<---Life after death.
This text, strong and moving, send us a Jesuit priest friend, who accompanies it with the following introduction:This material is not the current taste of modern society, so materialistic, and away from God, I mean of course the taste worldly nor unfortunately of many among the so-called Christian faithful.
Because it touches a subject that many scandalize by its truth; Hell!
We should pay attention today to this reality and truth of faith as defined in the Catholic Church, about the existence of hell and its eternal duration.
Sadly, consciously or unconsciously neglect to consider the reality of hell, is leading many, many people to deny their existence, with unfortunate consequences in the behavior and in its inescapable Divine judgment.
What follows, like it or not, it is not argument for adopting the attitude called the ostrich, burying your head in the wings.
This text does not set any ecclesiastical definition, it is only a private letter enjoying ecclesiastical license, thus the Catholic church does not be opposed to its spread, so you can print, read and diffuse by the good of many souls nowdays.
A REMINDER;
- Our Lady of the Roses: Messages from Heaven, February 1, 1975
"You have but two only final destinies: Heaven or hell.
Know that satan will try to remove the reality of the existence of his kingdom, hell, from you. If he makes a farce of his existence among you, he will deceive you so that you will sin and remove yourselves from the Spirit of light.
And when you remove yourselves from the Spirit of light, you remove yourselves from eternal life in the Kingdom of your Father, the most high God in Heaven."
LETTER FROM BEYOND.
Impressive testimony to a damned soul, about what led her to Hell.
Imprimatur of the German original: "BRIEF AUS DEM JENSEITS" (Letter from beyond).
- Treves, Germany, November 9, 1953. N.4/53
Introduction to the original text.
God communicates with men in many ways. The Holy Scriptures refer to many divine communications made through visions and even in dreams.
Dreams are not always just dreams.
The "letter from beyond" which is reproduced below refers to the eternal damnation of a young woman. At first glance looks like a historical novel.
But considering the circumstances it concludes that it is not without its historical background, from his moral sense and scope transcendental.
The original of this letter was found among the papers of a nun deceased religious, wich was girl friend of the young condemned.
In the letter, nun relates the events of the life of her companion as if they were known facts and verified, so as her eternal damnation communicated in a dream.
The Diocesan Curia of Treves (Germany) authorized its publication as instructive reading, and it is a warning to all those who doubt, denies or do not believe in the reality of hell.
The "letter from beyond" first appeared in a book of revelations and prophecies, along with other stories. It was the Rev. Father Bernhardin Krempel CP, doctor in theology, who published separately and gave it greater authority to undertake to prove, in the notes, the absolute consistency of it with Catholic doctrine.
Among the manuscripts left in her convent by a nun, who in the world was named Clara, was found the following testimony:
THIS IS THE LETTER OF CLAIRE:
In my youth, I had a friend, Anne, who lived near my house. That is to say, we were mutually attached as companions and co-workers in the same office.
After Anne married, I never saw her again. We never had what can be called a real friendship, but rather an amiable relationship. For this reason, when she married well and moved to a better neighborhood far from my home, I didn’t really miss her that much.
In mid-September of 1937 I was vacationing at Lake Garda when my mother wrote me a letter telling me:
“Anne N. died. She lost her life in an automobile accident. She was buried yesterday in Wald Friendhof´s cemetery.”
I was shocked by the news. What struck me most was her early age for dying.
I knew that Anne had never been very religious and did not like going to mass not even go to confess.
Was she prepared when God called her suddenly from this life?
What state would have found her the sudden death?
The next morning I assisted at Mass in the chapel of the convent boarding house where I was rooming. I prayed fervently for the eternal rest of her soul and offered my Holy Communion for that intention everytime I could.
Throughout the day I was unsettled, and that night I slept fitfully.
Once, I awoke suddenly, hearing something that sounded like my door being opened. Startled, I turned on the light, noting that the time on the clock on my nightstand showed ten minutes after midnight.
The house was quiet and I saw nothing unusual. The only sound was from the waves of Lake Garda breaking monotonously on the garden wall.
There was no wind.
Nonetheless, I thought I heard something else after the rattling of the door, a swooshing sound like something being dropped.
It reminded me of when my former office manager was in a bad mood and dropped some problem papers on my desk for me to resolve.
Should I get up and look around? I wondered.
No, It was probably just imagination, somewhat overwrought by the news of the death of my friend Anne, so young and is dead.
But since all remained quiet, it didn’t seem worthwhile.
I rolled over, prayed several Our Fathers for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, and returned to sleep.
I then had a dream that I arose at six o´clock to go to morning Mass in the house chapel.
By returning, I opened the door of my room, and I found a amount of sheets of letter. I picked them up and recognized Anne’s handwriting, I cried out in fright, it only took a couple of minutes.
My fingers trembled, and my mind was so shaken I couldn’t even to pray an Our Father. I felt like I was suffocating, and needed open air to breathe.
I hastily finished arranging myself, put the letter in my purse, and rushed from the house.
Once outside, I followed a winding path up through the hills, past the olive and laurel trees and the neighboring farms, and then on beyond the famous Gardesana highway.
The day was breaking with the brilliant light of the morning sun.
