Catholic Dogma on Hell (II)

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JMJ

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The Reality of Hell


In our previous post, cf., "Catholic Dogma on Hell (I)," we underlined how this Catholic concept is an eternal truth which proceeds from the reality of God Who Is BOTH merciful AND just. God hath loved us with an everlasting love (Jer. 31.3) but rational creatures that we are, possessed of intellect and FREE will - having been created to the image and likeness (Gen. 1.26) of God - we have the capacity to spurn Him and His love. God Himself is the Highest Good and therefore the very reward of His love repaid with charity (that love which is according to the love with which Christ has loved us unto the summit of the Cross, cf., Jn. 13.34); on the other end, eternal pain and torments is just the necessary lot of those who have determined, in spite of God's mercy and patience and His drawings of love by means of His grace (today's Gospel, God's visitation, the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, cf., our post "The Time of God's Visitation"),  to rather lose This Eternally Highest Good in exchange for a lesser good - that is, anything but God. God cannot annihilate the wicked - reducing them back to nothing - in so much as an eternal decree of love comes with their having been called into being and what the Beloved Omniscient has decreed it can never be recalled, cf., Rom. 11.29.


In the Old Testament, only in its later Books can we find a clear assertion regarding the eternal punishment of the godless. The Lord the Almighty and Just will take revenge on the enemies of His people and will persecute them on the Day of Judgment: He will give fire, and worms into their flesh, that they may burn, and may feel forever (Jud. 16.20). They... shall see the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against Me: their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched (Is. 66.24). 


In the New Testament, Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word made flesh (cf., Jn. 1.14), threatens sinners with the punishment of hell. And these [the goats, cf., "The Good Goats" of the Neo-'Catholic Theology' in our post "The Ultimate Delusion of Vatican II 'Catholicism'"] shall go into everlasting punishment (Mt. 25.46). He calls it Gehenna (originally, the valley of the son of Ennom, cf. Jos. 15.8, where human sacrifice was once offered, cf., Jer. 7.31, and which eventually became Jerusalem's filthy heap of refuse where its continually burning fires came to symbolize the eternal fires of hell), cf., Mt. 5.29ff; 10.28; 23.15,33; Mk. 9.43,45,47; Hell fire (Mt. 5.22; 18.9); Hell where the worm does not die (probably from the OT description of Gehenna with its filth) and the fire is not extinguished (Mk. 9.46ff), everlasting fire (Mt. 25.41), unquenchable fire (Mt. 3.12; Mk. 9.42), furnace of fire (Mt. 13.42.50), everlasting pain (Mt. 25.46). There will be darkness there (Mt. 8.12; 22.13; 25.30), wailing and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 13.42,50; 24.51; Lk. 13.28).


St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles to whom alone were entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of God, warns that God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments (Second Epistle 2.4). According to the Beloved Apostle, St. John, in the Book of the Apocalypse: [the godless] shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone (21.8). The Apostle St. Jude: As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighboring cities... having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. In like manner [men and nations of this age] defile flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty (7).

The Apostle St. Paul attests that the Lord Jesus...  In a flame of fire, giving vengeance to them who know not God, and who obey not the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ... shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction, from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of His power (2 Thess. 1.7-9). In his Epistle to the Romans: But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up to thyself wrath... of the just judgment of God. Who will render to them... that are contentious, and who obey not the truth, but give credit to iniquity, wrath and indignation. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil... (2.5,6,8-9). And to the Hebrews: For if we sin wilfully after having the knowledge of the truth, there is...  a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume the adversaries (10.26-27).


The Fathers of the Church unanimously teach the reality of hell. According to St. Ignatius of Antioch, the person who "corrupts the faith of God, for which Jesus Christ was crucified, by evil teaching, will go into the unquenchable fire; and so will the person who listens to him" (Letter to the Ephesians 16.2).


Related post: "The Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima: Hell Exists"

The Great Secret of Fatima

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JMJ

In Her third apparition of July 13, ninety-five years ago, in Fatima, Portugal the Great Sign in Heaven (Apoc. 12.1) did not only give Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta a vision of hell (considered to be the first part of the Great Secret of Fatima) but also told them what has become known as the second part of the Great Secret of Fatima:

"You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. [1] To save them God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. [2] The war is going to end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes by means of wars, famine, and persecution of the Church and of the Holy Father. [3] To prevent this I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. [4] If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world. [5] In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, ETC..."

After revealing the Secret, the Lady concluded Her instructions to the children: "Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you [Lucia] may tell him. WHEN YOU SAY THE ROSARY, SAY AFTER EACH MYSTERY, 'O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need.'"

