There are over
30 repeated references to Hell in the Old Testament alone.
In the Gospels, Jesus speaks of
Hell more than of Heaven.
There are over thirty repeated references to the
existence of Hell in the Old Testament alone. For instance: "The
sorrows of death have compassed me: and the perils of Hell have
found me" (Psalms [D-R] 114:3). "For the Lord Almighty will take
revenge on them. In the day of judgment he will visit them: for he
will give fire and worms into their flesh, that they may burn, and
may feel for ever" (Judith 16:20 -21). "Depart from me, come not
near me, because thou art unclean: these shall be smoke in my anger,
a fire burning all the day" (Isaiah 65:5). "A fire is kindled in my
wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell...I will heap evils
upon the transgressors of my law, and will spend my arrows among
them" (Deut.32:22-23). "The congregation of sinners is like tow
heaped together, and the end of them is a flame of fire"
(Ecclesiastics 21:10). "He shall be punished for all he did, and yet
shall not be consumed:...he shall burn, and every sorrow shall fall
upon him...All darkness is hid in his secret places: a fire that is
not kindled shall devour him" (Job 20:18,22,26).
In the Gospels, Jesus speaks of Hell more than of
Heaven. In St. Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says "But I say to you, that
whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the
judgment....And whosoever shall say, you fool, shall be in danger of
Hell fire" (St. Matt. 5:22). "The Son of Man shall send his angels
and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin
and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth" (St. Matt.
13:41-42). In St. Mark's Gospel, Jesus warns: "And if your hand
causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into
life maimed than with two hands to go into Hell, into the
unquenchable fire..." (St. Mark 9:42).
A description of the last judgment in the Book of
Apocalypse clearly makes the point: "And I saw the dead, great and
small, standing in presence of the throne, and the books were
opened; and another book was opened, which was the book of life; and
the dead were judged by those things which were written in the
books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that
were in it, and death and Hell gave up their dead that were in them;
and they were judged every one according to their works. And Hell
and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast
into the pool of fire" (Apoc. 20:12-15).
Saint Faustina Is Shown Hell
Saint Mary Faustina, a holy nun
from Poland was canonized a saint by Pope John Paul
II on April 30, 2000. Our Lord had her to visit Hell
in 1936. Here is her awesome account of this
horrifying and dreadful place: "Today, I was led by
an angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of
great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it
is! The kinds of tortures I saw: the first torture
that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second
is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is
that one's condition will never change; the fourth
is the fire that will penetrate the soul without
destroying it
– a terrible suffering, since it is a purely
spiritual fire, lit by God's anger; the fifth
torture is continual darkness and a terrible
suffocating smell, and, despite the darkness, the
devils and the souls of the damned see each other
and all the evil, both of others and their own; the
sixth torture is the constant company of Satan; the
seventh torture is the horrible despair, hatred of
God, vile words, curses and blasphemies. These are
the tortures suffered by all the damned together,
but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are
special tortures destined for particular souls.
These are the torments of the senses. Each soul
undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings,
related to the manner in which it has sinned. There
are caverns and pits of torture where one form of
agony differs from another. I would have died at the
very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of
God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that
he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in
those senses which he made use of to sin. I am
writing this at the command of God, so that no soul
may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or
that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can
say what it is like. I, Sister Faustina, by the
order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so
that I might tell souls about it and testify to its
existence. I cannot speak about it now; but I have
received a command from God to leave it in writing.
The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had
to obey me at the command of God. What I have
written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw.
But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls
there are those who disbelieved that there is a
hell. When I came to, I could hardly recover from
the fright. How terribly souls suffer there!
Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the
conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God's
mercy upon them. O my Jesus, I would rather be in
agony until the end of the world, amidst the
greatest sufferings, than offend You by the least
sin."
|
Sister
Josefa Menendez' (1890-1923)
Description of Hell
The following material
is quoted verbatim from the book "Way of Divine Love" of Sister
Josefa Menendez (1890--1923). It first appeared in 1938 in French
and was quickly translated into numerous languages and spread
throughout the world. Sister Josefa was a Spanish nun of the Society
of the Sacred Heart and lived only four years as a religious, at the
convent of Les Feuillants in Poitiers, France, where she died at the
age of 33. "The Way of Divine Love" consists largely of her
notebooks, that she wrote down under obedience from our Lord, with
the revelations of his Sacred Heart, plus portions of her biography.
This material was composed after Rev. Schouppe wrote his book on
Hell. It is appended here, because it is similar to what he wrote in
his book, and exemplifies still further the points he is trying to
make.
This
young Spanish sister, who had a short religious life of great
suffering, experienced revelations throughout much of her life,
compiled in The Way Of Divine Love. More than once, she was
taken to Hell to witness and feel the suffering first-hand. Sister
Josefa was reluctant to write on the subject of Hell, and did so
only to conform to Our Lord's wishes. Sister Josefa repeatedly dwelt
on what she described as the greatest torment of Hell, namely, the
soul's inability to love. One of these damned souls cried out: "This
is my torture...that I want to love and cannot; there is nothing
left me but hatred and despair. If one of us could so much as make a
single act of love...But we cannot, we live on hatred and
malevolence..." (March 23, 1922).
She
records, too, the accusations made against themselves by these
unhappy souls: "Some yell because of the martyrdom of their hands.
Perhaps they were thieves, for they say: 'Where is our loot now?'
...Cursed hands... Others curse their tongues, their eyes...whatever
was the occasion of sin... 'Now, O body, you are paying the price of
the delights you granted yourself!...and you did it of your own free
will...'" (April 2, 1922).
"I saw
several souls fall into Hell, and among them was a child of fifteen,
cursing her parents for not having taught her to fear God nor that
there was a Hell. Her life had been a short one, she said, but full
of sin, for she had given in to all that her body and passions
demanded in the way of satisfaction..." (March 22, 1923).
"My
soul fell into abysmal depths, the bottom of which cannot be seen,
for it is immense. . . ; Then I was pushed into one of those fiery
cavities and pressed, as it were, between burning planks, and sharp
nails and red-hot irons seemed to be piercing my flesh. I felt as if
they were endeavoring to pull out my tongue, but could not. This
torture reduced me to such agony that my very eyes seemed to be
starting out of their sockets. I think this was because of the fire
which burns, burns. . . not a finger nail escapes terrifying
torments, and all the time one cannot move even a finger to gain
some relief, not change posture, for the body seems flattened out
and [yet] doubled in two. Sounds of confusion and blasphemy cease
not for an instant. A sickening stench asphyxiates and corrupts
everything, it is like the burning of putrefied flesh, mingled with
tar and sulfur. . . a mixture to which nothing on earth can be
compared. . . although these tortures were terrific, they would be
bearable if the soul were at peace. But it suffers indescribably. .
. All I have written," she concluded, "is but a shadow of what the
soul suffers, for no words can express such dire torment."
(September 4, 1922).
"Others curse their tongues, their eyes... whatever was the
occasion of their sin... 'Now, O body, you are paying the price of
the delights you granted yourself!.. and you did it of your own free
will... '" (April 2, 1922). (That is, illegitimate delights).
"It seemed to me that the majority accused themselves of sins of
impurity, of stealing, of unjust trading; and that most of the
damned are in Hell for these sins." (April 6, 1922).
"I saw many worldly people fall into Hell, and no words can
render their horrible and terrifying cries: 'Damned forever... I
deceived myself; I am lost... I am here forever... There is no
remedy possible... a curse on me...'
"Some accused people, others circumstances, and all execrated the
occasions of their damnation." (September 1922).
"Today, I saw a vast number of people fall into the fiery pit . . .
they seemed to be worldlings and a demon cried vociferously: 'The
world is ripe for me . . . I know that the best way to get hold of
souls is to rouse their desire for enjoyment . . . Put me first . .
. me before the rest . . . no humility for me! but let me enjoy
myself . . . This sort of thing assures victory to me . . . and they
tumble headlong into hell.' " (October 4, 1923)
"I heard a demon, from whom a soul had escaped,
forced to confess his powerlessness. 'Confound it all... how do so
many manage to escape me? They were mine' (and he rattled off their
sins)... 'I work hard enough, yet they slip through my fingers...
Someone must be suffering and repairing for them.'" (January 15,
1923). ("Repairing," that is, "making reparation" for them).
"Tonight I was transported to a place where all was obscure. . .
Around me were seven or eight people; I could see them only by the
reflections of the fire. They were seated and were talking together.
One said: 'We'll have to be very careful not to be found out, for we
might easily be discovered.'
"The
devil answered: 'Insinuate yourselves by inducing carelessness in
them. . . but keep in the background, so that you are not found out.
. . by degrees they will become callous, and you will be able to
incline them to evil. Tempt these others to ambition, to
self-interest, to acquiring wealth without working, whether it be
lawful or not. Excite some to sensuality and love of pleasure. Let
vice blind them. . . As to the remainder. . . get in through the
heart . . . you know the inclinations of their hearts. . . make them
love. . . love passionately. . . work thoroughly. . . take no rest
. . . have no pity. Let them cram themselves with food! It will make
it all the easier for us. . . Let them get on with their
banqueting. Love of pleasure is the door through which you will
reach them . . .' " (February 3, 1923).
"Tonight," wrote Josefa, "I did not go down into Hell, but was
transported to a place where all was obscure, but in the center was
a red smoldering fire. They had laid me flat and so bound me that I
could not make the slightest movement. Around me were seven or eight
people; their black bodies were unclothed, and I could see them only
by the reflections of the fire. They were seated and were talking
together.
"One said: 'We'll have to be very careful not to be found out,
for we might easily be discovered.'
"The devil answered: 'Insinuate yourselves by inducing
carelessness in them... but keep in the background, so that you are
not found out... by degrees they will become callous, and you will
be able to incline them to evil. Tempt these others to ambition, to
self-interest, to acquiring wealth without working, whether it be
lawful or not. Excite some to sensuality and love of pleasure. Let
vice blind them...' (Here they used obscene words).
"'As to the remainder... get in through the heart... you know the
inclinations of their hearts... make them love... love
passionately... work thoroughly.. take no rest... have no pity; the
world must go to damnation.. and these souls must not be allowed to
escape me.'
"From time to time Satan's satellites answered: 'We are your
slaves... we shall labor unceasingly, and in spite of the many who
war against us, we shall work night and day. We know your power!'
"They all spoke together, and he whom I took to be Satan used
words full of horror. In the distance I could hear a clamor as of
feasting, the clinking of glasses... and he cried: 'Let them cram
themselves with food! It will make it all the easier for us... Let
them get on with their banqueting. Love of pleasure is the door
through which you will reach them...'
"He added such horrible things that they can neither be written
nor said. Then, as if engulfed in a whirl of smoke, they vanished."