On other days, I would stop every hundred steps or so to marvel at the magnificent view of the lake and beautiful Garda Island.
The sparkling blue tones of the water delighted me, and like a child gazing with awe at her grandfather, I would gaze with admiration upon the ashen-colored Mount Baldo that rose some 7,200 feet above the opposite shore of the lake.
On this morning, however, I was oblivious to everything around me.
After walking a quarter of an hour, I sat mechanically on the ground on the riverbank between two cypress trees where many days before, I had been happily reading several times a novel, "Lady Teresa".
For the first time I looked at the cypress trees conscious of them as symbols of death, something I had taken no notice of before, since these trees are quite common here in the south.
I took the letter from my purse. There was no signature, but it was, beyond any doubt, the handwriting of Anne. There was no mistaking the large, flowing S or the French T she made that used to irritate Mr. G. at the office.
It was not, however, written in her usual style of speaking, which was so amiable and charming, like her, with those blue eyes and elegant nose.
Only when we discussed religious topics did she become sarcastic and take on the rude tone and agitated cadence of the letter I now began to read.
Behold, word for word, the Letter from beyond of Anne V. as I read it in the dream.
LETTER FROM BEYOND.
Claire, do not pray for me. I am damned!.
If I give you this warning, I do not do by friendship. No, here in hell, we do not love to anyone. Love does not exist. We hate each other, we do each other all wickedness possible.
I do against my will, I am obliged to do it, as "part of that power (the devil) that always wants evil and does good."
Actually, I'd like to see you here, suffering terribly, dying at every moment, like we do, In this place where I arrived to stay forever.
You can not imagine how this place is, you have no idea.
The most horrible, the most terrifying place that can exist on earth compared with this place, not it look like in the least.(1)
(1) St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Suppl., Q. 98, art. 4: "Therefore, they [the damned] will wish all the good were damned."
Do not be surprised of my intentions. We all think the same way here in hell.
Our will is hardened in evil - in what you call “evil.”
Even when we do something “good,” as I am doing now in opening your eyes not to fall in hell, it is not with any good intention, of course not!.(2)
(2) In response to the Question whether every act of the will in the damned is evil, St. Thomas distinguishes the deliberate will and the natural will:
“Their natural will is theirs not of themselves but of the Author of nature, Who gave nature this inclination which we call the natural will.
Wherefore since nature remains in them, it follows that the natural will in them can be good.
“But their deliberate will is theirs of themselves, inasmuch as it is in their power to be inclined by their affections to this or that.
This will is in them always evil: and this because they are completely turned away from the last end of a right will, nor can a will be good except it be directed to that same end.
Hence even though they will some good, they do not will it well so that one is not able to call their will good on that account.” Ibid., Q. 98, a. 1.
Do you remember when we worked together for four years in M.
You were 23 and had already worked in the office for a half year when I arrived.
You helped me out many times, and frequently gave me good advice while you were training me.
But what is meant by that term “good”? At the time I praised your “charity.”
How ridiculous you were! You helped me to please your own vanity, as I suspected at the time. Here we don’t acknowledge good in anyone! Everything is evil.
You knew me in my youth, but I will fill in certain details.
According to my parents’ plans, I never should have existed.
The disgrace of my conception was due to their carelessness.
When I was born, my two sisters were already 14 and 15 years of age.
How I wish that I had never been born!
I wish I could annihilate myself at this moment and escape these torments!,
kill me and end with the torment of my consciousness.
There could be no pleasure greater than to be able to end my existence,
to do away with myself like a piece of cloth reduced to ashes, leaving no remnant behind.(3)
But I must exist. I must be as I have made myself, bearing the total blame for how I have ended.
(3) Ibid., Q 98, a. 3, r. ib. Ad. 3: "Although ‘not to be’ is very evil in so far as it removes being, it is very good in so far as it removes unhappiness, which is the greatest if evils, and thus it is preferred ‘not to be.’"
Before my parents married, they had moved away from their country villages to the city and drifted away from the Church, making friends with others who had fallen away from the practice of the faith.
They met at a dance, and six months later they were “obliged” to get married.
During the wedding ceremony a few drops of holy water fell on them, just enough to draw my mother to Sunday Mass a few times a year.
She never taught me to pray correctly. She wore herself out over material concerns, even when our situation was not difficult.
It is only with deep repugnance and unspeakable disgust that I have to write words such as pray, Mass, holy water, and church.
I profoundly detest those who go to church, along with everyone and everything in general; plants, animals, human beings, everything!
For us, everything is a torture. Everything we came to understand at death, every recollection of life and of what we knew, my life, my family, my husband, is like a burning flame that torments us. (4)
(4) Ibid., Q 98, a. 7, r.: "Accordingly, in the damned there will be actual consideration of the things they knew heretofore as matters of sorrow, but not as a cause of pleasure. For they will consider both the evil they have done, and for which they were damned, and the delightful goods they have lost, and on both counts they will suffer torments in mind and in body."
All of these memories only show us the horrible sight of the graces we rejected.
A call from Heaven to become, to approach us the good. The Graces without which no one is saved, we trampled them, and we threw them to God in his face.
