Hell and Its Torments

I spent most of today reading on a variety of topics. Perhaps the most challenging and interesting reading that I did today was a sermon of St. Robert Bellarmine's, Hell and Its Torments. To quote the man from whom I took my pen name, "I have considered that I shall be doing a work most pleasing to God an useful to yourselves if today... I call to your memories and place before your very eyes how horrible, how atrocious and how abiding are the tortures which God has prepared for wicked and impious people." So, without further adieu, let us have a look at just what this Doctor of the Church had to say about Hell.

Bellarmine begins his 1574 sermon by expressing his astonishment that anyone could not be Catholic in light of the prophets, miracles of Christ, and the hope that nourishes Christ's Church. He then bemoans that fact that a great many Catholics live in sin despite Jesus's teachings on Hell.

Having wondered at the tendency of even Catholics to sin, St. Robert attributes this to three factors: 1. a lack of consideration, 2. ignorance, and 3. self-love. St. Bellarmine exhorts us to consider Hell and its torments in order that we might repent and refrain from sin on account of our understanding what will happen should we be condemned. He then moves to ignorance; particularly to the ignorance of those who fail to understand the magnitude of sin. He quotes St. Augustine in saying: "Now eternal punishment seems hard and unjust to human senses for the reason that in (our) infirmity of dying senses there is lacking that sense of the highest and purest wisdom, whereby it can be felt what a great outrage was committed in that first prevarication." In other words, we mortals cannot sense the severity of an offense against the infinite and eternal God. Finally, Bellarmine decries the self-love that persuades us to believe that in spite of our wickedness, God will have mercy because our good deeds can be attributed to us whereas the evil that we do can be attributed to external factors. He then refutes several other excuses for sin put forth by misguided Catholics.

After establishing reasons why those who should know better sin, St. Bellarmine turns his attention to the wage of sin, death. He explains the dual punishments of the loss of Heaven and the active torments of both body and soul reserved for the damned. He emphasizes that the condemned must continually be aware of what they have lost, excruciating physical and mental pain that intensify one another continually, and the never-ending nature of condemnation.

In doing all of this, St. Bellarmine reminds us that forgiveness is no farther away than repentance and confession; a paltry price to pay for eternal life with God.

Perhaps the most chilling aspect of this account of Hell is that it is not so simple as eternal death, rather, it is a combination of what can be the worst parts of life and death. Like life, Hell endures and unlike death, it never ends.

St. Robert Bellarmine's goal, the one I now more emphatically share with him, is to seek to alert souls to the dangers of Hell and the promises of eternal life. May the Lord have mercy on us and help us to see even our hidden faults so that we might repent and believe. Please consider reading this work and definitely be sure to examine your conscience carefully, but not scrupulously.

God love you,
-Bellarmine