In the enumeration given above, the division of the Great Secret of Fatima was considered; chronologically, the phrase “In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc.” originally precedes the promised triumph of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the conclusion of the Third Secret of Fatima (which is referred to by “etc.” and which in turn could therefore be a revelation of why and how “In Portugal”, not in Rome – where the Chair of Peter and the Seat of Truth is – “the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved”).

The Great Sign in Heaven (Apoc. 12.1), the Woman of the Apocalypse, warned that “many” souls will be doomed to eternal damnation in hell unless Russia is consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart. “Many” souls will imbibe the subtle diabolical errors which Russia, until her consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, will spread throughout the world. This “many” will run to such great proportions as to involve “various nations” meeting the same tragic fate that befell Sodom and Gomorrah: annihilation by fire and brimstone, cf., Lk. 17.29-30 – for the height of man’s folly, obstinacy in error, in this age (“a new order [emphasis ours] of human relations,” Pope John XXIII in his opening speech at the Second Vatican Council, in W. Abbott, S.J., ed., The Documents of Vatican II, Guild Press, 1966, pp. 710-719) is translated to the basest disorientation of his bestial passion, that is, homosexuality (cf., St. John Chrysostom in our post "Our Lady, Vatican II Disorientation, the Annihilation of Many Nations"): the earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof: because they have transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinance, they have broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore shall a curse devour the earth, and the inhabitants thereof shall sin: and therefore they that dwell therein shall be mad, and few men shall be left… They have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom [that is, they parade and even with pride the perversion of their sexual orientation], and they have not hid it: woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them (Is. 24.5-6; 3.9).

Error leads to sin. Thy heart… turned away… being deceived with error (Deut. 30.17). Seek not death in the error of your life (Wis. 1.12). Obstinacy in error confirms the wicked in their sinfulness. He shall not believe, being vainly deceived by error, that he may be redeemed with any price (Job. 15.21). Life terminated in opposition to God and to the order of things ordained by Him makes the wicked condemn himself to the fate of the devil and his angels in hell.

Related posts: "The Failed Papal Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart"; "The Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima: Hell exists"

Catholic Dogma on Hell (I)

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JMJ

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

I have loved thee with an everlasting love… (Jer. 31.3) And so God destined us to a life of eternal happiness with Him beyond the grave. But to spurn God and His claim to our first love and charity (cf., Apoc. 2.4), this loss of what consists our eternal good and happiness is only logically made palpable by the most excruciating pain in the eternal fires of hell – originally prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25.41). “Eternal woe is due to him who destroys in himself eternal good,” says St. Augustine, and this same great Saint and Doctor of the Church adds, “It is right that he who rejects God should be rejected by God” (in Frs. Spirago-Clarke, The Catechism Explained). “Thus,” says St. John Damascene, “the pains of hell are due not so much to God as to man himself” (in ibid.). St. John Chrysostom applies the words of St. Paul to the kind of everlasting pain and torments that await sinners in hell: Neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered the heart of man to conceive what God has prepared for them that love Him not (1 Cor. 2.9).

Our Lord Jesus Christ exhorts us to fear God, Who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Mt. 10.28). Thus, the Good and Tender Shepherd Himself teaches us, contrary to what the Neo-Catholic hierarchy subtly projects or at times unequivocally presents (cf., our post “The Ultimate Delusion of VaticanII ‘Catholicism’”) to suit the perverted mentality of the modern age, that mercy and wrath are with Him (Ecclus. 16.12), that being the true God of BOTH mercy AND justice He is mighty to forgive, and to pour out indignation (ibid.). Hence the true Catholic Church teaches that “God is infinitely just, i.e., He rewards all good and [rigorously] punishes all evil deeds” – a truth which cannot be "rendered obsolete with the passing of the times," as is the anathematized delusive pretention of the perverted Modernists.

Sacred Scripture tells us “that on account of one single sin, that of our first parents, [billions] of men have to suffer pain and death; and countless numbers will be miserable forever. Thence we gather how God hates sin. The same conclusion follows from the fact that Our Lord had to die an agonizing death to atone for sin [as demanded by the rigors of divine justice]. But our fear of God must be filial [a special gift of the Holy Ghost] not a servile fear, that is, we must fear not so much the punishment of sin, as the offence against so good, loving, compassionate, and most generous Divine Being [– the result of a great Christian charity]. Yet we must try and avoid, from fear of punishment, those sins from which the yet imperfect love of God is not sufficient to deter us" (Fr. Spirago, The Catechism Explained).