How this tortures us now!
We do not eat, we do not sleep, we do not walk with human legs as you know. Enchained in spirit, we reprobates stare with terror at our misspent lives, howling and gnashing our teeth, tormented and filled with hatred.
We do not eat, we do not sleep, we do not walk on our feet, running from side to side in a terrible darkness and suffocating odor.
We are spiritually chained, we reprobates (condemned) stare with terror second to second misspent lives on earth, howling and gnashing our teeth, tormented, full of hatred and wickedness.
Do you know what I mean?
Do you know what we suffer here in hell?
Do you understand our despair?
Here we drink hatred as if it were water. We all hate one another. (5) And more than anything else, we hate God.
Here we drink hatred as if it were water. We all hate one another, and we wish evil each other. But more than anything else, we hate God, with all our existence.
I will try to make you understand how this is.
The blessed in Heaven must necessarily love God, for they constantly behold Him in His awe-inspiring beauty. That makes them indescribably happy,
lack nothing, God is everything to them.
We know this, and this knowledge fills us with fury.(6)
(5) Ibid., Q. 98, a. 4, r.: "Even as in the blessed in heaven there will be most perfect charity, so in the damned there will be the most perfect hate.”
(6) Ibid., Q. 98, a. 9, r.:
“The damned, before the judgment day, will see the blessed in glory, in such a way as to know, not what that glory is like, but only that they are in a state of glory that surpasses all thought.
This will trouble them, both because they will, through envy, grieve for their happiness, and because they have forfeited that glory."
On earth, men know God through Creation and Revelation and are able to love Him, but they are not forced to do so.
The believer – I say this seething with fury – who contemplates and meditates upon Christ extended on the Cross will end loving Him, and gaining merit for salvation!.
But when God approaches as Avenger and Judge, the soul who rejected Him will hate Him, as we hate Him. (7) That soul hates Him with all the strength of its perverse will. It hates Him eternally, by virtue of its deliberate resolution to reject God with which it ended its earthly life.
This perverse act of the will can never be revoked, nor would we ever want to do so.
Because our "status" (of evil) does not allow any changes, and so will remain forever, for eternity!
Do you understand now why hell lasts forever?
For our obstinacy in not having heard to God, not having paid attention to his calls when he did, having denied God continually, in having mocked us faith in Christ, this never melts, it never ends, never will end.
And against my will, really furious, I add this: that God is merciful, God is Kindhearted, That God is all Love, still with us, yes even with the damned in hell.
I say "against my will" because, even if I say all these things voluntarily, and they are really certain about God, "I may not lie," what is I really want to do.
I let a lot of information in the paper against my wishes, as goods for eternal salvation and that makes me very angry knowing that some reading this, may be easily saved many souls and go to heaven, which I no longer able to do.
(7) Ibid., Q. 98, a. 8, sf 1, iba 5, r: "The damned do not hate God except because He punishes and forbids what is agreeable to their evil will [the evil that they still desire to do]: and consequently they will think of Him only as punishing and forbidding."
I am forced to add that even now God is still merciful to us. I say “forced” because even though I willingly write this letter, I cannot lie as I would like to.
Much of what I put on this paper I write against my will.
I also have to choke down the torrent of insults I would like to spew out against you and everything.
God is merciful even to us here in that He did not allow us to do all the evil we wanted to do while on earth.
Had He permitted us to do so, we would have added greatly to our guilt and chastisement.
He allowed like some of us to die early – as is my case – or permitted attenuating circumstances in others.
Even now He shows us mercy, for He does not oblige us to draw near to Him.
He placed us in this distant place of Hell, thus diminishing our torment.(8)
Every step closer to God would increase my suffering more than every step you might take toward a fire.
(8) Ibid., Part I, Q. 21, a. 4, ad. 1: "Even in the damnation of the reprobate mercy is seen, which, though it does not totally remit, it somewhat alleviates, in punishing short of what is deserved." In another note, the holy Doctor of the Church says that this is the case above all with those who in this world were merciful to others (Q. 99, a. 5, ad. 1).
You were astonished one day when I told you in passing what my father said to me some days prior to my First Communion. “Be sure you get a beautiful dress, little Anne,” he said. “The rest is all a sham.”
I was almost ashamed then for having shocked you so much, but now I laugh about it. The best part of this sham was that Communion was only allowed at 12 years of age. By then, I had already tasted enough of the pleasures of the world, so I didn’t take Communion seriously.
The new custom of allowing children to receive Holy Communion at seven years of age infuriates us.
We strive in every possible way to frustrate this, to make people believe that a child is too young to properly comprehend what Communion is or to think that children must commit serious sins before they can receive.
The “white” host [that is, the Sacred Host] will then be less damaging than if He were received with faith, hope, and love, the fruits of Baptism – I spit upon all this by disgust! – which are still alive in a heart of a child.
Do you recall that I already had this same point of view when I was on earth?
I keep telling you about my father. He argued a lot with mom and said her ugly things. Few times I told you, because I was ashamed. What a ridiculous thing of shame!
It makes no difference to us here in hell, everything is the same, no changes.
