Hell Is Real - Part Three

We are finite creatures. We live in the here and now and have great difficulty in comprehending the subject of eternity. Forever. In this third and final installment on our frank discussion of hell—what is it, what is it like—I want to focus on the grim fact that those cast into this place of torture and punishment are there forever. The thought of that alone makes me shudder.

It is one thing to imagine the experience of hell for just a weekend visit, it’s quite another to contemplate that if you go there, you will never get out. The human creature is connected to time—whether it is the awareness of each hour that passes in a day, or the seasons that come and go and the progressive aging obvious in everything around us—we are intimately related to it. To wrap our brains around eternity is difficult, but it is an essential focus if you want to truly understand the suffering of hell.

“The Devil who had led them astray was thrown into the pool of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

One of the most sobering thoughts for me is the image of the Second Coming of Jesus. As we are told, “Jesus who had been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11). The souls of all people will be judged then, in this final judgement, and Satan and the lost souls will be locked finally and forever in hell. The door will be permanently sealed. The fire, designed by Divine Justice to punish, will be closed in there forever—without God or goodness or hope or love. The suffocating smoke, the mournful cries of souls wedged tightly together will be eternally encased within this dreadful prison.

But for now I can almost hear them as they writhe and wail, “Woe is me! Woe is me!” It is a horrible and very certain reality.

Each year I read to my eighth grade catechism class the following description of what eternity is, from his writings: The Pains of Hell, by St. Anthony Mary Claret. There is always a difficulty when teaching a group of young teenagers on a Monday evening to keep them focused and attentive. When I read this, I always have their undivided attention:

Suppose that, in the case of unhappy Cain, weeping in hell, he shed in every thousand years just one tear. Now suppose this case: For six thousand years at least Cain has been in hell and shed only six tears, which God miraculously preserves. How many years would pass for his tears to fill all the valleys of the earth and flood all the cities and towns and villages and cover all the mountains so as to flood the whole earth? We understand the distance from the earth to the sun is thirty-four million leagues. How many years would be necessary for Cain’s tears to fill that immense space? From the earth to the firmament is, let us suppose, a distance of a hundred and sixty million leagues. O God! What number of years might one imagine to be sufficient to fill with these tears this immense space? And yet—O truth so incomprehensible—be sure of it as that God cannot lie—a time will arrive in which these tears of Cain would be sufficient to flood the world, to reach even the sun, to touch the firmament, and fill all the space between earth and the highest heaven. But that is not all. If God dried up all these tears to the last drop and Cain began again to weep, he would again fill the same entire space with them and fill it a thousand times and a million times in succession, and after all those countless years, not even half of eternity would have passed, not even a fraction. After all that time burning in hell, Cain’s sufferings will be just beginning.

The purpose of these discussions on hell is not to cause us to fall into despair. “Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart” (Psalm 90:12). Sometimes we must be roused from our natural human complacency and moved to action. What action? you may ask. There is nothing that we can ever do to earn Heaven and prevent hell. The truth is, we deserve hell. Each one of us.

That is why this time of Divine Mercy is so amazing. The darker the world the more light that shines from His merciful heart. Jesus longs for us to come to Him, to know that no matter the sin, there is forgiveness. Truly, it is impossible for us to reach Heaven without Him. “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

I will leave you with the haunting words of Jesus to St. Faustina: “Souls perish in spite of My bitter Passion. I am giving them the last hope of salvation; that is, the Feast of My Mercy. If they will not adore My mercy, they will perish for all eternity. …tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near (965, Diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Stockbridge, MA: Association of Marian Helpers, 1996).

And then He tells not only St. Faustina, but all of us what to do: “I thirst. I thirst for the salvation of souls. Help Me, my daughter, to save souls. Join your sufferings to My Passion and offer them to the heavenly Father for sinners” (1032).