Related post: "The Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima: Hell exists" 

Flower of Carmel

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JMJ

Solemn Commemoration of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel

The Blessed Virgin is a Mother who clothes us with grace and takes our spiritual life under Her protection, in order to bring it to its full flowering in eternal life. She, the Immaculate, ​full of grace ​ from the first moment of Her conception, takes our souls stained by sin, and with a maternal gesture, cleanses them in the Blood of Christ and clothes them with grace, which, together with Him, She has merited for us. We can truly say that the garment of grace was woven by the blessed hands of Mary, who day by day, moment by moment, gave Herself entirely, in union with Her Son, for our salvation.

Legend tells of the seamless robe which the Blessed Virgin wove for Jesus; but, for us - and in reality - She has done much more. She has cooperated in obtaining the garment of our eternal salvation, the wedding garment in which we shall enter the banquet hall of heaven. From the moment we received it, Mary has never ceased to follow us with Her maternal gaze, to safeguard within us the life of grace. Each time we are converted and return to God or rise again after falling into sin - be it great or small - each time we increase in grace, all, everything, is effected through Mary's mediation. The Scapular, the "little habit," that Our Blessed Mother offers us, is only the external symbol, but also the sign, the pledge of eternal salvation. "My beloved son," the Blessed Mother said to St. Simon Stock, "take this Scapular... whoever dies clothed in it will not suffer eternal fire" (cf., "Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Her Scapular"). The Blessed Virgin gives the assurance of the supreme grace of final perseverance to all who wear WORTHILY Her habit. 

"Those who wear the Scapular," said Pope Pius XII, "profess to belong to Our Lady" [and obey Her "Rule" - see "The 'Rule' of Our Lady...": a nine-day novena series of spiritual exhortations] and the Because we belong to Mary She takes special care of our souls. One who belongs to Her cannot be lost or be touched by eternal fire. Her powerful maternal intercession gives Her the right to repeat, for Her children, the words of Jesus: Holy Father... those whom Thou gavest Me have I kept; and none of them is lost ​(Jn. 17.12).

Devotion to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel indicates a strong call to the interior life, which, in a very special way, is Mary's life. The Blessed Virgin wants us to resemble Her in heart and mind much than by performing external forms of devotion. If we penetrate into Mary's soul we see that grace produced in Her a very rich interior life: a life of recollection, prayer, uninterrupted giving of Herself to God, and of constant contact and intimate union with Him. Mary's soul is a sanctuary reserved for God alone where no creature has ever left an imprint; here reign love and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of men. 

Those who wish to live truly devoted to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, must follow Mary into the depths of the interior life. Carmel is the symbol of the contemplative life, of life wholly consecrated to seeking God and tending wholly toward divine intimacy; and She who best realizes this very high ideal is Mary, ​Regina Decor Carmeli ​("Queen, Beauty of Carmel"). ​Judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and justice shall sit in Carmel. And the work of justice shall be peace, and the service of justice quietness and security forever. And my people shall sit in the beauty of peace, and in the tabernacles of confidence. ​These verses, taken from the Prophet Isaias (32.16-18) and repeated in the Office proper to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, delineate very well the contemplative spirit and, at the same time, they are a beautiful picture of Mary's soul which is a real ​garden​ (Carmel in Hebrew signifies "garden") of virtues, an oasis of security completely enveloped in the shadow of God, and filled with God. Every interior soul, even if living amid the tumult of the world, must strive to reach this peace, this interior silence, which alone makes continual contact with God possible. It is our passions and attachments that make noise within us, that disturb our peace of mind and interrupt our intimate converse with God. Only the soul that is wholly detached and in complete control of its passion can, like Mary, be a solitary, silent ​garden​ where God will find His delights. This is the grace we ask of Our Immaculate Mother today when we choose Her to be the Queen and mistress of our interior life.

A most blessed Feast to all!

Related posts: "Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Her Scapular" & "The Scapular: Sign of Eternal Alliance with the Woman Who Shall Crush the Head of Satan"

The Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima: Hell exists

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JMJ

Anniversary of the Third Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima

​For mercy and wrath are with Him, He is mighty to forgive, and to pour out indignation ​(Ecclus. 16.12, DRV)