My parents no longer slept in the same room. I slept with mom, dad did it in the next room, where he could return at any hour of the night.
After a while, my parents no longer slept in the same room.
I slept with my mother, and my father slept in the adjoining room, where he could come back at any hour of the night.
He drank heavily and spent everything the money we had.
My sisters were employed but needed their money to live, or so they said.
So my Mother went to work.
In the last year of his bitter life, my father always beat her when she refused to give him money.
With me, however, he was always very kind.
I told you all about this one day and you were scandalized at my capricious attitude,
-and what was not there about me that didn’t scandalize you? –
such as when I returned new pairs of shoes twice in one day because the style of the heel wasn’t modern enough for me.
On the night my father died from a stroke, something happened that I never told you because I didn’t want to hear your unkind interpretation.
Today, however, you ought to know it. The fact is memorable, for the first time the evil spirit that torture me, here in hell, approached to me.
I was asleep in my mother’s bedroom. She was sleeping deeply, as I could tell from her regular breathing. Suddenly, I heard someone say my name.
An unfamiliar voice murmured:
“What would happen if your father were to die?”
I no longer loved my father after he had begun to mistreat my mother. Properly speaking, I no longer loved anyone.
I only had some attachments to certain persons who were kind to me.
Love without a natural motive rarely exists except in souls that live in the state of grace. That was not my case. I was not in state of any grace.
“I’m sure he’s not dying,” I replied to the mysterious evil voice that I was tormented at nights.
After a brief interval, I heard the same question. Without troubling myself as to its source, I sullenly replied, “It doesn’t matter. He’s not dying.”
For the third time the question came:
“What would happen were your father to die?”
In a flash certain scenes passed quickly through my mind: my father coming home drunk, his scolding and fighting with my mother, how he often embarrassed us in front of our neighbors and acquaintances.
I cried out obstinately: “All right, then, it’s what he deserves. Let him die!”
Afterward, everything became still. The following morning, when my mother went upstairs to clean father’s room, she found the door locked.
Around noon they forced it open. Father was lying half-dressed on his bed – dead, a corpse.
He probably took a mortal crisis while he went for beer in the cellar.
He had already been sick for a long time.
[Could it be that God had depended upon the will of a child, to whom this man had shown some goodness, to grant him more time and an opportunity to convert?]
Marta K. and you made me enroll in a sodality for young women.
I never told you how absurd I found the instructions of the two directors, although the games were amusing enough.
As you know, I quickly came to play a preponderant role in them, which flattered me. I also found the excursions pleasant.
I even allowed myself at times to be taken to Confession and receive Holy Communion.
I really had nothing to confess, (those who think in this way, commits the sin of pride). For I never paid heed to answering for my thoughts and sentiments. And I was still not ready for worse things.
“Anne, you will be lost if you don’t pray more, you must pray always and be persevering".”
How right you were, if I had listened you!.
In truth I prayed very little, and always reluctantly and with annoyance.
As I prayed I always thought about the new dress, about the walk on Sunday afternoon, what about buying end month, whom would invite to home on Saturday and so on.
The "prayer" is the first step towards God. It is the decisive step.
Through prayer we acquire merits to get to Heaven. Without merits we can not get Heaven.
Especially prayer to that one who is the mother of Christ, whose name it is not licit for us to pronounce (The Blessed Virgin Mary).
Devotion to her draws innumerable souls away from the devil, souls who by their sins would have fallen unfailingly into hell.
I am angry and full of rage and hatred and I continue alerting you and warning you of all the means necessary for the salvation of the soul.
You do not know as I wish that you condemn, and all on earth were condemned.
The prayer of the Holy Rosary is the weapon to fight the devil and defeat him!
I do all this because I am obliged to do so, and although would not want to do it, I have to warn you and warn everyone who reading this letter can save the soul.
You know, God always wins and of everything always gets something good, even the greatest sins and sinners always draws something fruitful and good for souls.
And it takes advantage in prayer, for prayer gives light and understanding to the soul that perseveres and never gives up.
Truly I can not bear over such rage and fury.
"Praying is the easiest thing one can do on earth".
It just takes will, asking God every day you get to do it.
And just this, prayer, daily prayer, which is very easy, God makes depend our salvation.
Whoever prays with perseverance, gradually God gives so much light, and thereby strengthens that even the most hardened (hardened) sinner can recover and get your salvation and that of those who redean, even if it is sunk in a swamp to the neck of sins.
In fact, in the last years of my life I no longer prayed at all, and thus I was deprived myself of the graces without which no one can be saved.
I can only deplore and suffer the dire consequences.
Here we no longer receive any grace. Even if we were to receive it, we would reject it with disdain. All the vacillations of earthly life come to an end in the beyond. In earthly life, man can pass from a state of sin to the state of grace.
"With the death, every human being enters a "state" final, fixed and unalterable forever."
If we die without repenting of our sins, our state will be of eternal damnation.
If we die asking forgiveness for sins committed, our state will be of eternal happiness.
As one advances in age, the changes become more difficult. It is true that until death one can either convert or turn ones back upon God.
It is true that one has time to death to join God or to give the backs and reject him.