(February 3, 1923).
"The evil one was bewailing the escape of a soul: 'Fill her soul
with fear, drive her to despair. All will be lost if she puts her
trust in the mercy of that...' (here they used blasphemous words
about Our Lord). 'I am lost; but no, drive her to despair; do not
leave her for an instant, above all, make her despair.'
"Then Hell re-echoed with frenzied cries, and when finally the
devil cast me out of the abyss, he went on threatening me. Among
other things he said: 'Is it possible that such weaklings have more
power than I, who am mighty... I must conceal my presence, work in
the dark; any corner will do from which to tempt them... close to an
ear.. in the leaves of a book... under a bed... some pay no
attention to me, but I shall talk and talk... and by dint of
suggestion, something will remain.. Yes, I must hide in unsuspected
places.'" (February 7, 8, 1923).
Again, she wrote: "Souls were cursing the vocation they had
received, but not followed... the vocation they had lost, because
they were unwilling to live a hidden and mortified life..." (March
18, 1922.
"On one occasion when I was in Hell, I saw a great many priests,
religious and nuns, cursing their vows, their order, their Superiors
and everything that could have given them the light and the grace
they had lost...
"I saw, too, some prelates. One accused himself of having used
the goods belonging to the Church illicitly..." (September 28,
1922).
"Priests were calling down maledictions on their tongues which
had consecrated, on their fingers that had held Our Lord's Sacred
Body, on the absolution they had given while they were losing their
own souls, and on the occasion through which they had fallen into
Hell." (April 6, 1922).
"One priest said: 'I ate poison, for I used money that was not my
own... the money given me for Masses which I did I not offer.'
"Another said he belonged to a secret society which had betrayed
the Church and religion, and he had been bribed to connive at
terrible profanations and sacrileges.
"Yet another said that he was damned for assisting at profane
plays, after which he ought not to have said Mass... and that he had
spent about seven years thus."
Josefa noted that the greater number of religious plunged into
hell-fire were there for abominable sins against chastity... and for
sins against the vow of poverty... for the unauthorized use of the
goods of the community... for passions against charity (jealousy,
antipathies, hatred, etc.), for tepidity and relaxation; also for
comforts they had allowed themselves and which had led to graver
sins... for bad confessions through human respect and want of
sincerity and courage, etc.
Here, finally, is the full text of Josefa's notes on "the hell of
consecrated souls." (Biography: Ch. VII--September 4, 1922).
"The meditation of the day was on the Particular Judgment of
religious souls. I could not free my mind of the thought of it, in
spite of the oppression which I felt. Suddenly, I felt myself bound
and overwhelmed by a crushing weight, so that in an instant I saw
more clearly than ever before how stupendous is the sanctity of God
and His detestation of sin.
"I saw in a flash my whole life since my first confession to this
day. All was vividly present to me: my sins, the graces I had
received, the day I entered religion, my clothing as a novice, my
first vows, my spiritual readings, and times of prayer, the advice
given me, and all the helps of religious life. Impossible to
describe the confusion and shame a soul feels at that moment, when
it realizes: 'All is lost, and I am damned forever.'"
As in her former descents into Hell, Josefa never accused herself
of any specific sin that might have led to such a calamity. Our Lord
meant her only to feel what the consequences would have been, if she
had merited such a punishment. She wrote:
"Instantly I found myself in Hell, but not dragged there as
before. The soul precipitates itself there, as if to hide from God
in order to be free to hate and curse Him.
"My soul fell into abysmal depths, the bottom of which cannot be
seen, for it is immense... at once, I heard other souls jeering and
rejoicing at seeing me share their torments. It was martyrdom enough
to hear the terrible imprecations on all sides, but what can be
compared to the thirst to curse that seizes on a soul, and the more
one curses, the more one wants to. Never had I felt the like before.
Formerly my soul had been oppressed with grief at hearing these
horrible blasphemies, though unable to produce even one act of love.
But today it was otherwise.
"I saw Hell as always before, the long dark corridors, the
cavities, the flames... I heard the same execrations and
imprecations, for--and of this I have already written
before--although no corporeal forms are visible, the torments are
felt as if they were present, and souls recognize each other. Some
called out, 'Hullo, you here? And are you like us? We were free to
take those vows or not... but no!...' and they cursed their vows.
"Then I was pushed into one of those fiery cavities and pressed,
as it were, between burning planks, and sharp nails and red-hot
irons seemed to be piercing my flesh."
Here Josefa repeated the multiple tortures from which no single
member of the body is excluded:
"I felt as if they were endeavoring to pull out my tongue, but
could not. This torture reduced me to such agony that my very eyes
seemed to be starting out of their sockets. I think this was because
of the fire which burns, burns... not a finger-nail escapes
terrifying torments, and all the time one cannot move even a finger
to gain some relief, nor change posture, for the body seems
flattened out and yet doubled in two.
"All this I felt as before, and although those tortures were
terrific, they would be bearable if the soul were at peace. But it
suffers indescribably. Until now, when I went down into Hell, I
thought that I had been damned for abandoning religious life. But
this time it was different. I bore a special mark, a sign that I was
a religious, a soul who had known and loved God, and there were
others who bore the same sign. I cannot say how I recognized it,
perhaps because of the specially insulting manner in which the evil
spirits and other damned souls treated them. There were many priests
there, too. This particular suffering I am unable to explain. It was
quite different from what I had experienced at other times, for if
the souls of those who lived in the world suffer terribly,
infinitely worse are the torments of religious. Unceasingly the
three words, Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, are imprinted on the
soul with poignant remorse.
"Poverty: You were free and you promised! Why, then, did you seek
that comfort? Why hold on to that object which did not belong to
you? Why did you give that pleasure to your body? Why allow yourself
to dispose of the property of the Community? Did you not know that
you no longer had the right to possess anything whatsoever, that you
had freely renounced the use of those things?... Why did you murmur
when anything was wanting to you, or when you fancied yourself less
well treated than others? Why?
"Chastity: You yourself vowed it freely and with full knowledge
of its implications... you bound yourself.. you willed it... and how
have you observed it? That being so, why did you not remain where it
would have been lawful for you to grant yourself pleasures and
enjoyment?
"And the tortured soul responds: 'Yes, I vowed it; I was free...
I could have not taken the vow, but I took it and I was free...'
What words can express the martyrdom of such remorse," wrote Josefa,
"and all the time the jibes and insults of other damned souls
continue.
"Obedience: Did you not fully engage yourself to obey your Rule
and your Superiors? Why, then, did you pass judgment on the orders
that were given you? Why did you disobey the Rule? Why did you
dispense yourself from common life? Remember how sweet was the
Rule... and you would not keep it... and now," vociferate satanic
voices, "you will have to obey us not for a day or a year, or a
century, but forever and ever; for all eternity... It is your own
doing... you were free.
"The soul constantly recalls how she had chosen her God for her
Spouse, and that once she loved Him above all things... that for Him
she had renounced the most legitimate pleasures and all she held
dearest on earth, that in the beginning of her religious life she
had felt all the purity, sweetness and strength of this divine love,
and that for an inordinate passion... now she must eternally hate
the God who had chosen her to love Him.
"This forced hatred is a thirst that consumes her... no past joys
can afford her the slightest relief.
"One of her greatest torments is shame," added Josefa. "It seems
to her that all the damned surrounding her continually taunt her by
saying: 'That we should be lost who never had the helps that you
enjoyed is not surprising... but you... what did you lack? You who
lived in the palace of the King... who feasted at the board of the
elect.'
"All I have written," she concluded, "is but a shadow of what the
soul suffers, for no words can express such dire torments."
(September 4, 1922).
FOREWORD
This new edition of
a translation of Un Appel à l'Amour, is an amplification of
the smaller book of the same name which was published in 1938.
On 13th
November, shortly before her death, Our Blessed Lord had said to
Sister Josefa:
"My words will be light and life for an
incalculable number of souls, and I will grant them special graces
of conversion and illumination."
These words have been verified, for as soon as the first small
volume appeared it was eagerly seized upon, was reprinted several
times, while letters from all parts of the world gave testimony to
the profound impression created and to the signal graces that
followed on the delivery of the Message.
Within a few months
the book had been translated from the original Spanish into French,
then into Portuguese, Italian, English, Chinese, and Hungarian__thus
fulfilling Our Lord's wish that His call to the way of love should
be heard as widely as possible.
The Message,
providentially timed to appear before the general conflagration of
nations in the World War of 1939-1945, did not suffer any
interruption by it. In spite of many difficulties, it passed from
hand to hand and continued to be widely read. At the same time,
pressing requests for a more detailed biography which would make the
bearer of Our Lord's communications better known, were continually
being received and have resulted in the present publication.
The Message of Our
Blessed Lord, framed as it were, in the life history of Sister
Josefa Menéndez, consists mainly in excerpts from her notes. These
notes, written under obedience, and carefully preserved, are
connected by a running commentary, the testimony of those who day by
day assisted at the unfolding of a life which so amazingly carried
out the designs of the Heart of Jesus.
In 1926, after
careful examination of the writings of Sister Josefa, a Consultor of
the Sacred Congregation of Rites concluded his report with these
words: "I pray God that these things may become known for the
glory of God, and to strengthen the faith of diffident and timid
souls, and also that the holy religious of the Sacred Heart who
wrote them may be glorified." (From the Italian.)
Without any
intention of pronouncing judgment before Holy Church, to whom we
submit unconditionally, we think that readers of these pages will be
glad to find words of commendation from no less a personage than the
Holy Father himself, who as Cardinal Pacelli, and Protector of the
Society of the Sacred Heart at the time, gave his blessing to the
first edition which appeared in 1938. A facsimile or this letter is
reproduced, with his express consent, at the beginning of this
volume.
INTRODUCTION
On 29th December
1923, Sister Josefa Menéndez, when thirty-three years old, died a
holy death at the Convent of Les Feuillants, Poitiers. She lived as
a sister in the Society of the Sacred Heart only four years, and in
so hidden a way that the world ought never to have heard of her, and
even in her own community she should soon have been forgotten.
Yet, only twenty
years after her death, she is known all over the world. In America,
Africa, Asia, and Oceania people are praying to her and are
listening attentively to the Message which the Heart of Jesus has
given her for men.
In 1938 the
substance of the Message, under the title of Un Appel à l'Amour,
was published in Toulouse by the Apostleship of Prayer. Cardinal
Pacelly, now gloriously reigning as Pope Pius XII, wrote a forward
of recommendation in the form of a letter. Five years later a
complete biography was asked for with insistence, since readers were
anxious for all the details of a life so rich yet so hidden and in
which the very poverty of the human background threw into relief the
splendor of Christ's divine action.
