In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hell exists and does not cease to exist because some do not believe in it. Also there are those
who believe that hell does not exist because all the bad ones after their death will be
annihilated. But to think like this is not to take man seriously. God has created man for forever and
each one will be able to live his eternity as he wants to live it. God will respect his freedom.
There are others following the ancient theory of Apocatastasis,
which was discarded from the earliest times by all the Holy Fathers,
that says that the wicked after a temporary punishment, will definitely go to heaven.
This was also condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople in the year 553.
And there are also those who with a bit of an evil smile say:
"Hell exists, but it is empty". The Church has never declared that anyone in particular is in it.
But it is one thing not to know who is there, and in this we must not make reckless judgments even
with the greatest criminals, and quite another thing is to say that there is no one there.
The Church has not said that Judas Iscariot is there, but Jesus implies it when He says:
"Better for that man if he had never been born." - Mark 14:21.
And worst of all, hell is eternal. Jesus speaks to us clearly about it in Matthew 25:41.
Hell is eternal, not because God wants it, but because they want it.
If impossibly, the damned repented, they would be immediately forgiven by God.
His mercy is infinite and greater than all the sins of all men combined. The
sad thing is that they have made up their minds against God forever and will never regret it.
It is the great mystery of human freedom and of the great respect that God has for man,
whom He respects, even when man wishes to live eternally far from Him.
Hell is created by the damned himself. Therefore, there are not two hells alike,
each of the damned has his own hell. More than a place it is a hellish state,
that one creates according to the measure of hatred, evil, violence and cruelty.
Pope Saint John Paul II affirmed that hell is the situation in which one who rejects the mercy of
the Father finds himself definitively, even in the last moment of his life.
The mystic Maria Simma says: I met a man who told me that he did not want to go to heaven.
I asked him: Why? and He told me: Because God allows many injustices.
I made it clear that the injustices are not coming from God but from bad men. But he told me:
“I hate Him. I hope I will not meet Him after my death; if not, I will kill Him with an ax”.
Is it possible that someone can hate God? That someone created with love
and out of love by an infinitely good God, can hate Him? It is possible.
No man is going to be condemned himself for his mortal sins committed, as if God is punishing
him inexorably, whether he wants it or not. Men will condemn themselves for their decision not to
repent, not wanting to be forgiven, and for their pride in continuing to reject God eternally.
At the moment of death, God will present Himself to us with all His divine love
and will give us the opportunity to feel His love and have the choice, fully consciously, to love or
reject Him forever. What option would you choose? Think that hell can also be a reality for you.
Every sin you commit gradually takes you away from God and His love. If you want to go to hell,
sin is the easiest and fastest way. The more serious your sins are, the deeper you will
be in your own hell from now on and your heart will be filled with hatred, violence and evil.
Hell will be your sad end if you live closed in on yourself and refuse to love, serve,
help and do good to others. Hell will be your own prison, built by yourself, a prison
of hatred and violence where you can never be happy. Hell will be total darkness and sadness,
the eternal slavery of Satan and his minions, it will be an eternal life with demons.
Why don't you make up your mind right now to love God and others? Why don't you repent of your sins?
Why don't you ask God insistently for the grace of salvation? You will not unintentionally condemn
yourself. Do not be afraid. If you want to be good, even if you are weak, God will be your
strength. You decide to do good instead of evil, decide to love instead of hate. Remember that hell
is not wanting to love and never being able to say JESUS. Hell is the eternal rejection of love.
Saint Frances of Rome who lived from 1384 to 1440 says to Father Mattiotti:
She was taken in spirit to hell. At the entrance she saw a very great and terrifying abyss.
She saw some signs that said: "This is hell without hope and where there is never comfort."
She was accompanied by the archangel Saint Raphael and she saw a very large and very black dragon.
His mouth was open and a huge blaze of fire came out of it.
She heard many bitter voices screaming, blaspheming and lamenting.
In hell, Saint Frances of Rome saw the most horrible things that can be imagined,
although evidently they were only figures or images to understand the terribleness of hell
and living forever in the company of demons, who do not have the slightest degree of compassion for
others. There were the demons with an unbearable stench, tremendous darkness and many other pains
and torments. She then was taken to purgatory and there she saw three different levels. In
the lowest there was fire; in the second stage the souls suffered but not so much.
In the third and highest degree were the souls that were close to going to heaven.
She later was taken to heaven where she saw the blessed souls with the angels.
Blessed Osanna of Mantua who lived from 1449 to 1505 says: She was taken by an angel to
another place full of very dark darkness, where there were many who were screaming shrilly.
Their laments were joined by the torment of cruel demons that continually burned
souls with burning fire. Blessed Osanna had compassion on them
and she would have wanted to help them, but there was no hope of forgiveness for them.
Father Jeronimo tells us: Early one morning in January I celebrated Mass in her room and
she was in ecstasy, staying like that for more than two hours. At the end of the Mass she came
to herself and spoke of the divine Majesty that she had seen in that ecstasy, with such clarity
that she cannot express herself. Later she says herself, I was shown hell and purgatory.
How horrible is hell and the bitter torments suffered by the damned! In purgatory the pains are
so great that no creature should ever desire them, in the way that some wish, that is, to pass the
penance of their sins in purgatory. There is no human tongue or intelligence that can understand
or express the slightest part of these sorrows, except the soul that has seen these things.
Saint Teresa of Ávila who lived from 1515 to 1582 describes her vision of hell like this:
While I was in prayer one day, I found myself at one point without knowing how, to be in hell.
I understood that the Lord wanted me to see the place that the demons had prepared for me there
and that I deserved for my sins. This happened in a very short period of time, although I lived many
years afterwards and it seems impossible to forget it. The entrance seemed to me like a very long
and narrow alley, like a very low and dark and narrow furnace: the floor seemed to me like water,
like very dirty mud and with a pestilential smell and many bad vermin in it. At the end
there was a concavity tucked into a wall, like a cupboard, where I saw myself getting into a very
narrow space. I felt a fire in my soul that I cannot understand how to say the way it is.
Venerable Benoite Rencurel who lived from 1647 to 1718 says: The demons also took her to hell,
according to Benoite's hermit confidant. She saw countless people she knew submerged in flames
up to their waist, and saw all sorts of monstrous beasts. Two angels came to her aid and returned
her to Laus. These angels told her that God had allowed this so she would have compassion
on sinners. She always prays for them when she is fatigued. Father Gaillard notes: The demons took
her three times to the gates of hell, where she saw many people suffering terribly in the flames.
She heard horrible screams and prayed to God to get them out of there.
The demons tormented her for 50 years, threatening her, kidnapping her and taking her to deserted
places, beating her and making her suffer in a thousand ways with God's permission
so she would personally know the malice of demons and how terrible it is to fall into their clutches
and go to hell and be under its rule for all eternity. She defended herself with the means that
the Church indicates from the demons: holy water, the sign of the cross, prayer and blessed objects.
One day a demon said to Venerable Benoîte Rencurel: If you take the holy water,
I will devour you, but she took it and poured holy water on it and the demon disappeared.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.