In death, however, man makes his decision with the last actions of his will, mechanically, the same way he did throughout his life.
A good or bad habit becomes second nature, and this is what moves a person one way or another in his final moments.
We must decide whether follow God or reject him at the supreme moment, ie at the last moment of life in this world, after this, there is no more chance. Everything is defined in this moment, with death
So it happened with me.
For years I had lived apart from God. I did not want to hear the call that God made me permanently. God struck the door of my heart repeatedly, and I did not open him, I was not interested, it was as if to say; Depart from me, do not bother me, I want nothing from you.
"The fatality was not often have sinned, but rather because I had refused so often to amend my life, seeking of the repentance".
You repeatedly admonished me to listen to sermons and read pious books, but I always made excuses for myself, citing a lack of time.
What more could I have done to increase my inner uncertainty about religion?
By the time I reached this critical point, which was shortly before I left the sodality for young women, it would have been difficult for me to follow any other path. I felt insecure and unhappy.
I had erected a huge wall that stood in the way of my conversion towards God, although you apparently didn’t realize it.
You must have thought I could convert quite easily when you said to me once:
“Anne, make a good confession and everything will be all right.”
I did not realize it would be this, that through confession and communion is the first step to be with God and then would come the grace of prayer.
I suspected that what you said was true, but the world, the flesh, and the devil already had me securely in their clutches.
I never believed in the action of the devil, but now I attest that the devil exercises a powerful influence over persons such as he was in me.
I laughed a lot when someone mentioned him and I said to myself, "the devil does not exist, is an invention of priests".
People who were in the same condition that I was alienated from God, the devil influences to turn away more than salvation. (9)
Only many prayers, the daily rosary, prayer their own and others, along with sacrifices and sufferings, could have rescued me from the clutches of the devil. Even so, little by little for long time.
(9) Devils and demons are the names given to the evil spirits that exercise this influence. For proof of their existence two texts from Holy Scriptures suffice:
“Be sober and watch, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour" (I Peter 5:8).
"Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places" (Ephes. 6:11-12).
There are very few persons who are physically possessed by the devil, but many who are possessed interiorly. The devil cannot snatch the free will from those who give themselves over to his influence.
Yet as a chastisement for one’s almost total apostasy from God, He permits that person to be dominated by “evil.”
Ie those who seek to the devil, God allows the "devil" is nested in their heart.
I hate the devil, and yet I like him because he and his helpers, the angels that fell with him at the beginning of time, strive to make you lose your souls.
"There are myriads of demons. Uncountable numbers of them wandering through the world like swarms of flies, their presence not even suspected".
Condemned souls like us are not the ones who tempt you; this is left to the fallen spirits. (10) Our torments increase every time they bring another soul to Hell, but we still want to see everyone condemned.
Hatred is capable of anything!(11)
(10) Summa Theologica, Suppl., Q. 98, a. 6, ad. 2: "Men who are damned are not occupied in drawing others to damnation, as the demons are."
(11) Ibid., Q. 98, a. 4, ad. 3: “Although an increase in the number of the damned results in an increase of each one's punishment, so much the more will their hatred and envy increase that they will prefer to be more tormented with many, rather than less tormented alone."
Even though I tried to avoid Him, God sought me out. I prepared the way for grace by the works of natural charity I often did, following the natural inclination of my nature.
At times, too, God attracted me to a church. When I took care of my sick mother even after a hard day of work at the office, which was no small sacrifice for me, I strongly felt these attractions to the grace of God.
Once, in the hospital chapel where you used to take me during our free time at mid-day, I was so moved that I found myself just one step away from conversion. I wept.
The pleasures of the world, however, shortly swept me up in a torrent and drowned out this grace. The thorns choked out the wheat. Making the rationalization that religion is sentimentalism, the argument I heard at the office, I cast away this grace also, like so many others.
Once you reprimanded me because instead of genuflecting in church, I made only a slight inclination of my head. You thought it was laziness, not suspecting that I already no longer believed in the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
I believe it now, although only naturally, as one believes in a storm, by perceiving its signs and effects.
In the meantime, I had found for myself a religion. The general opinion in the office, that after death a soul would return to this world as another being, with an endless succession of dying and returning again, pleased me.
With this, I shut out the distressing problem of the hereafter to the point that I imagined it no longer troubled me.
Why didn’t you remind me of the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, in which the narrator sent one to Hell and the other to Paradise after they died?
But what good would this reminder have done?
I would have just considered it just more of your pious advice.
Little by little I arranged a god, one privileged enough to be called a god, and at the same time distant enough that I didn’t have to deal with him.
I made him confusing enough to allow me to transform him, at will and without need to change religions, into a pantheistic god, or even to permit me to become a proud Deist.
This “god” had neither a heaven to console me nor a hell to frighten me.
I left him in peace. This is what my adoration of him consisted of. One easily believes in what one loves. With the passing of years, I became sufficiently convinced of my religion. I lived at ease with it, without its causing me any inconvenience.
Only one thing would have been able to bring me to my senses: a profound and prolonged suffering. But this suffering never came.
Do you understand now the meaning of "God punishes" (put to tests), “Whom God loves, He chastises”?