This second and
complete edition is the answer to that demand. It is drawn from
Sister Josefa's notes, written day by day, under obedience, its
accuracy confirmed by the very exact reminiscences of the witnesses
of her life, namely the Superior and Mother Assistant of the Convent
of "Les Feuillants", Poitiers, and her director, Father Boyer, O.P.
The reader will
feel a certain curiosity in opening these pages, but their contents
will fill him with wonder and admiration, and he will finish the
book determined to lead a better life and to love a God who
manifested so intense a love for His creatures.
For every page
tells of the wonderful providence of God's love for man. Holy
Scripture represents Him in the psalm as following the sons and
answering their least efforts to pray. Turning with love towards His
rebel sons, from the beginning He lets His voice be heard through
marvels and through His prophets, until the day when He Himself,
taking flesh in the womb of the Virgin, tells men in human language
of the love that fills His Heart.
Jesus, the Word
Incarnate, has transmitted in all its completeness the Message He
Himself received from the Father: "Omnia quaecumque audivi
a Patre Meo, nota feci vobis" (John xv, 15). There is nothing to
add to Our Lord's words, and at the death of St. John, the last
Apostle, the divine revelation was closed and sealed. Later ages
could do no more than draw out its meaning. But its riches are
unfathomable, and most men are too inattentive and superficial to
sound the depths of the Gospel teaching; consequently, just as under
the Old Law Prophets were sent by God to revive the faith and
hope of His people, so in the New Dispensation Christ has
from time to time given certain chosen souls the mission of
interpreting His authentic words, and of revealing their depths and
hidden meaning.
Long ago, on Easter
morning, He charged Saint Mary Magdalen with announcing His glorious
Resurrection to the Apostles. In succeeding ages likewise poor and
humble women have been chosen out to transmit His most important
desires to mankind.
To recall only the
chief instances: Through Saint Juliana of Montcornillon He revived
devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and obtained the institution of
the Feast of Corpus Christi; through Saint Margaret Mary a new
stimulus was given to devotion to the Sacred Heart; through Saint
Thérèse of the Child Jesus He told a world which seemed to have
forgotten it the merit and value of spiritual Childhood, and now, He
has given a Message to Josefa Menéndez.
The three above
mentioned have been canonized by the Church, and so have received,
as it were, an official recognition of their mission. Sister Josefa
has not had this honour bestowed on her, but while she is not yet
called their Sister in glory, she is indeed their Sister in grace,
and God has been pleased to seal her testimony. He who treats His
creatures with such reverence, "Cum magna reverentia disponis nos"
(Sap. xii, 18), owed it to Himself to impress a stamp marking
His messenger clearly as the bearer of His words.
"His ways are not
our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts", and that there may be no
doubt that the communications come from Him and no other, He chooses
weak instruments, humanly speaking unfitted for the task in view; so
His strength shines forth in their infirmity.
He did not choose
the learned and the great in the world's eyes to found His Church,
Saint Paul expressly tells us, otherwise the rapid spread of
Christianity could have been attributed to their talents and
prestige … but He chose the poor and the ignorant, and of these He
made vessels of election.
And that the
greatness of their mission might not dazzle them and lead to
vainglory, He again and again reminded them of their nothingness,
their innate misery and their weakness. His gifts are only secure
when bestowed on the truly humble of heart. His Providence has
always worked in this way. His glory is manifest in man's
nothingness. "If I had been able to find a creature more
miserable than you" He said to Saint Margaret Mary, "I should
have chosen her. …"
And Sister Josefa
repeatedly heard the same declaration: "If I could have found a
more wretched creature, I should have chosen her for my special
love, and through her revealed the longings of My Heart. But I have
not found one, and so I have chosen you" (7th June 1923).
Soon after we hear
Him say: "I have selected you as one utterly useless and
destitute, that none may attribute to any but Myself, what I say,
ask and do" (12th June 1923).
As far as
appearances went, nothing signalized Josefa as in any way fitted for
so high a mission. If we remember her repeated delays in entering
religion, we might be justified in doubting the constance of her
will; then, too, her humble rank in the community, her status as a
mere novice, her great love of retirement, and the very real
obstacle of her ignorance of the language of the country, all these
hindrances combined would at first sight appear insurmountable. (1)
In reality they were tokens of God's choice. Though but a lowly
little novice, so tender-hearted as to be frequently on the point of
yielding to her sensitiveness, she would show later an unconquerable
strength of will. In the blinding light of divine revelations, she
only crept deeper into her littleness, and the closer God drew to
her the more she humbled herself. In spite of the evidence of God's
action, she was ever fearful of being deceived herself and of
deceiving her Superiors. As a matter of fact, they had rarely met
with a more obedient and docile subject, or one more deferential,
more eager to submit to control, more ready to sacrifice herself. In
her devotions, as in everything else, there was no exaggeration; she
was perfectly straightforward and simple. She was mentally healthy
and had a well-developed sense of order and proportion. The
supernatural, whose weight was often crushing, never disturbed her
interior poise, though his equilibrium was kept only at the cost of
almost superhuman endurance. All this was in reality the best
guarantee to Superiors that her communications were divine in
origin.
To Sister
Josefa Our Lord said:
"You yourself shall be My sign."
Though at first
suspicions and reserved in their judgments, both her Director and
her Superiors were forced by the evidence of her life to believe
that her mission was divine.
JOSEFA'S
MISSION
Only very
gradually did Our Lord unfold it to her; several times He had told
her that He meant to make use of her to "carry out His plans"
(9th February 1921) for "the saving of many souls that had cost
Him so dear" (15th October 1920). On the night of 24th February
1921 He gave her a yet more explicit call during her Holy Hour: "The
world does not know the mercy of My Heart," He said to her. "I
intend to enlighten them through you.… I want you to be the apostle
of My love and mercy. I will teach you what that means; forget
yourself." And in answer to the fears she expressed:
"Love and
fear nothing. I want what you do not want, but I can do what you
cannot. It is not for you to choose, you have only to resign
yourself into My Hands."
A few months
rater, on Monday, 11th June 1921, a few days after the Feast of the
Sacred Heart, when she had received many graces, He said:
"Remember My words and believe them. My Heart has but one desire,
which is to enclose you in It, to possess you in My love, then to
make of your frailty and littleness a channel to convey mercy to
many souls who will be saved by your means. Later on, I will reveal
to you the burning secrets of My Heart and many souls will profit by
them. I want you to write down and keep all I tell you. It will be
read when you are in Heaven. Do not think that I make use of you
because of your merits, but I want souls to realize how My Power
makes use of poor and miserable instruments." And as Josefa
asked if she was to tell Reverend Mother even that, He answered:
"Write it; it will be read after your death."
So by degrees Our
Lord unfolded His plan: Josefa was chosen by Him, not only to be a
victim for souls, especially for consecrated ones, but that through
her Christ's Message of love and mercy might reach the world. A
twofold mission - Victim and Messenger -
and
between the two missions there is a close connection. If Victim then
Messenger, and because Messenger, necessarily Victim.
I. Josefa as
Victim
To be a victim
necessarily implies immolation, and as a rule atonement for another.
Although strictly speaking one can offer oneself as a victim to give
God joy and glory by voluntary sacrifice, yet for the most part God
leads souls by that path only when He intends them to act as
mediators: they have to suffer and expiate for those for whom their
immolation will be profitable, either by drawing down graces of
forgiveness on them, or by acting as a cloak to cover their sins in
the face of divine justice. It stands to reason that no one will on
his own initiative take such a role on himself. Divine consent is
required before a soul dares to intervene between God and His
creature. There would be no value in such an offering if God refused
to hear the prayer.
Already in the Old
Testament victims of a certain sort only could be offered to God. To
be acceptable they must have special, clearly defined qualities:
they were to be spotless, without blemish, males of one year, and
above all the offering had to be made by a priest according to a
prescribed rite which was to be adhered to rigorously, and which
symbolized not only the dispositions of the officiating priest, but
also those of the donor of the victim.
In the New
Testament a new sacrifice takes the place of the old; Jesus Christ
is the sole Mediator, sole Priest, sole Victim, and His sacrifice is
no longer symbolic, but real and infinite.
If, then, Jesus
Christ wishes to associate other victims with Himself, they must be
closely united to Him, and share His feelings, in order to enter
fully into His sacrifice; hence they can only be human beings,
endowed with intelligence and will.
He Himself chooses
these persons, and because they are free He asks them for their
voluntary co-operation. Those who accept put themselves at His
mercy, and He then makes use of them as by sovereign right.
Assimilated and
transformed into Christ, the victim-soul expresses the sentiments of
Christ Jesus to God the Father; and to Christ Himself her attitude
is one of humiliation, penance, and expiation, sentiments which
ought to animate the souls she represents.
And because of this
identification with Christ, the victim-soul shares in His dolorous
Passion and undergoes, to a greater or lesser degree, and in various
but generally superhuman ways, the torments and agonies that were
His.
When the suffering
is borne for one specially chosen sinner the victim endures the just
retribution due to this sinner for his crimes. Every kind of trial
is endured, be it illness, or even persecution by the spirits of
darkness of which the victim becomes the sport.
With Sister Josefa
this was the case to an extraordinary degree. Victim at the express
desire of her Lord, not only was her whole being immolated, but the
manner of the immolation itself varied according to the particular
attributes of God to which she had sacrificed herself.
Saint Thérèse of
the Child Jesus offered herself as a victim of merciful love; Marie
des Vallées, as a victim of God's Justice; Saint Margaret Mary, of
both Justice and Mercy, and so it was with Sister Josefa. Christ
told her His wishes in even more explicit terms than He had used
with Saint Margaret Mary.
"I have chosen
you to be a victim of My Heart" (19th December 1920). "You
are the victim of My love " (2nd October 1920 and 23rd November
l920). "You are the victim of My love and mercy" (30th June
1921). "I want you to be the victim of divine justice and the
comfort of My Heart" (9th November 1920).
For all these
reasons Josefa must suffer. "You suffer in your soul and body,
because you are the victim of My Soul and Body. How could you not
suffer in your heart, since I have chosen you as the victim of My
Heart?" (19th December 1920).
As victim of the
Heart of Jesus she suffered in order to console the Heart that has
been so wounded by the ingratitude of men. As victim of love and
mercy she suffered that the merciful love of Jesus might overwhelm
with graces the sinner He so loved. As victim of the divine justice
she carried the intolerable burden of the divine reproaches, and
expiated for guilty souls, who would owe their salvation to her. Her
mission exacted perpetual immolation on her part, and Our Lord did
not hide it from her. "Love, suffer, and obey," He said to
her, "so that I may realize My plans in you" (9th January
1921).
On 12th June
1923 He corroborated the whole of this plan as it affected her:
"As for you, you will live in the most complete and profound
obscurity, and as you are My chosen victim, you will suffer, and
overwhelmed by suffering you will die. Seek neither rest nor
alleviation; you will find none, for such is My will. But My love
will sustain you, and never shall I fail you."
