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Images of Hell
Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 11-20-19 | Msgr. Charles Pope

Posted on 11/21/2019, 4:29:58 PM by Salvation

Posted on November 20, 2019November 17, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope

Images of Hell

This is the twelfth in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

Hell, Fra Angelico, Museo di San Marco, Florence

Part of what makes Jesus’ teaching on Hell difficult is the severe imagery He uses. In pointing to Hell, he seems to point to its deepest pits. He warns of eternal fire, undying worms, and wailing and grinding of teeth. Rather than lingering on philosophical descriptions or on the more subtle aspects of suffering, Jesus goes to the deepest aspects of the sufferings of Hell.

The undying fire in Hell is not a mere physical one; it is a fire of rage and disgust that consumes as it causes pain. In contrast, the refining fire of God’s love purifies. The souls of the dammed in Hell are seething inside and enduring the heat of the indignation of others.

The worms, real and allegorical, gnaw at and devour what little energy the rage has not already burned away. Unjust anger is ultimately exhausting; it saps life the way worms do. Their gnawing brings weariness and weakness, lethargy and listlessness. Depression is anger turned inward. Indeed, when Dante gets to the pit of Hell he sees Satan, strangely bored and up to his waist in ice! In fact, Satan is so bored that he barely notices the presence of Dante and Virgil. Satan’s anger saps him the way intestinal worms do in the physical body. His wrath consumes what little remains of his energy. For now, he rages, for he knows his time is short. Soon enough he will collapse, dissipated and consumed, a sad and pathetic creature: How you have fallen O Lucifer, O Daystar … Cast down to Sheol, into the pit! (Isaiah 14:12, 15)

As for the wailing and grinding of teeth, this double image makes it clear that it has nothing to do with sorrowful repentance. The wailing is linked to anger, expressed in the grinding of teeth. This is an angry sorrow at having been conquered, having been bested, having lost. The defiant refusal to repent from serious sins and the anger at “being told what to do” are the source of this anger. No, the sorrow is not a contrition leading to repentance, but a kind of anger that grinds away in the gnashing of teeth.

The Lord certainly gives powerful images! But we do well to understand the subtleties of Hell as well. Perhaps being in Hell is to be missing the one thing necessary. Perhaps it is like owning a mansion without a key to get in, or having a fortune in a bank account without the PIN to access it. It would be better not to have them at all than to have them but lack the one thing necessary to access them! Along these lines Archbishop Sheen told the following “joke” about Hell:

There is not a golfer in America who has not heard the story, which is theologically sound, about the golfer who went to Hell and asked to play golf. The Devil showed him a 36-hole course with a beautiful clubhouse, long fairways, perfectly placed hazards, rolling hills, and velvety greens. Next, the Devil gave him a set of clubs so well balanced that the golfer felt he had been swinging them all his life. Out to the first tee they stepped, ready for a game. The golfer said, “What a course! Give me the ball.” The Devil answered: “Sorry, we have no golf balls in Hell. That’s the hell of it!” (Three to Get Married, Kindle Edition, Loc. 851-57)

This is a subtle but piercing description of Hell. Perhaps Hell has its “goods” but there is no way to enjoy them! Many are surprised to think that there could be anything “good” in Hell at all. But, since evil is the privation of the good, if demons, the damned, and Hell itself had nothing good, they would not exist at all! There is no such thing as pure evil, for it would be pure nothing. So, there are good things in Hell, but the key to enjoying them is missing. God, of course, is the key to unlocking every other good. Having rejected the vision of God for their life, the damned lack the “one thing necessary” to unlock every other blessing. The frustration of this is but a more intense version of what many now experience as they try to satisfy their infinite longing with finite things. It doesn’t work. We have a God-size hole in our heart and only God can fill it. Until we learn this lesson and set our sights on Him, we will be frustrated and unfulfilled. If we die refusing to learn this lesson, refuse to admit our need for Him and what He is offering, we are doomed to the eternal frustration of lacking the one blessing necessary to unlock every other blessing.