One summer day in July the sodality of young women organized an outing. Yes, I liked those outings, but not the pious beatas who went on them!
I had recently placed an image very different from the one of Our Lady of Grace on the altar of my heart. It was that fine manly figure of Max N. from the nearby office. We had already conversed several times.
On this occasion, he invited me out on the same Sunday that the sodality outing was planned. Another woman whom he had been dating was in the hospital.
He had noticed, of course, that I had my eyes on him, but I had never thought of marrying him. He was wealthy, but too friendly with all the young ladies, in my opinion. Up until then I had wanted a man who would belong exclusively to me, and I would be his alone. Thus, I had always kept a certain distance between us.
(This is true. There was something noble about Anne, notwithstanding her religious indifference. It astonishes me that “sincere” persons like her can also fall into Hell if they are insincere enough to flee from facing God.)
Max began to shower me with attentions from the day of that outing. Our conversation, of course, was certainly different from that of your pious women. The next day in the office, you reprimanded me for not having gone with you. I then told you about my Sunday diversion.
Your first question was: “Did you go to Mass?” How ridiculous! How could I have gone to Mass when we had agreed to leave at six in the morning?
Do you remember that I heatedly added, “The good God is not so mean-spirited as your little priests!”
Now I am forced to confess to you that, His infinite goodness notwithstanding, God takes everything much more seriously than any priest.
After this first outing with Max, I only attended one more of your sodality meetings. I was attracted to some of the Christmas solemnities, but I had already dissociated myself from you interiorly.
The dances, movies, walking, continued. Sometimes we fought with Max, but I knew how to keep him. I hated that much to my opponent, after leaving the hospital, she was furious. Actually, that favored me. The calm distinguished that I showed generated a great impression on Max, who bowed definitely for me..
I knew just how to belittle her. I was speaking calmly by outside, seeming to be entirely objective, but my inside, spewing venom from within.
"Insinuations and actions like this can rapidly lead one to Hell. They are diabolical, in the true sense of the word".
Why am I telling you this?
"To show you how I came to separate myself definitively from God".
To remove myself so far, it was not even necessary to be entirely familiar with Max. I knew that if I lowered myself to that too soon, he would think less of me. So I restrained myself and refused. In truth, I was ready to do anything I thought useful to reach my aim. I would stop at nothing to win Max.
Gradually we fell in love, for both of us possessed certain admirable qualities that we could mutually appreciate. I was talented and had become a good conversationalist, so I eventually had Max in my hands, secure that he belonged only to me, at least in those last months before our wedding.
This is what constituted my apostasy from God: making a mere creature into my god. The way this can be more fully realized is between two persons of opposite sex, if they have only a material love. For this becomes the allure, the sting, and the venom. The “adoration” I rendered to Max became an ardent religion for me.
At this stage of my life I would still at times hypocritically run off during the office lunch hour to go to church, to listen to the silly priests, to say the Rosary, and other such foolishness.
You strove, with more or less intelligence, to encourage such practices, but apparently without suspecting that, in final analysis, I no longer believed in any of these things. I only sought to set my conscience at ease – I still needed that – in order to justify my apostasy. In the depth of my soul I lived in revolt against God.
You did not perceive that. You always thought I was still Catholic. I wanted to be seen as such, and I even went so far as to make contributions to the church, thinking that a little “insurance” couldn’t hurt me.
As sure as you were with your answers, they always bounced off me. I was sure that you could not be right. This strained our relationship, and when my marriage put some distance between us, the pain of our separation was slight.
Before my wedding, I went to Confession and Holy Communion one more time, but it was a mere formality.
My husband thought the same as I. We carried out that formality just like any other. You would call that “unworthy.”
But after that “unworthy” Communion I had greater peace of mind. It was the last one of my life.
Our married life was generally harmonious. We shared the same opinion on just about everything. That included our opinion regarding children: We didn’t want the burden. Deep down, my husband wanted one child, but naturally no more.
I was able to remove even this notion from his head. I preferred fine clothing and furniture, tea with the ladies, automobile excursions, and other such amusements. And so a year of earthly pleasure passed from our wedding day until my sudden death.
Every Sunday we went for a drive or visited my husband’s relatives - I was ashamed of my mother then. My husband’s relatives, like us, swam well on the surface of life.
Inside, however, I never felt truly happy. Something always gnawed at my soul. I hoped that death, which was certainly far off in the future, would put an end to this.
When I was a child, I once heard in a sermon that God rewards the good one does. If He does not reward one in the next life, He will do it on earth. Without my expecting it, I received an inheritance [from my Aunt L].
At the same time my husband received a considerable raise in his salary. With this, we were able to furnish our new house quite well.
Any attachment to religion I might have had was almost gone, like the last glimmer of light on the far horizon. The bars and cafes of the city and the restaurants where we ate on our travels did not draw us any closer to God.
Everyone who frequented them lived as we did, concerned about externals, and not matters of the soul.