But before making
her endure such piercing and keen agony, He had asked and obtained
her consent; for though He is Sovereign Lord and Master, He
nevertheless respects the liberty of the creature.
"Are you
willing?…" He said to
Josefa, and as she shrank at the prospect before her, He left her.
She was heartbroken at His departure, but Our Lady came, and
suggested to her child: "Do not forget that your love is free"
(3rd March 1922). Several times Josefa tried to escape from the path
before her, then Jesus left her, and it was only after she had
called Him again and again that He came back to receive from her a
willing offering of that which He had suggested only as a
possibility. Usually she accepted most generously. (2)
"I offered
myself to serve Him in any way He might choose."
God knew Himself free to act in any way He chose, and He said once
again: "I am your God, you belong to Me; of your own free will,
you have handed yourself over. From now on you cannot refuse Me
anything" (23rd July 1922). "If you do not deliver yourself
up to My will, what can I do?" (21st April 1922).
She surrendered;
like her Master she would be a willing victim: "Oblatus est quia
Ipse voluit." Like Him, too, she would be a pure victim. For how
can one expiate another's sins, when one has to expiate one's own?
From her birth God had enveloped her in purity, for there cannot be
found in her life any fault to which she voluntarily consented. Her
greatest infidelities, as she herself owned, were a certain
reluctance to respond to the call of grace and indecision in the
face of a disconcerting mission; nothing therefore that was a stain
on her heart and soul. Jealously Our Lord guarded her: "I want
you to forget yourself so entirely and to be so completely given up
to My Will that I will not tolerate the slightest imperfection in
you without warning you of it" (21st February 1921).
Many times when He
wanted her to re-state that she was His victim He opened the
question by conferring on her a grace of still greater purification.
"I want you to suffer for Me, Josefa, but I will begin by letting
the arrow of love which is to purify your soul fall on you, for as
My victim, you must be all-pure" (17th June 1923).
In her pure
conscience on which suffering was about to descend there was found
no taint of sin, and consequently there was no work of expiation to
be done, and that was why the fruits of salvation could be
transferred to other souls. Her sufferings bore a twofold character,
as is indeed the case with all true victims. As a victim chosen by
Christ Himself to continue and complete His redemptive work, she
must be very closely united with Christ the Redeemer, and share His
Passion by enduring the self-same sufferings as His own; as an
expiatory victim for the sins of others, her pains would be
proportionate to the sins of the offender for whom she was atoning.
II. Participation in the Sufferings of Christ
The Passion of
Christ being our sole salvation, if we are to be purified and saved,
we must of necessity come into contact with the Blood shed by the
Lamb. The great cry of the dying Christ is a pressing invitation to
the whole human race to hasten to the Savior's fountains from which
all graces flow.
This contact with
Christ's Blood is immediately secured by souls that answer His
appeal. Others, and alas! they are many, voluntarily keep aloof. It
is these that Christ will seek to reach through other souls whom He
makes use of as channels of His mercies. They are the most fruitful
of all the branches of the mystic vine. Loaded with the sap flowing
from Christ Himself, and completely one with Him, by their
solidarity with the sinner they stand liable for his sins; so being
one with him and one with Christ, in them and by them, grace is
communicated. They are victim-souls.
How intimate must
be their identification with the Crucified if they are to carry out
their part of the contract fully! Full union with Him is implied,
whilst He on His part imprints on their souls, hearts, and bodies
the living image of His sorrowful Passion.
All His sufferings
are renewed in them: they will be contradicted, persecuted, humbled,
scourged, and crucified; and what man fails to inflict, that God
Himself will supply by mysterious pains, agonies, stigmata, which
will make of them living crucifixes.
How great must be
the power of mediation of such souls! How efficacious their
intercession, when they implore divine mercy, pardon and salvation
for their brethren; when in them and through them, the Precious
Blood of Christ, infinitely more powerful than that of Abel, cries
to the Father!
There is this,
however, to notice with regard to some saints notably, Saint Francis
of Assisi, that the Passion, as it were, abides in them, God's
ultimate plan apparently being to shape them into finished copies of
the Crucified. It is God's response to their adoring love of His
Passion, and He makes them share both physically and morally in the
torments of His Beloved Son.
There is a further
purpose with regard to expiatory victims: He seems to dispossess
them in favor of other souls, for the Passion of Christ, after
marking them with its sign, passes through them, in order to bring
about in the sinner for whom they suffer the graces of the sacrifice
of Calvary.
They are thus
co-redeemers in the full sense of the word; love for their neighbor
urges them on, their mission is different from that of others. For
whereas God is pleased to allow those other souls of whom we spoke
to remain in contemplation of Him, giving glory to His infinite
perfections by their love, it is otherwise with victim-souls: when
they contemplate Him, He unveils the immensity of His love for souls
and the grief with which the loss of sinners fills Him. The sight of
this breaks their hearts, and their longing to console Christ is not
satisfied with mere words of love; it stirs up their zeal. At
whatever price, they will win souls to Him, and He kindles this zeal
still more. It is the love of the Sacred Heart Itself, communicated
to them, with which they love sinners; love which gives them a
superhuman endurance well described by Josefa's own words:
"For the last
two or three weeks, I have felt an immense desire for suffering.
There was a time when the thought of it frightened me. When Jesus
told me that He had chosen me as His victim my whole being trembled;
but it is different now. There are days when I endure such agony
that if He did not uphold me, I should die, for no part of me is
free from pain!… In spite of this, my soul longs to bear more
grievous afflictions for Him, though not without repugnance in the
lower part of my consciousness. When these pains attack me I shake
with fear and instinctively draw back, but there is granted to my
will a strength that accepts, that desires and wants to suffer yet
more, so that if the choice between continued pain and heaven were
offered me, I should infinitely prefer to remain in the throes of
pain, if by so doing I might console His Heart, though God knows how
I long to be for ever with Him. I know that this change has been
wrought in me by Jesus" (30th June 1921).
She was right
indeed; the change had come not from herself, but from Jesus, or
rather may we not say that it was His strength, His feelings, His
desires and sufferings that He had passed on to her? (3)
"As you are ready to suffer, let us suffer together" (19th
December 1920), and He gave her His Cross: "Jesus came with His
Cross, which He placed on my shoulders" (18th July 1920). "I
come to bring you My Cross, thus unburdening Myself on you"
(26th July 1921). "I want you to be My Cyrenean; you will help Me
to bear My Cross" (23rd February 1922). "Let My Cross be your
Cross" (30th March 1923).
Innumerable
are the times He places it on her willing shoulders for hours on
end, even for whole days and nights. He entrusted her with His Crown
of Thorns, which He left in her keeping for long periods, so that
like Him she knew not where to rest her aching head.
"I will leave
you My Crown … do not complain of the pain … for by it you share in
My pain"
(26th November 1920). "My Crown … with it I will Myself encircle
your head" (17th June 1923). He made her feel the pain of His
pierced Side. Our Lady said to her: "This pain is a spark from
the Heart of My Son; when it is at its worst, know that it is a sign
that some soul is wounding Him deeply" (20th June 1921).
He wished her to
feel the pain of the nails in both hands and feet: "I am about to
give you a new sign of My love. Today you will share with Me the
pain of the nails" (16th March 1923).
Again He associated
her intimately with the agony of His Heart and Soul: "Every
Friday, and especially on the First Friday of the month, I will
cause you to share in the bitterness of My Heart's agony, and you
will experience the torments of My Passion in a very particular
manner" (4th February 1921).
On the 1st March
1922, He appeared to her, His Face all bloodstained: "Draw near,"
He said, "come and rest in My Heart; and take part in Its
grievous pain."
"He
then drew me close to His Heart, and my soul was filled with such
anguish and bitterness of sorrow that I cannot describe it."
Like Him,
she suffered for others: "I want your whole being to suffer, that
you may gain souls" (21st December 1920). "There is a soul
that is grievously wounding Me … be not afraid if you feel yourself
totally abandoned, for I shall make you share the anguish of My
Heart" (13th September 1921). "Keep My Cross, until that soul
recognizes the truth" (24th March 1923). "Take My Cross, My
Nails and Crown. I go in search of souls" (17th June 1923).
These few examples
will suffice; they abound throughout the book. As an atoning victim,
Josefa shared in all the torments of Jesus, and her whole person, so
to speak, was saturated with unutterable anguish. United with Jesus
on the Cross, she was tortured by His sufferings, consumed by His
desires; His burning thirst for the salvation of souls urged her to
attempt every kind of reparation and expiation within her power.
II. Diabolical
Persecutions
And God allowed
trials of every kind to rain down upon her. If illness was not one
of them (yet who knows, for she never complained), nor persecution
from men (for unlike a Margaret Mary, both her religious and family
life appear to have been exempt from these), yet on the other hand,
more than many another, she was given over to the fury of Satan. And
this is not surprising.
There are few
saints in whose lives his rage is not apparent. Christ in the glory
of Heaven is beyond the reach of Satan, who as His personal enemy
spares no pains to thwart the spread of God's kingdom on earth. The
more he knows a soul to be beloved of Christ, the fiercer are his
attacks; this, no doubt, in the hope of increasing the number of his
unfortunate dupes, but above all, in the perverse hope of snatching
from Christ the souls He loves and for whom He has paid so high a
price in the shedding of His Precious Blood. Satan, therefore,
chooses saints and consecrated souls whom he longs to besmirch,
seduce, and dishonor, and flings himself on them. Above all, he
abhors victim-souls, so Josefa was particularly hateful to him.
She had
joyfully made the sacrifice of the three things she held dearest in
the world: her mother, her sister, and her country; she had offered
herself for the salvation of sinners, and was, in the event, to
snatch a great number from hell-fire. Satan therefore made wanton
sport of her. He is permitted by God to have a greater power over
victim-souls. Surely this follows from their vocation, (4)
for as they take on themselves the sins of others, they also assume
the consequences which they know will follow. When a man consents to
sin, whether he is conscious of it or not, he gives the devil great
power over him, the power of seduction and possession. This is not
very noticeable, as a rule, for the evil one excels in dissimulation
and avoids disturbing those he believes he has in his net. He
strengthens what is evil in his prey, multiplies occasions of sin
and benumbs the soul, till it sinks into a state of torpor which is
absolutely fatal.
When, however, the
devil is met by the resolute resistance of the victim-soul who has
taken the place of the sinner, unable to make her sin he takes
fearful vengeance, using the very powers he has gained over the
evildoer in order to torment his substitute.
And this is
permitted by God to manifest to all the reality of both the devil
and hell which so many try to forget and to bury in silence and
oblivion.
