The Question of Hell

The subject of Hell is not an easy one.     In Matthew 25:41 the Jesus of Scripture says to the wicked "Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels"   So we have two important points here.  There is something called 'everlasting fire' and that God has already put beings there.   The third point seems to be that God has put them there, or has He?  

I was educated in a Church that followed the Jesus of Scripture.   Remember the Jesus that said to Pilate that he had come to bear witness to the truth.   If we say we believe in Scripture then we must believe in the Jesus of Scripture and not the false Christs of human invention that makes the Church the kind of place we feel comfortable in, and if we are not comfortable it is the Church that is to blame.   So let us look further into what Jesus had to say about Hell and what the Church had to say about Hell.    Remember the Church that Jesus gave authority to " Go therefore and teach all nations...."   And it was not to the educated and the wise, to University experts, or lay prophets, but to fishermen - those who accepted Him as little children.    We meet the word Hell first in the Creed.  "He descended into Hell"  My penny Catechism which thank God I learned off by heart despite the sneers of the enlightened told me that Jesus descended into that part of Hell called Limbo.  I then learned that Limbo was a place of rest where the souls of the just who died before Christ were detained.  It is worth noting there was no mention of unbaptised babies going to Limbo for this was never taught at the Council of Trent from which source the catechism was based.  It seems Thomas Aquinas thought this and it was taken up by priests and laity.   But getting back to Hell if Jesus went to part of it then surely everlasting fire must mean something other than physical fire for how could just men survive in such a place.   I do not believe either that Jesus was talking about the Rubbish Dump at Jerusalem.  Yes it might be terrible to live in a rubbish dump for eternity, but this was a childish attempt to get away from the 'everlasting fire'.   

We are called by Jesus to a life of love.  Why did God make us?  The Penny Catechism says  "God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next"   That is why I am a Christian.  It is my calling, it is the calling of the sick and the handiuapped, the baby at the breast, and the baby in the womb.   We are all called to this life of Love and service.  Yet many do not live their lives that way.  They enslave, they torture, they despise and they hate.   They see love as weakness.  And having formed and evil nature when they die they cannot change.  They would destroy the happiness of Heaven itself as the Devil and his Angels did. But worse they would hate to be in the presence of the Love of God.  They despise everything good.
They have a fire in their heart but it is not the fire of love but of hate.

When Our lady of Fatima appeared to the children she taught them how to put the love of God into their hearts by prayer and penance.   She showed them a vision of what hell could be like for those poor souls who condemned themselves to an eternity of hate.   She asked them to constantly pray for the conversion of those poor souls who would be lost because they had nobody to show then what love was.   

Evangelisation springs from OUR LOVE OF GOD.   When we are inflamed with the Love of God, there is nothing we would not do to show that love within us.  That an encounter with us is an encounter with Jesus himself.  We can give to the poor from our natural goodness but as Christians much more is asked of us. We must endeavour to love them as Christ loves them.   Yes, perhaps even die for them.  Human kindness would never be enough.  "O My God, I believe, I adore,  I hope in you and I loveyou, and I ask forgiveness for those who will not believe, nor adore, nor hope in you, nor love you"  This is the prayer the angel taught the children at Fatima.  Let it be our prayer to recite over and over again.

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