Once in our travels we visited a famous cathedral, but just to appreciate the artistic value of its masterpieces. I knew how to neutralize the religious air of the Middle Ages that it radiated, and I seized every opportunity for ridicule. I made fun of the lay brother who served as our guide; I criticized the pious monks for their business of making and selling liqueur; I disparaged the eternal pealing of the bells calling the people to the churches as solicitations only for money. Thus I rejected every grace that came knocking at my door.
In particular, I let my sarcasm flow profusely at every depiction of Hell in the books, the cemeteries, and other places, where one could find devils roasting souls in red or yellow fires while their long-tailed associates kept arriving with more victims.
Hell might be poorly drawn, Claire, but it can never be exaggerated.
All that is drawn of hell has no point of comparison with reality, not reality is another. Hell is so terrible, so frightening that there is no paint that can represent it.
Above all, I always scoffed at the fire of Hell. Do you recall our conversation about the fire of Hell when I jokingly put a lit match under your nose and asked,
“Does it smell like this?”
You quickly blew out the match, but here no one extinguishes the fire. Let me tell you something else - the fire that the Bible speaks about is not just the torment of conscience. Fire means fire.
That is just what He meant when he said, “Depart from Me, ye accursed, into the everlasting fire.” Quite literally.
“How can the spirit be affected by material fire?” you ask.
How, then, can your soul suffer on earth when you put your finger in the fire? Your soul itself does not burn, but what the man as a whole suffers!
In like manner, here we are imprisoned in a fire in our being and our faculties. Our souls are deprived of their natural movements. We can neither think nor want what we used to desire.(12) Do not even try to comprehend a mystery that goes against the laws of material nature: the fire of Hell burns without consuming.
Our greatest torment consists in knowing with certainty that we will never see God. How greatly we are tortured by that which we were indifferent to while on earth! When the knife lies on the table, it leaves you cold. You see its sharp edge, but you don’t feel it. But the moment it enters your flesh, you scream with pain. Before, we only saw the loss of God; now we feel it. (13)
(12) Ibid., Suppl., Q. 70, a. 3, r.: "Accordingly we must unite all the aforesaid modes together, in order to understand perfectly how the soul suffers from a corporeal fire: so as to say that the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of Divine Justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit, and thus the soul seeing the fire as something hurtful to it is tormented by the fire."
(13) St. Augustine said, “The separation from God is a torment as great as God." Cf. Houdry, Bibliotheca concionatorum (Venice, 1786), vol 2, “Infernus,” No. 4, p. 427.
All the souls do not suffer equally. The more frivolous, malicious, and resolute one was in sin, the more the loss of God weighs upon the soul and the more tortured he feels for the abused creature.
Catholics who are damned suffer more than those of other beliefs because, in general, they received more lights and graces without taking advantage of them.
The ones who knew more suffer more than those who had less knowledge. Those who sinned out of malice suffer more than those who fell from weakness.
No one, however, suffers more than he deserves. Would that this were not true, so that I might have more reason to hate!
You once told me that no one goes to Hell without knowing it. This was revealed to some saint. I laughed at that, but the thought was entrenched in my mind. If this were the case, then there would be enough time for me to convert – that is how I thought in my heart.
What you said was true. Before my sudden end, I had no idea of what Hell really is. No human being does. But I had no doubt about this: should I die, I would enter into eternity in a state of revolt against God, and I would suffer the consequences.
As I already have told you, I did not change my course but continued along the same path, impelled by habit, just as people act with greater deliberation and regularity as they grow older.
Now, I will tell you how my death occurred.
One week ago – I speak to you in the terms by which you measure time, for judging by the pain I have endured, I could already have been burning in Hell for ten years.
Therefore, on a Sunday one week ago, my husband and I went for a drive. It was the last one for me.
The day was radiant and beautiful. I felt well and at ease, as I rarely did.
An ominous presentiment, however, came over me as we drove.
On the way home that evening my husband and I were unexpectedly blinded by the lights of a car rapidly approaching from the opposite direction.
My husband lost control of our car.
“Jesus!” I shouted, not as a prayer, but as a scream.
I felt a crushing pain – a trifle in comparison with my present torment.
Then I lost consciousness.
How strange! On that very morning, the idea had come to me unexpectedly that I could, after all, go to Mass again.
It entered my mind almost like a supplication. My “No!” ,I said; No! – strong and determined – nipped the thought in the bud.
But a "no!" clear and firm, got out with fury and energy inside of me.
I must finish with this once and for all, I thought, and I assumed all the consequences. And now I endure them in hell.
I ignored the call of God, not knowing that was going to be the last called in this world for my convertion.
You know what happened after my death. The grief of my husband and my mother, my body laid out and the burial. You know all this down to the last detail, as do I through a natural intuition we have here. We have only a confused knowledge of what transpires in the world, but we know something of what concerned us. Thus I know also your whereabouts. (14)
(14) S. Th. Suppl., Q. 98, a 7,: “Accordingly, in the damned there will be actual consideration of the things they knew heretofore as matters of sorrow, but not as a cause of pleasure.”
At the moment of my death I awoke from a darkness, dark and gloomy. I found myself suddenly enveloped by a blinding light. It was at the same place where my body lay. It seemed almost like a theater, when the lights suddenly go out, the curtain noisily opens, and a tragically illuminated scene appears: the scene of my life.