The devil is a
reality, and in his dealings with God's saints he shows himself in
the undisguised perversity of his vicious and corrupt nature. What
must his cruelty be to those souls that are damned and are his for
ever, if he is so pitiless with those over whom, after all, he has
but limited sway? Who would dare affirm that such a lesson is
without its use, especially in our days?
God also confounds
the pride of the spirit of darkness, who in spite of all his power
and rage makes no headway, but meets with constant defeat, which
greatly enhances God's glory.
So it was with
Sister Josefa.
The devil tried by
every possible means to delude and beguile her, disguising himself
as an "angel of light", even going so far as to assume the very
features of Jesus Christ Himself. Most often however, he tried to
turn her from her chosen path by inflicting on her grievous bodily
harm.
When Satan, in all
his strength, and a frail human being meet in mortal combat, God
interposes His power in the conflict and invests the soul with
superhuman endurance. He bestows on it unconquerable energy and
makes it overcome all temptations and every suffering. The devil's
power broke on the frailty of Josefa's resistance, who (though
"nothing and misery", as Our Lord called her) with divine help
triumphed over the "strong man armed". But God alone knew what it
cost her.
Even as a
postulant, showers of blows, administered by an invisible fist, fell
upon her day and night, especially when she was in prayer and
reiterating her determination always to be faithful. At other times
she was violently snatched away from the chapel, or prevented from
entering it. Again and again the devil appeared to her in the guise
of a terrifying dog, snake, or worse still, in human form.
Soon the forcible
abductions became more frequent, in spite of the supervision
exercised by Superiors. Under their very eyes she suddenly
disappeared, and after long search would be found thrown into some
loft, or beneath heavy furniture, or in some unfrequented spot. In
their presence she was burnt, and without seeing the devil, they saw
her clothes consumed and on her body unmistakable traces of fire,
which caused wounds that took long to heal.
Lastly, there
occurred a phenomenon (5)
very rare in the lives of the Saints: God permitted the devil to
take her down to hell. There she spent long hours, sometimes a whole
night, in unspeakable agony. Though she was dragged down into the
bottomless pit more than a hundred times, each sojourn seemed to her
to be the first, and appeared to last countless ages. She endured
all the tortures of hell, with the one exception of hatred of God.
Not the least of these torments was to hear the sterile confessions
of the damned, their cries of hatred, of pain and of despair.
Nevertheless, when
at long last she came back to life, shattered and spent, her body
agonized with pain, she looked on no suffering, however severe, as
too much to bear, if by it she could save a soul from that dreaded
abode of torment. As gradually she began to breathe more freely, her
heart bounded with joy at the thought that still she could love her
Lord.
It was this great
love that sustained her, but at times the trial weighed heavily on
her. Like Jesus in the Garden of Olives, she spent long hours in
anguish and dejection. She realized the vast number of the lost, and
was often perplexed as to the use of her descents into hell and all
the tortures that she had endured. But quickly she regained her hold
on herself, and her amazing courage did not falter. Then, too, Our
Lady helped her: "While you suffer, the devil has less power over
that soul" (22nd July 1921). "You suffer to relieve Him; is
this not enough to give you courage?" (12th July 1921).
Then Our Lord
showed her the treasures of reparation and expiation she had gained
by her repeated ordeals (6th October 1922 and 5th November 1922),
and allowed her to witness in hell the devil's bursts of fury, when
there escaped him souls of whom he thought he had a firm hold, but
for whom she was offering expiation. The thought that she could
console and rest Our Lord and gain souls for Him kept up her heroic
spirit and excited her zeal.
Although she
instinctively shrank from contact with the devil, for his power and
vindictiveness were well known to her by personal experience, yet
never did she allow this fear to make her neglect a duty. At one
time he carried her off almost daily as she went to her employment;
she knew this would happen and the thought of it made her tremble
with apprehension, but undaunted she went forward, and on the morrow
was still as determined as ever that she would not yield to terror.
In all her heroic
fidelity, perhaps the most admirable feature was her conviction
that, owing to her fear and occasional repugnance's, she was (and
this she sincerely believed) ungrateful and unfaithful, and had done
absolutely nothing for God.
After nights of
unspeakable torment, crushed, yet ever gallant, she rose at the hour
of Rule and resumed her ordinary labors, asking no exceptions from
common life. She burnt, indeed, with the very fire of the Heart of
Jesus, for after all the agonies of hell and her share in Christ's
sufferings, she was neither discouraged nor cast down, but her
readiness to suffer only increased.
Like Saint Margaret
Mary, she offered herself in sacrifice for religious souls, for
priests, for sinners of every description. Docile and abandoned to
the divine Will, she asked but one thing, to be able to console Him.
She was ready to suffer a thousand martyrdoms to help those who for
the most part were utterly unknown
to her, but whom she loved in and through Him.
As we pointed out
in the beginning, she had to be a victim in order that the Message
might be delivered and be listened to by mankind for whom she
endured so much.
She who knew the
Heart of Jesus and His love for souls, Was better qualified than any
other to transmit this Message to the world.
THE
MESSAGE
I. His Substance
It is one of love
and mercy. Nowhere is it fully stated, but it is found in
fragmentary form all through the book. Its chief points were often
reiterated, and with little verbal change.
Here is a short
summary of them:
A) In the first
place, the Sacred Heart and the overwhelming charity of Jesus
Christ for mankind are brought out in a striking way. It might
almost be called a new revelation of the Sacred Heart, confirming
and in certain matters completing and perfecting that previously
given to Saint Margaret Mary.
More than two
centuries and a half have elapsed since1675, and new currents of
devotion have arisen in the Church. At present, the mystical Christ
is passionately (and very rightly) cherished by those souls who in
their inmost being are conscious of Its reality and Its
implications.
The devotion
to the Sacred Heart would appear to have grown less, if anything,
and to be less well understood.(6)
To some the devotion appears a mutilation of the worship of the
whole Christ, or perhaps feminine with too much sentiment or even
sentimentality in it.
Our Lord reacts
strongly against this false impression. He reaffirms that there is
no mistake, that it is indeed His Heart of flesh, pierced by the
lance that He offers mankind; His Heart so full of love and so
little loved in return, and of which the gaping Wound cries out how
immense is His tender affection for men.
Like all true love,
His is consumed by desire for a return in kind, all the more, that
only so can man attain happiness here below, and everlasting
beatitude hereafter. Let those who reject His love realize the
horror of hell to which they will be condemning themselves.… This
was the appeal that, through Josefa, Jesus Christ sent out to the
whole world.
B) That men may be
attracted (and herein lie the novelty and force Of the Message) …
the Sacred Heart manifests through her His infinite mercy. He
loves them every one, just as they are, even the most despicable,
even the greatest sinners, one can almost say, especially the most
miserable and sinful. He does not ask for their good qualities or
virtues, but only for their wretchedness and sins. Far from being an
obstacle, their very faults are thus an encouragement to draw near
Him.
Such is the gift
God asks of His beloved sinners, on the one condition of a true
repentance, and a readiness to turn away from their evil ways out of
love for Him.
His Heart is there
waiting for His erring sons with all the impatience of true love. He
assures them beforehand of a free pardon. "It is not sin that
most grievously wounds My Heart," He said, "but what rends
and lacerates It is that after sin men do not take refuge in It once
more" (29th August 1922).
What He wants and
ardently desires is their trust in His infinite goodness and
mercy.
C) To
consecrated and therefore specially loved souls, Jesus others a
share of His redemptive life. He would like them to act as
intermediaries for the saving of souls, and that is why He asks of
all the spirit of sacrifice in love. As a rule, no great
sufferings are to be borne, but He inculcates the importance of
ordinary actions however insignificant, if done in union with
Him, in a spirit of sacrifice and love (30th November 1922 and 2nd
December 1922). He lays stress on the value of the tiniest
offerings, which not only can lead them far on in sanctity, but
will effect the salvation of many souls (20th October 1922). On the
other hand, He reminds them of the danger of slackening in their
efforts in little ways, which may lead to greater infidelity and
finally expose them to hell-fire, where their sufferings will
greatly exceed those of less-favored souls (3rd August 1921; 12th
December 1922; 14th, 15th, 20th, 24th March 1923; 4th September
1922).
Let
consecrated souls therefore re-animate their trust in the Heart of
Jesus.
"I easily condone their weakness; what I want
them to know is that if after their faults and falls they humbly
cast themselves into My Heart, I love them always, and pardon them
all." He adds:
"Do you not know that the more wretched a soul
is, the more I love her?"
"The fact that I have chosen a soul does not mean that her faults
and miseries are wiped out. But if in all humility that soul
acknowledges her failings and atones by little acts of generosity
and love, above all, if she trusts Me, if she throws herself into My
Heart, she gives Me more glory and does more good to souls than if
she had not fallen. What does her wretchedness matter to Me, if she
gives Me the love that I want?" (20th October 1922).
So what the Heart
of Jesus demands of His own is humility, trust, and love.
D) Finally, He
repeatedly offers to all the thought of His Passion, for it
is the sign of His immense love for mankind and the sole hope of
salvation.
His sad and
suffering Heart is again and again presented to us; He exhorts and
entreats us in virtue of His immeasurable pains to return to Him.
How great must have been the love that could bear such agony for us,
and at the same time how terrible is the misfortune of those who
through their own fault let such a Redemption pass them by! Man has
put his sin between himself and God, a chasm impossible to bridge__yet
our Jesus comes with His suffering Passion, and oversteps our
sinfulness, even veils our crimes with His Blood. The road to
salvation is once more opened, but it must and can only be through
the Passion. This is the only way to establish contact with God
again. The choice lies between the Passion and Hell!
So the work of
consecrated souls is to enter into the Passion of Christ and, by
personal sacrifices, to pass on its fruits to other souls for whom
they pray and immolate themselves.
II. His
Opportuneness
How striking is its
actuality to-day!
Everywhere sin is
increasing to an appalling degree. The pride of man leads him to
discard his God and attempt to make a paradise of earth. He has so
far succeeded only in making it a vestibule of hell, where impiety,
immorality, and the worst passions have free scope; wars rage that
are more terrible than any yet heard of, the majority of mankind
suffers poverty and slavery, and all without the comfort which faith
alone can impart.
The Heart of God
inclines in pity towards His forlorn children, and He points out to
them the way of happiness, peace, and salvation.
This Message is not
only transmitted by Josefa, but reproduced in her life through
Christ's operations in her soul, for facts are more calculated to
move than are mere words.
If anyone wants to
realize the love of the Heart of Jesus for souls, let him read the
pages in which Josefa notes down how she listens to the Heart-beats
of her Master. "Every heart-beat is an appeal to a soul," He
told her (25th September 1920).
