Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
“Depart from me, you accursed, into everlasting fire.”  So Lent has a lot of serious content, and today our Lord speaks about hell. That's serious content for sure.
And I'd like to read to you a commentary by St. Alphonsus Liguori, specifically on the pains of hell. Commenting on these words of our Lord in the gospel, St. Alphonsus says, and his words don't really require much of my own commentary, so I'll read. St. Alphonsus says, “This command constitutes the hell of the damned. ‘Be gone from me.’ You shall be no longer mine, and I shall be no longer yours.”  Right, the separation of the soul from God is the greatest of the torments of hell. This is what St. Alphonsus is driving at throughout this whole reflection. It's the greatest torment because man is not created to be alone, right? “It is not good for man to be alone.” So separation from God is the greatest torment.
St. Alphonsus continues, “Since the greatest guilt of the sinner consists in deliberately consenting to lose God by mortal sin, the loss of God shall constitute his greatest punishment in hell. In hell, there is continual weeping, but what is the object of the bitterest tears of the unhappy damned souls? It is the thought of having lost God and through their own fault and for all eternity. And pain is produced by the loss in proportion to the value of what has been lost.”  So he uses an example, St. Alphonsus: Imagine through your own fault, losing $100. What regret? And then losing $200, that's double the regret. And then losing $300, that's triple the regret. And that's nothing in comparison with God, who's worth more than all the money in the world. He's of infinite worth.
“Now I ask, what is the good which a damned soul has lost? She has lost God, an infinite good. Hence, hell doesn't consist so much in its devouring fire and its intolerable stench, in the unceasing shrieks and howlings of the damned, nor in the terrible sight of the devils, nor in the narrowness of that pit of torments in which the damned are thrown over one another.” Again, all the torment of the senses. “The pain which constitutes hell is the loss of God. And in comparison to this pain, all other torments of hell are mere triflings.”  According to St. John Chrysostom, “a thousand hells are not equal to this pain of the loss of God.” And then St. Alphonsus says something interesting that, I'll let him speak. “He says that present sinners, for the sake of their vile pleasures, shut their eyes and neither know God nor the love which He deserves. But in hell they shall, in punishment of their sins, be made to know that God is an infinite good and infinitely amiable, lovable.”  “The sinner in this world, drowned in sensual pleasures which he chooses, scarcely knows God. He sees Him only in the dark, and therefore he disregards the loss of God.” Sinners live far from God in this world. They don't know what it's like to love God or to be loved by God, or very, very vaguely do they know.
“But in hell he shall, that sinner, shall know God and shall be tormented forever by the thought of having voluntarily lost His infinite good. In this life, the darkness of sin and the earthly affections which reign in their hearts stifle their natural tendency and inclination to a union with God, their sovereign good. And therefore the thought of being separated from God does not produce much pain. But when the soul leaves the body and is freed from the senses, which keeps her in darkness, the soul then sees that she has been created for God, and He is the only good which can make her happy, and that she has lost the good for eternity.”  And just quickly linking this to the gospel, it's interesting because in the gospel today, those who are condemned to hell object, “We didn't know that we were neglecting you, Lord, in the sick, in the hungry, in the poor, in the imprisoned,” right? So on earth, we don't need to have a perfect knowledge of what sin is. We don't need to have a perfect knowledge of who God is. It's sufficient to have a vague understanding we are failing somehow. We are doing something wrong. We are acting against the commandments, and we are responsible, right?
That's what St. Alphonsus is saying. Even this very basic knowledge, I am somehow failing God. I am somehow not doing what He has commanded. I am choosing something else besides God. Even if we don't have a complete understanding of how great our folly is, how vile sin is, and how awesome God is, that is sufficient even to lose a soul in hell. And that soul will find out in hell exactly how bad its choice was.
Terrible stuff here. I know every once in a while it's good to hear this, though. Again, that's the content of Lent. It goes on, but then there's a happy ending, so bear with me.
The damned not only cannot love God, but this is the worst thing, which makes saints shudder. In hell, they are forced to hate God. The hell of the damned consists in hating God, whom the souls who are there at the same time know to be infinitely amiable. In hell, the natural love draws souls to continually seek God in a certain sense, but their hatred drags them away from Him. These two contrary passions, like two ferocious wild beasts, incessantly tear in pieces the hearts of the damned and cause, and shall for all eternity cause, them to live in a continual death.
It's interesting that in Fatima, when Lucia and the children saw the souls there, they were being torn asunder, torn apart. The flames were issuing from within themselves, like a combustion almost. Molecules are being broken down and releasing energy. So in hell, flames come within the souls who are continually torn between a natural inclination to God, for whom they are created, and a hatred of that same God.
The reprobate shall hate and curse all the benefits which God has bestowed upon them. They shall hate the benefits of creation, redemption, and the sacraments. They shall hate in a particular manner the sacrament of baptism, by which they have, on account of their sins, been made more guilty in the sight of God. The sacrament of penance, by which, if they wish, they could have so easily saved their souls. And above all, the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, in which God had given Himself entirely to them.
They shall consequently hate all the other means which have been given to them as helps to their salvation: the angels, the saints, the guardian angel to whom God has given them. But in a special way, they shall even hate and blaspheme Our Lady, God's own mother and ours. They shall curse the three divine persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and particularly Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, who suffered so much and died for their salvation.
Hell is a terrible place, right? And it's good to hear it every once in a while, just how terrible it is.
St. Alphonsus concludes: Wow, hell being as terrible as it is, how is it that Christians still nevertheless choose sin, mortal sin, separation from God? Let us not be like fools. Let us not be so foolish as to choose anything else over God.
St. Teresa says, “It is the truth of faith that after this life, each of us must go into eternity to be forever in glory or forever in despair.” St. Teresa therefore says, “It is through a want of faith that so many Christians are lost. Therefore, as often as we say the words of the creed, “life everlasting,” let us enliven our faith. And remember that there is another life which never ends.
Let us adopt all the means necessary to secure a happy eternity. Because it depends on us. If we wish to avoid hell, we can. And we have all the means necessary. And it's actually easy and quite enjoyable to avoid hell. Let us do all and give up all if necessary. Let us leave the world in order to secure eternal happiness. When eternity is at stake, no security can be too great, says St. Bernard.”  When the children of Fatima saw a vision of hell, just for an instant, obviously they were shocked. They were paralyzed with fear at what they saw. But what was their instinctive reaction? It was Our Lady who was showing them this vision. “Poor souls go into this place, hell.” And in their fear, what did they do? They instinctively turned to Our Blessed Lady for comfort and for reassurance. And that's what we should do as well.
God has given us—God sends Our Lady from heaven, like He did in Fatima, to lead souls to heaven. So again, having heard all about hell, let's do what the children of Fatima did: turn to Our Blessed Mother, whom God has given us as our life, our sweetness, and our hope. Let's live devotion to Our Blessed Mother, which is the greatest assurance and sign of predestination. Let's live that devotion and let's spread that devotion to others as well.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.