I saw my soul as in a mirror. I saw the graces I had trampled underfoot from the time I was young until that final “No!” given to God.
I felt like an assassin brought to trial before its inanimate victim.
Repent? Never! (15) Did I feel shame for my actions? Not at all!
(15) Ibid., Q. 98, a. 2, r.: "Accordingly the wicked will not repent of their sins directly [that is, out of hatred of sin], because consent in the malice of sin will remain in them; but they will repent indirectly, inasmuch as they will suffer from the punishment inflicted on them for sin.”
Notwithstanding, it was impossible for me to remain in the presence of the God who I had denied and rejected.
Only one thing remained for me: flee from look of God. Thus, just as Cain fled from the body of Abel, so my soul sought to flee far from this terrible sight.
That was my private judgment.
The invisible Judge spoke: “Depart from Me!”,
and my soul swiftly fell, like a sulfurous shadow, into the place of eternal torment!, where I am now, and I have came, for ever, ever, ever.... (16)
(16) It is certain that Hell is a determined place.
But where this place is situated, no one knows. That the punishment of Hell is eternal is a dogma, certainly the most terrible of all, rooted in Sacred Scripture:
"Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand:
Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels…
And these shall go into everlasting punishment; but the just, into life everlasting" (Matt. 25:41, 46).
See also II Thess. 1:9, Jude 1:13; Apoc. 14:11, 20:10. All are irrefutable texts, in which the word “everlasting” cannot be misunderstood or interpreted as “a long time.”
If it were inappropriate to illustrate this dogma, then Our Lord Himself would not have done so in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
He described Hell in the same way that it was done here – he showed that it existed and what one must do not to fall into it.
The purpose of the parable was not to excite the senses, but the same one that occasioned this publication.
The aim of this letter finds expression in these words:
“Let us think of Hell while we are still living, so that we will not fall into it after we die.”
This counsel is but the paraphrasing of Psalm 54:
“Descendat in infernum viventes, videlicet, ne descendant morientes,”
which is found in a statement (erroneously) attributed to St. Bernard (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. 184, Col. 314 b).
SOME CLOSING WORDS FROM CLAIRE
Thus ended the letter from Anne about Hell. The last letters were so twisted as to be almost illegible. When I finished reading the last word, the entire letter turned to ashes.
What was I hearing?
After those harsh notes of the lines I imagined I was reading, what came to my ears was the sweet reality of bells ringing.
I awoke suddenly to find myself still in bed.
The early morning light was entering the room. From the parish Church came the sound of the bells ringing the Angelus.
Had it only been a dream?
I never felt such consolation in praying the Angelic Salutation as I did after this dream. I said the three Hail Marys. And as I prayed them, this thought came to me very clearly: One must always stay close to Our Lord’s Blessed Mother and venerate her filially if one does not want to suffer the same fate that I related here - albeit in a dream - by a soul that will never see God.
Still frightened and shaking from that night’s revelation, I got up, dressed myself hastily, and rushed to the convent chapel.
My heart was beating violently and unevenly. The houseguests kneeling closest to me looked at me with concern. Perhaps they thought that I was breathless and flushed from running down the stairs.
A kindly lady from Budapest, frail as a child and nearsighted, suffering greatly but lofty of spirit and fervent in the service of God, spoke to me that afternoon in the garden. “My dear child,” she said, “Our Lord does not want to be served in such haste.”
But then she perceived that it was something else that had excited me and made me so overwrought.
She added kindly: “Let nothing distress you. You know the advice of Saint Teresa
-Let nothing alarm you.
All things pass.
He who possesses God lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.”
While she humbly consoled me with these words, without any sermonizing tone, she seemed to be reading my soul.
“God alone suffices.” Yes, God must suffice for me – in this life and in the next.
I want to possess Him there one day for all eternity however numerous may be the sacrifices I have to make here in order to triumph.
I do not want to fall into Hell for ever.
So all the suffering of this world has no compare the good that awaits us in heaven. Not reject the suffering, offer up it to Jesus, who united to his merits, will have tremendous value to enter eternal life.
SOME FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Perhaps not as an objection, but a question can not be avoided:
How can there be so precisely Clara remembered all the words of the letter of the damned?
We answer:
Who does more, also can do less. Who begins a work, you can also complete it. If a voice from beyond is a manifestation preternatural, Clara must also have had a preternatural assistance to write exactly all the words read during viewing.
The eternity of the pains of hell is a dogma accepted by the Catholic Church. Surely, the most terrible of all. It is based on Scripture.
See Matthew XXV, 41 and 46;
II Thessalonians, 1, 9;
Judith XIII;
Revelation XIV, 11, XX, 10;
All these texts are irrefutable, in which the expression "eternal" can not be interpreted as "long or longer."
Illustrate the suitability of this dogma to a particular case, sets the example our Lord Jesus Christ in the parable of Dives and Lazarus.
There is a description of hell and the danger of falling into it.
There is no other intention of this paper. It also expresses our purpose the following advice:
"Let's go to hell while we are alive, not to fall in place after death."
Warning: some scenes in this video are terrifying, caution is required. Thank you very much.