Surely we cannot
doubt the reality of His love, when the flames issuing from
His Heart are seen to kindle Josefa's with a love so valiant and
intrepid that she braves the sufferings of hell-fire to save the
souls He loves. Nor can we doubt the immensity of His love,
when for the same purpose she accepts unutterable tortures, and she
who knew tells us that her love, "her poor love", is as
nothing beside that of her Master, just as the torments she
undergoes are but a shadow of those of the Passion (28th October
1920). The grief of Jesus at the loss of souls and His joy at their
return, which are so plainly shown in Josefa's life, make it
impossible for us to doubt the goodness of His love! (25th
August 1920; 26th December 1920; 3rd-4th August 1921; 29th July
1921; 3rd, 12th, 25th September 1922). "Help Me," He would
say, "help Me to make My love for men known, for I come to tell
them that in vain will they seek happiness apart from Me, for they
will not find it. Suffer, Josefa, and love, for we two must win
these souls" (13th June 1923).
We get an inkling
of the intense love of the Sacred Heart from that of Josefa for
these same souls; it was so real and true that it could have been
inspired only by Him.
Infinite Mercy,
too, is manifested by Josefa's life. "I will love you," He
told her on 8th June 1923, Feast of the Sacred Heart, "and by the
love I have for you souls will realize how much I love them. Since I
forgive you so often, they will recognize My mercy." He even
said to her one day: "I love souls even to folly" (27th
September 1922).
Such a statement
surprises us, yet in Scripture do we not read (and Scripture is
inerrant): "Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity
on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I.
Behold, I have graven thee in my hands" (Isa. xlix, 15, 16).
"He will put away our iniquities and he will cast all our sins into
the bottom of the sea" (Mich. vii, 19). "Thou hast delivered
my soul that it should not perish, thou hast cast all my sins behind
thy back" (Isa. xxxviii, 17). "He loved me and delivered
himself for me" (Gal. ii, 20).
We may well call
these statements divine folly!
As to the reality
of hell, again we see the Message lived by Josefa. The sufferings of
the Passion which continue uninterruptedly in her, all the
demoniacal persecutions and descents into hell have only one end: to
snatch souls from perdition and bring them back to salvation from
which they have strayed. We see here exemplified the dogma of the
Redemption and of the Communion of Saints. How, then, would it be
possible to deny on the one hand the existence of the devil, of hell
and of purgatory, and on the other the adequate power of Redemption
which suffering has when borne for others? These great supernatural
realities we read in the moving pages in which Josefa has then
graven in her very flesh and soul.
The Message itself
cannot be called a new revelation, but it unveils in a most striking
manner what faith has already taught us. Our Lord Himself told this
to Josefa: "I repeat to you again that what I have said is not
new, but souls need a new impetus to make them advance, just as a
flame needs fuel, if it is not to burn itself out" (5th December
1923).
How great is the
force of the appeal which the humble little Sister transmits to us
from her Lord!
III. His
Authenticity
We have been
enabled to realize how the Message consists not only in the words
entrusted to Josefa, but in her whole life. By her very existence,
this soul, so beloved of Jesus, speaks to all who will listen, and
her life stands as evidence of the divine action upon her.
She alone heard the
words of Our Lord, and so is the sole witness; but her life
testifies to the truth of the Message, and, moreover, she was
closely followed up by qualified observers, who testify to the
undeniable virtue of the obscure little messenger of infinite
love, and to the reality of her supernatural states, of which
tangible proofs were not wanting. All who had to do with her
attested her very real virtue; not that she shone in a striking
manner, for she was ever more imitable than admirable, but all felt
the unconscious influence she exercised around her. No self-seeking,
but rather self-denial in everything, unquestioning obedience,
gentleness, and patience: all the result of true humility.
"You are the
echo of My Voice," said Our Lord to her (10th December 1922),
and, in fact, everything in her was an echo of the divine. Her
unaffected virtue led one to a conviction that God was acting on
this soul, and this by itself could have provided clear evidence
that her supernatural communications came from God. Nevertheless,
Superiors and her Director remained for a certain length of time
deliberately hesitant and uncertain, and they deserve our thanks for
their reserve and wary misgivings, which insisted on proofs.
With her innate
candor and honesty, she could never have practiced willful
deception. Perhaps one is justified in asking whether she was led
astray by her heart or imagination__a not
infrequent trait in persons of sincere holiness. But (and this is a
good sign) Josefa lived in perpetual fear that such might be the
case, and was quite prepared, had Superiors deemed her to be in
illusion, to consider all that had taken place as a delusion. Such
action was characteristic of her.
When she went to
Rome to carry a message from Our Lord about the Society of the
Sacred Heart to the Mother General, she was suddenly seized with a
blinding fear (at the devil's instigation) that all was a dream and
that she had no message from heaven to deliver. Without hesitation
or reflection on the harm it might do her cause in the eyes of her
Superiors, she confessed her anguish of mind, and the certitude she
now felt that all was a chimera of her imagination, and she humbly
begged that no credence should be given to anything she might say.
That she should have had this anxious concern at such a moment is
another proof of the truth of her mission.
She could not have
acted so had she not been profoundly humble and self-forgetful; her
writings bear the same impress of sincerity.
It was by the
express command of Our Lord and of Our Lady that she kept her
Superiors informed of all that passed: "You must write," said
Our Blessed Lord to her (6th August 1922). This, no doubt, was meant
to secure that none of His Words should be lost, but also His divine
purpose may have been that all Josefa's actions should be controlled
and witnessed from start to finish. In all she wrote there never
occurs a useless word, nor anything false or equivocal; nothing that
could be regarded as self-praise nor that betrays a shadow of
vanity. All is true, reasonable, moving, and holy.
The same control
was exercised over her supernatural states. When she was carried off
into hell, or when she returned to consciousness after an ecstasy,
her Superiors were present; they watched with solicitous and
maternal eyes her gradual return to life's interests, noting
carefully words that escaped her in those impressive moments.
When she had
communications with souls in purgatory who came to ask for prayers,
the name, exact date, and place of their death, if given, were
always found on investigation to be correct.
No possible doubt
exists concerning the forcible abductions of Josefa by the devil;
they took place under the very eyes of her Superiors, who were
powerless to prevent them. Likewise the effects of fire which burned
her were seen on her garments and flesh; fragments of scorched linen
are still preserved.
The most
convincing feature of these diabolic visitations (visions of
Satan, descents into hell), which to most people would have been
terrifying, was that they seemed neither to have troubled her
imagination, nor to have disturbed the calm equilibrium of her
eminently sane temperament. So also the divinely supernatural,
with those simple and homely proofs of affection she received from
Our Lord and His Mother (7),
must surely have moved her feelings to an extraordinary degree, yet
they left her peaceful, silent, and apparently without even the
natural desire to talk over her wonderful experience with anyone.
The Mothers noticed how very discreet she was, never speaking of the
favors she received, except to the two witnesses already mentioned.
Finally, all the sufferings (nights spent in hell, or in
bearing the Cross, or in wearing the Crown of Thorns) which might
have made her beg for relief, only gave her a greater desire to
suffer for love of Our Lord and of souls.
So her writings and
her life confirm each other as evidence that all that took place in
her was divine in origin. Even the most extraordinary happenings
have an aim and significance. There are no useless details, no
record of revelations that do not bring out in clearer light and
force some dogmatic truth, giving us deeper insight into the Heart
of Our Lord, His love, the value of souls, the happiness of heaven,
the irreparable loss of the damned.
Everything in
Josefa's life is grace-giving and profoundly moving. The writings of
this unassuming Sister, regarded as ignorant in the world's eyes,
will, no doubt, be scrutinized and pondered over by theologians and
masters of the spiritual life, and as in the case of Saint Thérèse
of the Child of Jesus, numerous books will be written to develop the
profound doctrine contained in these writings, and to make known the
mysteries of love. But better still, the mere reading will bring
numberless graces and lead many to conversion and holiness. The
world may be astonished at the great things that come from a life so
simple; but it is precisely in her nothingness that the overwhelming
proof of the authenticity of her Message lies.
In very truth it
was countersigned by a Hand that was nothing less than divine.
Digitus Dei est
hic.
H. Monier Vinard,
s.j.
(1)
If one had looked for a chosen soul among the novices of that time
(they were for the most part Polish), Josefa's appearance, which had
nothing of the mystic about it, would not have led one to suspect
God's choice of her.
(2)
Nothing was imposed on her by God; He did not force His reluctant
creature, but with divinely consummate skill He pursued His purpose
of obtaining her consent. At each recoil of Josefa's fears, Our Lord
left her without reproach; but His departure so disturbed Josefa
that she made a more than ever generous acceptance. Also, Jesus did
not tell her straight away that he wanted her to be His Messenger to
the world, the shock would have been too great; but He simply
appealed to her generosity: "Are you willing to suffer? And are
you willing to be a victim?" If a victim, then it was a question
of suffering, not of coming prominently before the world, and Josefa
accepted.
(3)
"My Heart finds rest in communicating its feelings. I come to
rest in your heart when a soul grieves Me, and it is My longing to
do it good that passes into you and becomes yours" (23rd October
1922).
(4)
See especially the diabolical persecutions endured by Saint Margaret
of Cortona, Saint Veronica Giuliani, the Curé d'Ars, and Sister
Marie de Jésus-Crucifié, whose life has been written by V.R.F. Buzy,
Superior General of the Fathers of Bétharram, and many others.
(5)
A number of both men and women saints have had visions of
hell; few have actually gone down into its depths, and fewer still
have done so frequently, as did Sister Josefa in order to atone for
sinners. Saint Veronica Giuliani, born 1660 and died 1727, thus a
contemporary of Saint Margaret Mary, seems, like Sister Josefa, to
have been a victim of expiation, and had this same experience.
(6)
In his recent encyclical on the Mystical Body of Christ (June 1943)
Pope Pius XII tells us that devotion to the Sacred Heart has
prepared souls to understand the doctrine of the Mystical Christ.
The idea of reparation for others which Our Lord made an essential
element in devotion to the Sacred Heart, implies the solidarity of
all Christians__one with another__in
the unity of the Mystical Body. But devotion to the Mystical Christ,
the "whole" Christ, with its horizons attractive through their very
vastness, inclines the superficially minded to find too limited a
devotion, centered in the Heart of Christ. This mistake is due to a
lack of understanding that devotion to the Sacred Heart is directed
to Christ loving, wounded with love and that by it all the members
of the Mystical Body are united in this love with Him and with each
other.
(7)
Delightful apparitions of the Holy Child at Christmas … of Our Lady,
"in all her beauty and so motherly", as Josefa always
describes her.
Jesus describes in St. Matthew's Gospel the last
judgment as His separation of the sheep (those who loved God and
neighbor) from the goats (those who did not). To the goats, Jesus
says His indictment will be: "Depart from Me, you accursed, into the
eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ...And these
will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal
life" (St. Matt. 25:41,46). Jesus Christ could not have been more
clear that each of us, by our choices and conduct, risks eternal
punishment after death
–
Hell.