Another description of Hell comes from St. Paul of the Cross. Imprisoned for his faith, he wrote the following passage, in which he presents an image of how the very denizens of Hell become one another’s chief source of suffering. It is the antithesis of the Communion of the Saints, a kind of “chaos of the condemned.”

The prison here is a true image of everlasting hell: to cruel tortures of every kind—shackles, iron chains, manacles—are added hatred, vengeance, calumnies, obscene speech, quarrels, evil acts, swearing, curses, as well as anguish and grief … How am I to bear with the spectacle, as each day I see … their retinue blaspheming your holy name, O Lord, who are enthroned above the Cherubim and Seraphim? Behold, the pagans have trodden your cross underfoot! Where is your glory? As I see all this, I would, in the ardent love I have for you, prefer to be torn limb from limb and to die as a witness to your love (From a letter of St. Paul Le-Bao-Tinh sent to students of the Seminary of Ke-Vinh in 1843 [Paris Foreign Mission Society, Paris, 1925], pp. 80-83).

In the above passage, Hell is described as a place of violence, hatred, vengeance, and calumny. People in Hell experience a kind of death by a thousand cuts. It is not hard to imagine such terrible things because to some degree they are the daily fare of this world, but in Hell they triumph and will never end. From Hell there is no hope of escape through the emergency exits of forgiveness, mutual mercy, reconciliation, or growth in virtue. That day is gone, replaced only by selfishness, greed, hate, revenge, envy, wrath, and bitterness. It is the bad fruit of every sinful tendency amplified by the free and unfettered manipulation of demons. The inmates run the asylum, and to the cruelest and crudest go the spoils. It is a pretty awful picture to be sure.

The grim descriptions of Jesus remain dogma; our own descriptions are a bit more speculative. Do your best to stay out of Hell! Whatever brief promises of pleasure Satan and sin might give you now, the visions of Hell are awful indeed.

Only grace and mercy can rescue us from the lies of Satan and sin. Run to Jesus, repenting of your sins. Ask for the grace to recognize the awful reality of Hell, with its sledgehammer force and its somber subtleties. Ask for the grace to see through the lies to the lasting truth of the glory of Heaven. Choose Heaven by choosing God and rejecting selfish and defiant attitudes.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; hell
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Video
1 posted on 11/21/2019, 4:29:58 PM by Salvation
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To: nickcarraway; NYer; ELS; Pyro7480; livius; ArrogantBustard; Catholicguy; RobbyS; marshmallow; ...

Monsignor Pope Ping!


2 posted on 11/21/2019, 4:32:25 PM by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Salvation

Sounds like NYC, Chicago or SF....

“Hell is described as a place of violence, hatred, vengeance, and calumny. People in Hell experience a kind of death by a thousand cuts...”


3 posted on 11/21/2019, 4:41:59 PM by 2banana (My common ground with islamic terrorists - they want to die for allah and we want to kill them.)
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To: Salvation

“replaced only by selfishness, greed, hate, revenge, envy, wrath, and bitterness”

This makes me think of the past week for some reason..?


4 posted on 11/21/2019, 4:43:00 PM by Leep (It's.. (W)all or nothing..!)
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To: Salvation
Paulie Walnuts went to a psychic medium and saw the images of the Hell awaiting him.

This is what he did after that.

Paula Walnuts talks to his priest.

(It's a scene from The Sopranos - do I really have to add NSFW?)

5 posted on 11/21/2019, 4:49:22 PM by Maceman (Trump Trumps Hate!!!)
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To: Leep
“replaced only by selfishness, greed, hate, revenge, envy, wrath, and bitterness”

Sounds like a description of the Democrat voter base. Maybe they vote Democrat because misery loves company.

6 posted on 11/21/2019, 4:50:35 PM by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: Maceman

OOOP!!! PAULIE Walnuts, not PAULA.


7 posted on 11/21/2019, 4:50:37 PM by Maceman (Trump Trumps Hate!!!)
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To: Salvation

This is not a scientific, evidence based item and I am now open to ridicule.

A woman on the top rated weird news discussion show Coast to Coast AM with George Noory was discussing near death experiences people claim to have had. Yes, oxygen deprivation hallucinations are the probable origins.

