Spiritual Corner - Perpetual Pains in Hell

Preparation

1. Place yourself in the Presence of God.
2. Humble yourself, and ask His Assistance.
3. Represent to yourself a dark city, all burning with brimstone and stinking pitch, full of inhabitants who cannot make their escape.

Considerations

1. The Pains of the Senses: The damned are in the depth of hell as within this woeful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments in all their senses and members; because as they have employed all their senses and members in sinning, so shall they suffer in each of them the punishment due to sin. Their eyes, for having looked with unlawful and wicked looks, shall endure the horrible sight of hell and devils. Their ears, for having delighted in vicious discourse, shall hear nothing but wailings, lamentations, and cries of despair; and so of the rest.
2. The Loss of God: Beyond all these torments, there is one yet greater: the privation and loss of God’s glory, from which they are excluded for ever. If Absalom found the privation of his father David’s face more grievous than his banishment, O God, what a grief will it be to be for ever deprived of the sight of Thy most sweet and gracious Face!
3. The Eternity of Pains: Consider, above all, the eternity of these pains, which alone makes hell insupportable. If a little flea in one's ear, or the heat of a slight fever, makes a short night seem long and tedious to us, how terrible will the night of eternity be, accompanied with so many torments! From this eternity proceeds eternal despair, infinite blasphemy, and rage. 

Affections and Resolutions

1. Terrify your soul with the words of the Prophet Isaiah: “O my soul, canst thou dwell with everlasting burnings? Canst thou abide with devouring fire?” Dost thou desire to quit the sight of thy God for ever?
2. Confess that you have deserved hell, yea, many times. But from henceforth I will take a new course; for why should I go down into this bottomless pit?
3. I will therefore make efforts to avoid such or such a sin, which is the cause of my death.

Conclusion

Give thanks; Offer; Pray.

Yours,
Fr. John Wang
<An Excerpt from The Seventh Meditation, (St. Francis de Sales) Chapter 15>