- Many Christians, including
priests & ministers
- say there
is No Hell!
- are you willing to
dispute the Word of God that there is?
- are you willing to bet
eternity on it?
-
- Also, who knows?
Catholics may be right about a
Purgatory!
|
| below from the book:
"A Divine Revelation of Hell", by
Mary K. Baxter |
Mary K. Baxter said that in 1976 the Lord Jesus appeared to her and
gave her a tour of both Heaven and Hell. The Lord further
directed that Mary write about what she saw and felt in a book so
that others may know that Heaven and Hell are real places.
Below is a very
small portion of Mary Baxter's visit:
A Minister of Lies:
Jesus and I walked on
down the pathway until we came to another pit. Cries of pain,
unforgettably sorrowful sounds, were everywhere. My Lord, what
is next? I thought.
We walked directly past
some of the evil beings, which didn't seem to see us, and stopped at
another pit of fire and brimstone. In this next pit was a
large-framed man. I heard him preaching the gospel. I
looked in amazement to Jesus for an answer, for He always knew my
thoughts. He said, "While he was on earth, this man was a
preacher of the gospel. At one time he spoke the truth and
served me."
I wondered what this man
was doing in hell. He was about six feet tall, and his
skeleton was a dirty, grayish color, like a tombstone. Parts
of his clothing still hung on him. I wondered why the flames
had left these torn and tattered clothes and had not burned them
up. Burning flesh was hanging from him, and his skull seemed
to be in flames. A terrible odor came from him.
I watched the man spread
his hands as if he were holding a book and begin to read Scriptures
from the make-believe book. Again, I remembered what Jesus had
said; "You have all your senses in hell, and they are a lot
stronger here."
The man read Scripture
after Scripture, and I thought it was good. Jesus said to the
man with great love in His voice, "Peace, be still."
Immediately, the man stopped talking and turned slowly to look at
Jesus.
I saw the man's soul
inside the skeletal form. He said to the Lord, "Lord, now
I will preach the truth to all the people. Now, Lord, I'm
ready to go and tell others about this place. I know that
while I was on earth, I didn't believe there was a hell, nor did I
believe You were coming again. It was what people wanted to
hear, and I compromised the truth to the people in my church.
I know I didn't like
anyone who was different in race or color of skin, and I caused many
to fall away from You. I made my own rules about heaven and
right and wrong. I know that I led many astray, and I caused
many to stumble over Your Holy Word, and I took money from the
poor. But, Lord, let me out, and I will do right. I
won't take money from the church anymore. I have repented
already. I will love people of every race and color."
Jesus said, "You
not only distorted and misrepresented the Holy Word of God, but you
lied about your not knowing the truth. I visited you Myself
and tried to turn you around, but you would not listen. You
went on your own way, and evil was your lord. You knew the
truth, but you would not repent or turn back to Me. I was
there all the time. I waited for you to repent, but you did
not. And now the judgment has been set."
Pity was on the face of
Jesus. I knew that if the man had listened to the Savior's
call, he would not be here now. O people, please listen.
Jesus spoke to the
backslider again, "You should have told the truth, and you
would have turned many to righteousness with God's Word, which says
that all unbelievers will have their part in the lake that burns
with fire and brimstone.
"You knew the way
of the cross. You knew the way of righteousness. You
knew to speak the truth. But Satan filled your heart with
lies, and you went into sin. You should have repented with
sincerity, not halfway. My Word is true. It does not
lie. And now it is too late, too late." At that,
the man shook his fist at Jesus and cursed Him.
A Woman Cries Out:
I heard a woman's voice
crying out in desperation. Cries of the dead were everywhere.
Soon we came to a pit
where the woman was. She was pleading with all her soul for
Jesus to take her out of there. "Lord," she said,
"haven't I been here long enough? My torment is more than
I can bear. Please, Lord, let me out!" Sobs shook
her form, and such pain was in her voice. I knew she was
suffering greatly.
I said, "Jesus, is
there nothing You can do?"
Jesus then spoke to the
woman. "While you were on earth," He said, " I
called and called for you to come to Me. I pleaded with you to
get your heart right with Me, to forgive others, to do right, to
stay out of sin. I even visited you in the midnight hour and
drew you by My Spirit time after time. With your lips you said
you loved Me, but your heart was far from Me. Didn't you know
that nothing can be hidden from God? You fooled others, but
you could not fool Me. I sent others to tell you to repent,
but you would not listen. You would not hear, you would not
see, and in anger you turned them away. I placed you where you
could hear My Word. But you would not give your heart to Me.
You were not sorry, nor
were you ashamed of what you were doing. You hardened your
heart and turned Me away. Now you are lost and forever
undone. You should have listened to Me."
At this, she looked at
Jesus and began to swear and curse God. I felt the presence of
evil spirits and knew that it was they who were cursing and
swearing. How sad to be lost forever in hell! Resist the
devil while you still may, and he will flee from you.
Jesus said, "The
world and all that is in it will pass away, but my word will not
pass away."
All along the pathway
burning hands reached out to Jesus. There were only bones
where the flesh should have been--a grayish mass with burning and
decayed flesh hanging in shreds. Inside each frame of their
skeleton form was a dirty-gray mist-soul caught inside a dry
skeleton forever. I could tell by their cries that they felt
the fire, the worms, the pain, the hopelessness. And their
cries filled my soul with grief so great I cannot describe it.
If only they had listened, I thought, they would not be here.
I knew that the lost in
hell had all their senses. They remembered all that was ever
told them. They knew there was no way out of the flames and
that they were lost forever. Yet, without hope, they still
hoped as they cried out to Jesus for mercy.
All at once, demons of
all kinds were going past us. Imps growled at us as they went
by. Demon spirits of all sizes and shapes were talking to each
other. Out ahead of us, a big demon was giving orders to small
ones. We stopped to listen, and Jesus said, "There is
also an invisible army of evil forces that we do not see
here--demons such as evil spirits of sickness."
"Go!" the
larger demon said to the smaller imps and devils. "Do
many evil things. Break up homes and destroy families.
Seduce weak Christians, and mis-instruct and mislead as many as you
can. You shall have your reward when you return.
Remember, you must be
careful of those who have genuinely accepted Jesus as their
Savior. They have the power to cast you out. Go now
across the earth. I have lots of others up there already and
still have others to send. Remember, we are servants of the
prince of darkness and the powers of the air."
Read more about this
awesome Tour of Hell here:
Read more about this
awesome Tour of Heaven here:
|
Read about Sister Josefa Menendez's many
descriptions of hell:
here
Also see another non-canon writing about Heaven and Hell at
"Vision of St. Paul the Apostle" here |
|
Fatima children
shown a vision of Hell
And the Lessons
that It Teaches
(Extract
from Voice of Fatima
This unusual
narrative recounts the revelations of a lost soul to a former
acquaintance. It is a powerful record of the steps which led a young
woman to lose her soul in Hell for all eternity. Although it has
several time been printed with imprimatur, this in itself does not
guarantee the authenticity of the story. An imprimatur merely
indicates that the subject matter is free from error in faith and
morals. Is it true? Obviously, it cannot be '`guaranteed" because
the only evidence is that of the girl herself. It certainly may be
true and its instructional qualities would pertain even if the story
itself were not true. In the July apparition at Fatima a version of
a Hell of fire was given to the three little children, and
significantly, its existence was confirmed by the great public
miracle on October 13th.
(Many people had visions of Hell. The most famous among them is the
visions of Don Bosco and Josepha Menendez) Yet Hell is little
spoken of in the pulpits of the sixties. And we have seen that many
Christian ministers, including some Catholic priests, have
"abolished" Hell as a place of physical pain. Because of this, the
special intervention of Heaven, may, as at Fatima, be necessary to
restore this sobering doctrine to its important place in Christian
dogma. It is well to remember that the Hell spoken of here is the
Hell which has a significant place in Catholic doctrine, the Hell
described vividly by Christ Himself, the Hell seen in all its livid
horror by the children at Fatima on July 13th, just 50 years ago.
The names of persons and places are omitted because of the nature of
the story plus the fact of its recent origin.
Clara and
Annette, both single Catholics in their early twenties, worked
adjacent to each other, employees of a commercial firm in Germany.
Although they were never very close friends, they shared a courteous
mutual regard which lead to an exchange of ideas and, eventually, of
confidences. Clara professed herself openly religious, and felt it
her duty to instruct and admonish Annette when the latter appeared
excessively casual or superficial in religious matters. In due
course, Annette married and left the firm. The year was 1937. Clara
spent the autumn of that year on holiday at Lake Garda. About the
middle of September she received a letter from her mother: 'Annette
. . . Instead. She was the victim of an auto accident was buried
yesterday at Wald-Friedhof. Clara was frightened since she knew her
friend was not very religious. Was she prepared to appear before
God? Dying suddenly, what had happened to her? The next day she
attended Mass, received Holy Communion, and prayed fervently for her
friend.
The following
night, at ten minutes after midnight, the vision took place . . .
Clara, do not pray for me! I am in hell. If I tell you this and
speak at length about it, do not think it is because of our
friendship. We here do not love anyone. I do this as under
constraint. In truth, I should like to see you too come to this
state where I must remain forever." Perhaps that angers you, but
here we all think that way. Our wills are hardened in evil, in what
you call 'evil'. Even when do something 'good', as I do now -
opening your eyes about hell, it is not because of a good
intention.
Do you still
remember our first meeting four years ago at . . .? You were then 23
and had been there already half a year. Because I was a beginner,
you gave me some helpful advice. Then I praised your love of your
neighbor. Ridiculous! Your help was mere coquetry. Here we do not
acknowledge any good in anybody."
"Do you
remember what I told you about my youth? Now I am painfully
compelled to fill in some of the gaps." According to the plan of my
parents, I should not have existed. A ‘misfortune' brought about my
conception. My two sisters were 14 and 15 when I was born." "Would
that I had never existed! Would that I could now annihilate myself!
Escape these tortures! No pleasure would equal that with which I
would abandon my existence, as a garment of ashes which is lost in
nothingness. But I must continue to exist as I chose to make myself
as a ruined person." When father and mother, still young, left the
country 'or the city, they had lost touch with the Church and were
keeping company with irreligious people. They had met at a dance,
and after a year and a half of companionship they 'had' to get
married." As a result of the nuptial ceremony, so much holy water
remained on them that my mother attended Sunday Mass a couple of
times a year. But she never taught me to pray, Instead, she was
completely taken up with the daily cares of life, although our
situation was not bad." "I refer to prayer, Mass, religious
instruction, holy water, church with a very strong repugnance. I
hate all that, as I hate those who go to church, and in general
every human being and everything."
