Seventh Meditation - Hell

1. Place yourself in the Presence of God and humbly ask His help.

2. Imagine yourself in a city of gloom, a city of burning pitch and brimstone, a city whose inhabitants can never escape.

Considerations

1. Like those in this city, the damned are in the depths of hell, suffering unspeakable torments in every sense and member. Having used their life to sin, they suffer pain befitting their sin; eyes which looked on evil things will endure the awful visions of devils and of hell; ears which delighted to hear evil conversations will listen forever to awful wailing’s and lamentations and cries of despair.

2. Yet greater than all these torments is the loss of the glory and the Presence of God, being deprived of it forever. If Absalom found the suffering of never seeing his father’s face greater than that of banishment, how much greater our suffering at being excluded forever from the Face of God!

3. Consider that what makes hell intolerable is the fact that our suffering can never have and end. If a ache in the tooth or a slight fever makes the night seem endless, then how terrible that eternal night when afflicted with so many sufferings! An eternal night which gives birth to eternal despair and frenzied blasphemies without end.

Spiritual Acts and Resolutions

1. Stir your soul to terror. Could I endure the devouring flame.. of fires that burn unceasingly? (Is 33:13). Am I really prepared to cut myself off forever from God?

2. I must admit that I have often deserved such a fate, yet why should I go down to the abyss? From now on I will travel away from it.

3. To this end I will take all possible means to avoid sin, which alone can lead me to that everlasting torment and death.

Conclusion

1. Thanksgiving. Thank God for giving you the means of contemplating the torments of hell, and for allowing you time to do penance to avoid them.

2. Offering. Offer Him your heart to this end.

3. Petition. Ask Him to grant you the graces you need in order to avoid hell, through the infinite Mercy and Merits of His Son, and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints.