St. Faustina's Vision of Hell

[Diary 754]

+The Lord's Promise: The souls that say this chaplet will be embraced by My mercy during their lifetime and especially at the hour of their death.

[Diary 741]

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 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.

+ J.M.J.

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".

Indigenous Peoples' Sunday

The Sunday Gospel [October 10, 2010]

Lk 17:11-19

The Cleansing of Ten Lepers

11As [Jesus] continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. 12As he was entering a village, ten lepers met [him]. They stood at a distance from him 13and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” 14And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. 15And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; 16and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 17Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? 18Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” 19Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

Jesus Breaks Boundaries

A creative publicist finds a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a hat on his feet and a sign that reads: “Have pity. I cannot see.” While dropping a few coins he notices that the bag is almost empty. Asking for permission, he turns the sign around, writes another announcement, and leaves. When he returns in the afternoon, he notices that the hat is now full of bills and coins. The blind man recognizes his footsteps and his voice and asks what he wrote on the sign. The publicist answers, “Nothing that is not true, I just rewrote your sign differently.” Then he walks away. The blind man does not see it, but the new sign reads: “Today is Spring, and I cannot see it.”

We are used to seeing suffering and destitution around us. Every day we pass by beggars and sick people with nary a thought of concern about their plight. We dismiss their condition as a “normal” part of life—until we ourselves become destitute or get sick and realize that we have taken our blessings for granted, or until someone makes us realize their pitiful condition. This is what the publicist does for the blind man, and what Jesus does for the ten lepers in the Gospel.

In Jesus’ time, to be a leper is to be much worse than to be blind. “Leprosy” may not be exactly what is known as Hansen’s disease. Yet the scaly condition of the skin (described in Lv 14-15) is feared—not so much for contagion as for “impurity,” requiring that the person afflicted be separated from family and community.

The purity laws of Israel deal with “boundaries” which separate outsiders from the community lest they render it unclean. The Samaritan in the story is separated by two boundaries. The social boundary prevents him from associating with the Jews who consider the Samaritans an impure breed because they are descendants of the Israelites who married pagans. (But the Jewish lepers have accepted the Samaritan among them; tragedy has brought them together.) The body boundary, on the other hand, is “pierced” by the repulsive skin disease.

Exclusion from the community aggravates the condition of the leper who suffers the deterioration of the body. Lepers can call only from a distance, and they ask Jesus to have pity on them, that is, to make them clean so that they can cross the boundary and rejoin their holy community. Their request is an acknowledgment that they believe Jesus can restore them to their family and community. People in those times believe that only God can heal; Jesus is thus seen as a gifted intermediary between God and the poor lepers.

Jesus is presented in the gospels as often challenging the existing boundaries. He is truly compassionate, that is, he “suffers with” those who are afflicted. He does not stay away from the impure. He heals them and restores meaning to their lives. He even singles out a Samaritan as the one who comes back and gives thanks, continuing his “preference” for the marginalized and insignificant people.

The nine Jewish lepers proceed to Jerusalem to “give praise” to God in the presence of the priests who will declare them clean and restore them to their community. The Samaritan knows fully well that he is not welcome at the Jerusalem Temple. There is still an existing barrier between him and the God of Israel whom he also worships as the true God. But he knows that he has Jesus to turn to. He can always thank God through Jesus.

In the end, the Samaritan is the one who is truly purified. His faith in Jesus has made him whole. He is then asked to go on his way—to recognize, from that moment on, the love of God that he, an outsider, has received as a gift. He, in turn, must give it freely and mirror Jesus’ compassion for all.

Blessed Fr. Michael Sopocko

[Diary 596]

Once, a certain priest [Father Sopocko [124]] asked me to pray for him. I promised to pray, and asked for a mortification. When I received permission for a certain mortification, I felt a great desire to give up all the graces that God's goodness would intend for me that day in favor of that priest, and I asked the Lord Jesus to deign to bestow on me all the sufferings and afflictions, both exterior and spiritual, that the priest would have had to suffer during that day. God partially answered my request and, at once, all sorts of difficulties and adversities sprang up out of nowhere, so much so that one of the sisters remarked out loud that the Lord Jesus must have a hand in this because everyone was trying Sister Faustina. The charges made were so groundless that what some sisters put forward, others denied, while I offered all this in silence on behalf of the priest.

But that was not all; I began to experience interior sufferings. First, I was seized by depression and aversion towards the sisters, then a kind of uncertainty began to trouble me. I could not recollect myself during prayer, and various things would take hold of my mind. When, tired out, I entered the chapel, a strange pain seized my soul, and I began to weep softly. Then I heard in my soul a voice, saying, My daughter, why are you weeping? After all, you yourself offered to undertake these sufferings. Know that what you have taken upon yourself for that soul is only a small portion. He is suffering much more. And I asked the Lord, "Why are You treating him like that?" The Lord answered me that it was for the triple crown meant for him: that of virginity, the priesthood and martyrdom. At that moment, a great joy flooded my soul at the sight of the great glory that is going to be his in heaven. Right away I said the Te Deum [125] for this special grace of God; namely, of learning how God treats those He intends to have close to himself. Thus, all sufferings are nothing in comparison with what awaits us in heaven.

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".

Attitude of a Servant

The Sunday Gospel [Oct. 3, 2010]

Lk 17:5-10

Attitude of a Servant

5The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” 6The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to (this) mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

7“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? 8Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? 9Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? 10So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ ”

Master and Servant—A Reversal of Roles

The movie Anak which stars Vilma Santos gives us a picture of the conditions under which many Filipino domestic workers labor in foreign shores. Some employers treat Filipino workers as servants, even making them work as if they were some kind of slaves. The dire economic situation at home pushes Filipinos to work abroad, many in menial jobs, which in turn rubs on our pride. In this context, today’s Gospel parable touches raw nerves. That people are treated as slaves is bad enough. Does God, too, deal with us as his slaves?