"From a great
many things do we receive torture every knowledge received at the
hour of death, every remembrance of things lived or known is, for
us, a piercing flame. In each remembrance, good and bad, we see the
way in which grace was present the grace we despised or ignored.
What a torture is this !" '`We do not eat, we do not sleep, we do
not walk. Chained with howling and gnashing of teeth. we look
appalled at our ruined life, hating and suffering." "Do you hear ?
We here drink hatred like water. Above all we hate God. With great
reluctance do I force myself to make you understand." The blessed in
heaven must love God because they see Him without veil, in all His
dazzling beauty. That makes their bliss indescribable. We know this
and the knowledge makes us furious." "Men on earth, who know God
from nature and from revelation, can love Him., but they are not
compelled to do so. The believer I say this with gnashing of teeth
who contemplates Christ on the cross, with arms extended, will end
by loving Him." "But he whom God approaches only in the final
storm, as punisher, as just avenger, because He was rejected by him,
such a person cannot but hate Him with all the strength of his
wicked will. We died with willful resolve
to be separated from God." "Do you now understand why hell lasts
forever? It is because our wills were fixed for eternity at the
moment of death. We had made our final choice.
Our obstinacy will never leave us." "Under compulsion, I must add
that God is merciful even towards us. I affirm many things against
my will and must choke the torrent of abuses I should like to vomit
out." God was merciful to us by not allowing our wicked wills to
exhaust themselves on earth as we should have been prepared to do.
This would have increased our faults and our pains. He caused us to
die before our time, as in my case, or had other mitigating
circumstances intervene." Now He shows Himself merciful towards us
by not compelling a closer approach than that afforded in this
remote inferno. Every step bringing us closer to God would cause us
a greater pain than that which a step closer to a burning furnace
would cause you."
"You were
scared when once, during a walk, I told you that my father, a few
days before my first Communion, had told me: `My little Annette, the
main thing is your beautiful white dress, all the rest is just
make-believe." "Because of your concern, I was almost ashamed. Now I
sneer at it." The important thing is that we were not allowed to
receive Communion until the age of 12. By then I was already
absorbed in worldly amusements and found it easy to set aside,
without scruple, the things of religion. Thus, I attached no great
importance to my first Communion." "We are furious that many
children go to Communion at the age of seven. We do all we can to
make people believe that children have insufficient knowledge at
that age. They must first commit some mortal sins. Then the white
Particle will not do so much damage to our cause as when faith, hope
and charity, these things! received in Baptism, are still alive in
their hearts . "Marta K and you induced me to enter The Association
of the Young Ladies". The games were amusing. As you know, I
immediately took a directive part. I liked it." "I also liked the
picnics. I even let myself be induced to go to confession and
Communion sometimes." "Once you warned me. Anne, if you do not pray,
you go to perdition'. ''I used to pray very little indeed, and even
this unwillingly."
"You were then
only too right. All those who burn in hell did not pray or did not
pray enough." "Prayer is the first step towards God. And it is the
decisive step. Especially prayer to her who
is the Mother of Christ, whose name we never pronounce. "Devotion to
her rescues from the devil numberless souls whom sin would
infallibly give to him." "I continue my story, consumed
with rage and only because I have to. To pray is the easiest thing
man can do on earth. And God has tied up the salvation of each one
exactly to this very easy thing." "To him who prays with
perseverance little by little God gives so much light, so much
strength, that even the most debased sinner will at the end come
back to salvation." "During the last years of my life I did not
pray any more, so I lacked those graces without which nobody can be
saved." "Here we no longer receive graces. Moreover, should we
receive them we would cynically refuse them. All the fluctuations of
earthly existence have ceased in this other life." For years I was
living far away from God. For, in the last call of Grace I decided
against God." ''I never believed in the influence of the devil. And
now I affirm that he has strong influence on the persons who are in
the condition in which I was then. Only many prayers, others' and
mine own united with sacrifices and penances, could have snatched me
from his grip. And even this only little by little. If there are
only few externally obsessed, there are very many internally
possessed, The devil cannot steal the free will from those who give
themselves to his influence. But in punishment of their, so to
speak, methodical apostasy from God, He allows the devil to nest in
them. I hate the devil too. And yet I am pleased about him, because
he tries to ruin all of you, he and his satellites, the spirits
fallen with him at the beginning of time. There are millions of
them. They roam around the earth, as thick as a swarm of flies, and
you do not even notice it. It is not reserved to us damned to tempt
you; but to the fallen spirits. In truth every time they drag down
here to hell a human soul their own torture is increased. But what
does one not do for hatred?"
"Deep down I
was rebelling against God. You did not understand it; you thought me
still a Catholic. I wanted, in fact, to be called one; I even used
to pay my ecclesiastical dues. Maybe your answers were right
sometimes On me they made no impression! Since you must not be right
Because of these counterfeited relationships between the two of us
our separation on the occasion of my marriage was of no consequence
to me. . Before the wedding I went to confession and Communion once
more. It was a precept my husband and I thought alike on this point.
Why not comply with this formality? So we complied with this, as
with the other formalities." 'Our married life, in general, was
spent in great harmony. We were of the same idea in everything. In
this too that we did not want the burden of children. In truth, my
husband would have liked to have one, no more, of course. In the end
I succeeded in dissuading him even from this desire. Dresses,
luxurious furniture, places of entertainment, picnics and trips by
car and similar things were more important for me. It was a year of
pleasure on earth, the one that passed from my marriage to my sudden
death. Internally, of course, I was never happy, although externally
at ease. There was always something indeterminate inside that gnawed
at me. "Unexpectedly I had an inheritance from my aunt, Lotte. My
husband succeeded in increasing his wages to a considerable figure.
And so I was able to furnish our new home in an attractive way.
Religion did not show its light but from afar off, pale, feeble and
uncertain."
"I used to give
free vent to my ill humor about some medieval representations of
hell in cemeteries or elsewhere, in which the devil is roasting
souls in red burning coals, while his companions with long tails,
drag new victims to him. Clara! One can be mistaken in depicting
hell, but never can one exaggerate. I tell
you: the fire of which the Bible speaks, does not mean the torment
of the conscience. Fire is fire! What He said: Away from Me, you
accursed ones, into eternal fire, is to be understood literally.
Literally! How can the spirit be touched by material fire? you will
ask. How can your soul suffer on earth when you put your finger on
the flame? In fact the. soul does not burn; and yet what torture all
the individual feels!" 'Our greatest torture consists in the
certain knowledge that we shall never see God. How can this torture
us so much, since on earth we are so indifferent? As long as
the knife lies on the table it leaves you cold. You see how keen it
is, but you do not feel it. Plunge the knife into the flesh and you
will start screaming in pain. Now we feel the loss of God; before we
only thought of it. Not all the souls suffer to the same degree.
With how greater wickedness and how more systematically one has
sinned, the more weighs on him the loss of God and the more the
creature he abused is choking him. The lost
Catholics suffer more than those of other religions, because they,
mostly, received and despised more graces and more light. He
who knew more suffers more cruelly than he who knew less. He who
sinned out of malice suffers more keenly than he who sinned out of
weakness. But nobody suffers more than he deserves. Oh, if that were
not true, I should have a motive to hate!"
"My death
happened this way . . . "A week ago; I am speaking according to
your reckoning, because according to the pain, I could very well say
that it is already in years that I am burning in hell. A week ago,
then, my husband, and I, on a Sunday, went on a picnic, the last one
for me. The day was glorious. I felt very well. A sinister sense of
pleasure that was with me all the day long, invaded me. When lo,
suddenly, during the return, my husband was dazzled by a car that
was coming full speed. He lost control." Jesses! (misspelling of
JESUS, used frequently by some people of German language) escaped
from my lips with a shivering. Not as a prayer, but as a shout. A
lacerating pain took hold of the whole of me. (In comparison with
the present one only a trifle). Then I lost consciousness. Strange.
That morning this thought had come to me in an inexplicable way:
'You could go to Mass once more'. It seemed like the last call of
Love." "Clear and resolute, my 'NO' cut off that train of
thought. You will know already what happened after my death. The lot
of my husband and that of my mother, what happened to my corpse and
the proceedings of my funeral are known to me through some natural
knowledge we have here. What happens on earth we know only
obscurely. But we know what touches us closely. So I see also where
you are living." I myself awoke from the darkness suddenly, in the
instant of my passing. I saw myself as flooded by a dazzling light.
It was in the same place where my dead body was lying. It was like a
theater , when suddenly the lights in the hall are put out, the
curtains are rent aside and an unexpected scene, horribly
illuminated appears. The scene of my life." My soul showed itself to
me as in a mirror; all the graces despised from my youth until my
last `NO' to God. I felt myself like an assassin, to whom his dead
victim is shown during his trial at court. Should I repent? Never!
Should I feel ashamed? Never!" However I could not even stand
before the eyes of God rejected by me. There was only one thing for
me: flight! As Cain fled from the dead body of Abel, so my soul
rushed from that sight of horror." "This was the particular
judgment: the invisible Judge said: 'Away from Me'. Then my soul, as
a yellow brimstone shadow, fell headlong into the place of eternal
torture."
Boy Raised from the Dead by St. John Bosco
A fifteen-year-old boy in Turin was about to die.
He called for Don Bosco, but the saint was not able to make it in
time. Another priest heard the boy's confession and the boy died.
When Don Bosco returned to Turin, he set out at once to see the boy.
When told that the boy was dead, he insisted that it was "just a
misunderstanding." After a moment of prayer in the room of the dead
child, Don Bosco suddenly cried out: "Charles! Rise!" To the utter
amazement of all present, the boy stirred, opened his eyes, and sat
up. Seeing Don Bosco, his eyes lit up.
"Father, I should now be in Hell!" gasped the
boy. "Two weeks ago I was with a bad companion who led me into sin
and at my last confession, I was afraid to tell everything . . . Oh,
I've just come out of a horrible dream! I dreamt I was standing on
the edge of a huge furnace surrounded by a horde of devils. They
were about to throw me into the flames when a beautiful Lady
appeared and stopped them. 'There's still hope for you, Charles,'
she told me. 'You have not yet been judged!' At that moment I heard
you calling me. Oh, Don Bosco! What a joy to see you again! Will you
please hear my confession?"
After hearing the boy's confession, Don Bosco
said to the boy, "Charles, now that the gates of Heaven lie wide
open for you, would you rather go there or stay here with us?" The
boy looked away for a moment and his eyes grew moist with tears. An
expectant hush fell over the room. "Don Bosco", he said at last,
"I'd rather go to Heaven." The mourners watched in amazement as
Charles leaned back on the pillows, closed his eyes, and settled
once more into the stillness of death.
Th
