Judgment
Heaven Hell Eternity Fatima
The
three little children of Fatima were shown a vision of hell in July
1917. And the sweet Blessed Virgin Mary
in her kindness prepared them for the sight of this by promising them
ahead of time that she was going to take them to heaven, otherwise
they couldn’t have endured it. Lucy declared after that vision that
they would have died of fright if there had not been a particular
grace from God.
After
seeing that great sea of fire filled with the demons and lost souls
in pain and despair, the little children of Fatima looked up to the
Blessed Virgin Mary who said to them so kindly and so sadly: “You
have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God
wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”
She said: “If what I say to you is done many souls will be saved
and there will be peace.” My good people we can do this! Every
single one of us has it in our power to help the sweet Blessed Virgin
Mary to save souls and to bring peace to this world. It’s the
truth! We have the power to help sweet Mother Mary; she’s begging
us for this.
That
vision of hell filled little Jacinta with such concern for souls and
such ardent charity that every penance
and every mortification was as nothing in her eyes if it could just
prevent souls from going there. People used to ask, how is it
possible that such a little girl as that could take on such serious
sacrifices and penance like that. And Lucia herself explained that it
is because God gave her a special grace through the Immaculate Heart
of Mary and also because she had looked upon hell and had actually
seen the ruin of poor souls.
LITTLE
JACINTA FELT SO SORRY FOR SOULS WHO GO TO HELL
and for those who are burning alive like wood in the fire, as she put
it. Shuddering she would kneel down, hold her hands and recite the
prayer that the Blessed Virgin Mary herself gave us to pray: “Oh my
Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Lead all
souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy mercy.”
Little Jacinta would remain on her knees and keep saying this prayer
over and over again, and from time to time she would call out to her
little brother and say: “Francesco, are you praying with me?” And
she would say that we must pray very much to save souls from hell.
Jacinta
asked Lucia: “WHY DOESN’T OUR LADY
SHOW HELL TO SINNERS?” She said if
they saw hell they wouldn’t sin anymore! She said that if people
would just stop offending God, there would be no more war, and no one
would go to hell. And she actually took hold of Lucia one day and she
said: “I’m going to heaven, but you’re staying here. If our
Lady lets you, tell everybody what hell is like so that they won’t
commit any more sin and they won’t go to hell.”
HELL
IS SOMETHING WE DON’T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT AND YET IT IS A REALITY.
And our sweet Mother Mary talked about it and so did her Son. Our
Lord Jesus Christ spoke quite graphically about the fires of hell in
Sacred Scripture. And our kind gently loving Mother then showed this
reality to the little children, the youngest of whom was only six
years old. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: “Blessed are those who have
not seen but still believe” (Jn 20:29). That’s us; that’s us!
Blessed are we who believe in the truth, these eternal truths of our
faith. Heaven is for real, and hell is for real. And whether we
believe it or not, our souls, our lives are leading us in one
direction or another. AND WE ARE MASTERS
OF OUR OWN SHIP, in the sense that
we’re at the helm, we’re steering our lives and our souls either
to heaven or to hell. And we can change course if we want, it’s up
to us. We can turn this ship around, if we so chose. We can turn the
steering wheel of our lives and head in the opposite direction if
that’s what’s necessary. Here below it’s so important for us to
be far-sighted servants of God, to look ahead at where everything in
life is leading us. All of us have to do our retirement planning.
Everyone has to decide where and with whom we wish to spend our
retirement. And I’m talking about our eternal retirement now. I
want so much for us to end up in a good place, in a comfortable
place, in a place that’s not too hot! I want every single one of us
to end up in the most beautiful place of all. Because eternity lasts
a really long time!
OUR
BLESSED MOTHER OF FATIMA IS BASICALLY REMINDING US THAT WE HAVE TO
CHOSE BETWEEN TWO FUTURES. We have to
chose between two options for our everlasting retirement. If we wish
we can chose hell which Lucia described as a great sea of fire filled
with pain and despair that never never ends. Or we can direct our
lives and aim toward heaven, toward the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
toward a place filled with waters of grace and refreshment and light
and peace and beauty and endless love and endless joys. We are made
for happiness, not just the fleeting kind of happiness. We are made
for everlasting happiness in heaven. And we can actually start
tasting it a little bit here below if we wish. To be near God is our
happiness as the psalmist says. And only that which is eternal can
fully satisfy us. Little Jacinta said if only men knew what eternity
is, they would do everything in their power to change their lives!
Archbishop
Fulton Sheen wrote in 1948:
“Nowhere
in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the
Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is
he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as “the Prince of this
world,” whose business it is to tell us that there is no other
world. HIS LOGIC IS SIMPLE:
if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then
there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if
there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above
all these descriptions, OUR LORD TELLS
US THAT HE WILL BE SO MUCH LIKE HIMSELF THAT HE WOULD DECEIVE EVEN
THE ELECT–and certainly no devil ever
seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come
in this new age to win followers to his religion?”
(Communism
and the Conscience of the West, by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen,
Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis, 1948, pp. 24-25)
To
fight in a battle, is it not prudent and necessary to know not only
your own weapons, tactics and strategy but also the weapons, tactics
and strategy of the enemy? It was
recounted to Pope John Paul II that the Vatican's chief exorcist,
Father Gabriele Amorth, “knows too many
bishops who do not believe in the Devil”. The Pope replied bluntly:
“ANYONE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE
GOSPEL”. When asked “What do you
see as SATAN’S GREATEST SUCCESS?”,
Amorth replied: “The fact that he has managed to convince people
that he does not exist. He has almost managed it, even within the
Church. We have a clergy and an Episcopate who no longer believe in
the Devil , in exorcism, in the exceptional evil the Devil can
instill, or even in the power that Jesus bestowed to cast out demons.
For three centuries the Latin Church – in
contrast to the Orthodox Church and the various Protestant
professions – has almost totally abandoned the ministry of
exorcism. So because they no longer perform exorcisms, or study them,
and never having seen them, the clergy no longer believe in them. And
they no longer believe in the Devil. We have entire Episcopates
trying to counter exorcism. We have countries completely devoid of
exorcists, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.
This is a shameful shortfall.”;
(http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2879;
http://www.vaticans.org/index.php?/archives/61-An-interview-with-the-Vaticans-chief-excorcist,-Father-Gabriele.html).
God,
Who is love, respects our free will totally,
to live the Our Father, “THY
will be done”, or to live the Our Father “MY
will be done”! God will not force anyone to spend eternity with Him
in heaven. In heaven there is room for only one God, not two. All
those who want to command end up together where everyone wants to
command. But if everyone wants to command in the eternal place where
there is no God, who commands? The strongest one, who is Satan! I
prefer to spend eternity under God than under Satan!
“The
chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God” (CCC
1035).
Let
us make the right choice!
Father
Joseph Dwight
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