This day, July 13, exactly 95 years ago, Our Lady opened Her hands as She had done on Her previous visits. However, there was no divine light revealing the love of God and His sorrow for sin, or the Immaculate Heart of Mary, wounded by thorns of sin. Instead, the children saw the rays of light from the ​Woman​'s hand penetrate the earth to reveal the justice of an offended God: a sea of fire. It was hell: the place of everlasting punishment originally ​prepared for the devil and his angels​ (Mt. 25.41). Thus, anticipating the diabolical warfare of subtle deception - the "diabolical disorientation" - under the guise of the New 'Catholic Theology', to be diffused out of the Vatican itself forty-five years later (the "New Evangelization: [g]od loves and heals UNREPENTANT sinners," cf., our post "The Ultimate Delusion of Vatican II 'Catholicism'"), the ​Great Sign ​of the Apocalyptic Battle (Apoc. 12) offers us the first line of defense against the deceitful ancient enemy: ​ Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth... In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one ​(Eph. 6.13,14,16). ​Whom resist ye, strong in ​Faith ​(1 Pet. 5.9). ​And this is the victory which overcometh... our Faith ​(1 Jn. 5.4) which infallibly teaches that the true God is the God of both justice and mercy: ​mercy and wrath are with Him​. Our Immaculate Mother therefore bids us as the Word of God does: Stand fast: and hold the traditions [Gk: paradosis] which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle (2 Thess. 2.14). If anyone preach to you a gospel , besides that which you have received, let him be anathema (Gal. 1.9).

Sr. Lucia, C.D. remembers the vision visibly: "We could see a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and lost souls, as if they were red-hot coals, transparent and black or bronze-colored, in human form, which floated about in conflagration, borne by the flames which issued from them, with clouds of smoke, falling on all sides as sparks fall in a great conflagration without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of sorrow and despair that horrified us and caused us to tremble with fear. The devils could be distinguished by horrible and loathsome forms of animals, frightful and unknown, but transparent like black coals that have turned red-hot."

After the vision, the ​Woman ​of the Apocalypse told Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta: "You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart."

Salvation in the Blood of the Lamb of God

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JMJ

Feast of the Most Precious Blood of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Salvation! To be saved! What is to be saved? Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him (1 Cor. 2.9). It is a rescue, and from such a shipwreck. It is a rest, and in such an unimaginable home. It is to lie down in the bosom of God in an endless rapture of insatiable contentment with that eternal exchange of mutual love flowing from the Heart of the Father most tender and immeasurably good.

Thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins (Mt. 1.21). Who else but Jesus can do this; and what else even from Him do we require but this? for in this lie all things which we can desire.

Of all miseries the bondage of sin is the most miserable. It is worse than all our earthly sorrow, worse than all our earthly pain; for it is a most insolent slap, as it were, made on the face of God - our greatest benefactor - Who insists, with warnings of chastisement, on His order of things which runs counter against that 'order' of life we would like to live. It is such a ruin that no other ruin is like unto it; for, what is man - stricken as he were by a fatal degenerative disease after his Fall from the grace of His Creator, Father, and Benefactor - like in his present age left to his own independent and free of the yoke of God and of His Church. At the base of his 'human dignity' is the mire where even dogs burning in their beastly lust on the street would refuse to wallow in.

The bondage of sin is the misery that troubles all the peace of life. It poisons the very blessings of God which should have been for our healing. It doubles the burden of life, which are heavy enough already. It makes death a terror and a torture, and the eternity beyond the grave an infinite and intolerable darkness. The first moment after death is a moment which must infallibly come to every one of us. Earth lies behind us, silently wheeling its obedient way through the black-tinted space. The measureless spaces of eternity lie outstretched before us. The words of our sentence have scarcely floated away into silence. It is a sentence either of our salvation or of our damnation.

From all this horror whither shall we look for deliverance? Not to ourselves; for we know the practical infinity of our weakness, and the incorrigible vitality of our corruption. Not to any earthly power; for it has no jurisdiction here. Not to philosophy, literature, or science; for in this case they are but sorry and unhelpful matters. Not to any saint, however holy, nor to any angel, however mighty; for the least sin, an offense against God, is a bigger mountain than they have faculties to move. Not to the crowned Queen of God's creation, the glorious and sinless Mary; for even Her holiness can not satisfy for sin, nor the whiteness of Her purity take out its deadly stain. And neither may we look for deliverance direct from the patience and compassion of God Himself; for in the abysses of His wisdom it has been decreed, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins] (Heb. 9.22). It is from the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ - prefigured by the blood of animals poured forth on the altar of Old - alone that our salvation comes. He that is just, be sanctified still: and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still (Apoc. 22.11). But how shall we be justified still and sanctified still? Let us always draw towards the Confessional and the high altar of God's Traditional sanctuaries, washing our robes and having them made white in the blood of the Lamb (cf., Apoc. 7.14).

A blessed Feast to all!