachings. And when I look into the lives and teachings of those who deny this great truth I find them, Lord, so manifestly inferior to Thine in every way, that they merely serve to clinch the argument in favor of follow­ing Thee alone.

Resolution
Since fight I must - militia est vita hominis - instead of squandering my energies trying to swim against the tide of eternal Truth, I shall struggle with the buffeting waves of my own passions, which, however strong, are more easily overcome than the infallible word of God: Verbum Domini manet in aeternum. (Is. xl,8)

I shall fight particularly against lust, nearly always the seat of unbelief and apostasy.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!