To begin, Jesus speaks—quite naturally—within the framework of the situation of his time regarding slavery. Slavery was a shocking and essential element in all the societies of the ancient world. Rome, the heart of the Roman Empire, had more slaves than free men and women. Israel, too, knew slavery—there were Hebrew and pagan slaves. Servile conditions, though, were comparatively mild in Israel.

The slave is a property of a master and has no personal rights. Some even would classify slaves as res, to the class of things or property. Jesus merely states the condition of a slave in his time when he says that a slave does not eat immediately when he returns from hard work. He still has to prepare the table for his master and to wait on him while he eats.

What does Jesus drive at when he states the shocking and inhuman condition of a servant/slave by way of parable? It is this: we have nothing to boast of before God. If we can delight in and be proud of something in us, it is primarily because of God. Everything is grace. Thus we have no right to claim a wage: “We have done what we were obliged to do” through the grace of God.

Does God then delight in humiliating us? Not at all! In fact, he loves us so much that he sends us his Son so that he may rescue us from our condition of slavery and raise us to the status of beloved children, free and heirs of eternal life with Christ.

But first we must see where we stand before God. That we are creatures, we are dependent on God for everything. Ancient peoples who did not have the Revelation thought that men and women were created to labor as slaves while the gods enjoy rest and leisure. Israel, instead, believed that man and woman are created in God’s likeness.

Moreover, Scriptures teach that we have strayed away from God. When God sends his Son to us, it is not through any merit on our part, but is wholly his graciousness. “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

Once we have acknowledged that we are unprofitable servants, then we see that God really has high regard for our lowliness and lifts us up. Jesus, our Teacher and Lord, does not behave like a master in the parable, although he has every right to do so. In fact, he reverses the roles. Jesus tells a parable about servants who await their master’s return and draws this lesson: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them” (Lk 12:37). This parable becomes reality in Jesus in the Gospel of John. At the Last Supper, Jesus girds himself with towel and begins to wash the feet of the disciples (Jn 13:4-5). This he does that they may be made clean. This powerful gesture is the symbol of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, where he who is Lord, dies the death of a slave, so that he may release us from the slavery of Sin and Death, and make us free people who will sit with him at the banquet in his Father’s kingdom.

On the Blessed Virgin Mary

[Diary 1398]

"Advent is approaching. I want to prepare my heart for the coming of the Lord Jesus by silence and recollection of spirit, uniting myself with the Most Holy Mother and faithfully imitating Her virtue of silence, by which She found pleasure in the eyes of God Himself. I trust that, by Her side, I will persevere in this resolution. "

[Diary, 620]

" Mary is my Instructress, who is ever teaching me how to live for God. My spirit brightens up in Your gentleness and Your humility, O Mary."

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

The Sunday Gospel [Sept. 26, 2010]

Lk 16:19-31
The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

Jesus said to the Pharisees, "There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for i am suffering torment in these flames.'Abraham replied, 'My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.' He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.' But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.' He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"

RICHES ARE MEANS, NOT AN END

When her parents asked the young woman why she wanted to become a nun, she answered: "You would not understand me. You can only see the treasures here on earth and not the treasures that last." She wanted to point out that they were more focused on the "means" and not on the "end," on the riches here here on earth which she could give them help support the studies of her brothers and sisters, and not on the "end" of our existence---that is, "heaven," the experience of intimate communion with God, the loving embrace of God, the destiny of all beings.
The readings remind us that riches are means, not an end. The Gospel emphasizes true wisdom: "Know what is more important in life. Established proper relation between the means and the end, between riches and destiny of our life." Thus, we can be assured of what counts more in life, without focusing more on what is secondary.
Pondering on the readings, particularly on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, we can learn the following:
* Use properly your riches. The parable invites us to reflect not so much on hell but on how we use our riches. The warning of Jesus is evident: "Do not focus your attention on the means but on the end. Do not let riches hinder you from becoming more human. Instead, let riches make you more in solidarity with the needy."
Jesus describes the future of those who are rich but do not share their blessings with the poor and the needy. He does not say that riches are evil or unnecessary for life. Nevertheless, he emphasizes how riches have to be seen as "means" and not "end." The rich man seems to be happy. He is "dressed in purple garments and fine linen" and dines "sumptuously each day." On the other hand, Lazarus, the poor man, has nothing to eat. He is "covered with sores" and will gladly eat the scraps that fall from the rich man's table. God's justice prevails in the end. The rich man is not able to bring his riches into the life hereafter; he repents too late. The poor man, on the other hand, is rewarded with eternal happiness.
* Trust in God, not in your riches. Nothing is said if the rich man has gained his treasures unjustly. The Gospel does not accuse or condemn the fact of merely being rich. It condemns those who are rich yet do not care about the welfare of others.
Jesus calls foolish those who put their trust in things that are "passing" and not in God. These could not be their "passport" to life. The rich seems to have everything but come empty-handed before God.
*Sin of Ommision: The rich man does not do anything evil to Lazarus. He does not hurt Lazarus. But neither does he do anything good for Lazarus.
This happens not only among rich and poor nations but also among families, ecclsial communities, and concrete persons. Sometimes we forget the finality of the material goods of the earth. We are called to share with others what we have. This is an invitation for both the rich and the poor.

Prophecy on Pope John Paul "The Great"

[Diary 1732]

"As I was praying for Poland, I heard the words: I bear a special love for Poland, and if she will be obedient to My will, I will exalt her in might and holiness. From her will come forth the spark that will prepare the world for My final coming."

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".