But a recounting of people seeing happy futures after dying and then being revived by doctors is not the only type of experience. Some people report a black landscape with distant or near sounds of moans in pain, shrieks, agonized voices of people and so on.

The author being interviewed said she believes people who are on the wrong side in life are punished after death. Not all are going to heaven-like places. Whether “sinners” or “evil” people she doesn’t know.

Makes one stop and think (along with strong skepticism of anything on Coast to Coast AM which also has authors who discuss types of UFO aliens and how could Bigfoot survive with enough to eat).

A lighter story: Deepak Chopra wrote that a man was working above ground near some high power wires and touched one and was filled with enough electricity to instantly kill him.
He fell to the ground hard at exactly the right position flat on his back to re-start his heart. Doctors claim that jolt brought him back from being dead.

Asked what it meant the man later said “I was taken back by God but then He very very quickly changed His mind and let me go back to living again.”


8 posted on 11/21/2019, 5:05:57 PM by frank ballenger (End vote fraud & harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: Salvation

Images of hell are on the TV right now. Emanating from the HOR IC committee hearing room.


9 posted on 11/21/2019, 5:18:25 PM by VTenigma (The Democrat party is the party of the mathematically challenged)
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To: Salvation

Hell is without God and without love.


10 posted on 11/21/2019, 5:39:19 PM by ADSUM
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To: frank ballenger

CTCAM is simply talk radio for those who cannot sleep at night.


11 posted on 11/21/2019, 6:36:23 PM by Biggirl ("One Lord, one faith, one baptism" - Ephesians 4:5)
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To: Leep

The 7 deadly sins on full display.


12 posted on 11/21/2019, 6:38:12 PM by Biggirl ("One Lord, one faith, one baptism" - Ephesians 4:5)
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To: Biggirl

How right you are.

That’s exactly why I used to listen. The local station dropped it a few months ago, though.

I have insomnia mostly caused by thyroid trouble (the Rx doesn’t cure it.) I had to keep my ruminating worries,memories,regrets,fears, etc. from my mind by distraction. It’s similar to being in solitary confinement and forcing myself to survive.

Catholic radio,Coast to Coast AM and the excellent Red Eye Radio (total conservative talk) are my desperate lifeline of sanity.


13 posted on 11/21/2019, 7:14:06 PM by frank ballenger (End vote fraud & harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: Salvation

Is Detroit and/or North Philly in any of the images?


14 posted on 11/21/2019, 7:35:01 PM by Phillyred
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To: Salvation

15 posted on 11/21/2019, 7:37:45 PM by Phillyred
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To: frank ballenger

“I have insomnia mostly caused by thyroid trouble (the Rx doesn’t cure it.) I had to keep my ruminating worries,memories,regrets,fears, etc. from my mind by distraction. “

I experienced similar disturbing ruminations (but not due to thyroid), but found that a micro-dose of legal mj just before bed fixes it: lets me sleep calmly with pleasant dreams, consistently. The dosage is too low to make me feel “high”, maybe just a little, and is too low to develop a tolerance (I do not have to raise the dose). Sorry if you are adamently opposed to the idea, just telling you it works for me. And no, I don’t think I’m going to hell because of it — not for that reason, anyway!


16 posted on 11/21/2019, 10:54:28 PM by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc O'Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: steve86
....and is too low to develop a tolerance (I do not have to raise the dose)...

Thank you for your suggestion. Here in Michigan it would not even be illegal.

My addictions to political talk radio and to FR have resulted in tolerance and upping of the dosages of both.

17 posted on 11/21/2019, 11:32:56 PM by frank ballenger (End vote fraud & harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: frank ballenger

Catholic Radio is awesome!


18 posted on 11/22/2019, 1:19:30 AM by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: VTenigma

Any Democrat Party convention or candidate’s debate.


19 posted on 11/22/2019, 3:12:18 AM by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper (Figures)
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To: frank ballenger

Frank, not knowing where in MI you are,CKLW 800 AM out of Windsor, has Coast to Coast.


20 posted on 11/22/2019, 8:22:34 AM by Springman (Rest In Peace YaYa123, Bahbah, and Just Lori.)
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