Anguish

In Hell, God really is absent.  And the horror of such a thing is so foreign to us – who have never been without God despite all our whining that we have – that it is unimaginable.

The Damned Cast Into Hell (Luca Signorelli)

We think of Hell so blithely.

We consider that Hell is the absence of God and that must somehow be okay.  After all, we are tempted to reason, God is absent now.  We cannot see Him or feel Him in our lives very much.  Loved ones die and we feel isolated and alone and we do not know what God has planned for us.

And yet, what we experience now is NOT an absence of God.  God is with us at all times.  Without God it would be as though the sun disappeared from the sky.  Without the sun the Earth would not spin and the planet would freeze and the entire life on this planet would die.  There would be no life and no hope.

And it is the same for a soul deprived of God – it dies.

And sometimes, we do not notice the sun.  Sometimes I am inside, or it is nighttime and we cannot see the sun at all.  Sometimes in the middle of the night when it is cool and dark we could even be forgiven for assuming that there was no sun or that the sun was not really doing much to help us.

But, actually, there is a sun – even when we do not notice it or when the seasons or time of day hide it from our eyes and senses.  And God is really much the same as that.  You see, this Earthly life could be considered a night-time.  We cannot see the sun or feel its effects, but it exists and is unchanging – it is rather we who are changed.  And as we are changed we are turned away from God and turned away from the knowledge and presence of God, but just as the sun is unchanging and continues to work for the benefit of the planet, so too is my unchanging God working for my benefit.

And that means that even though I might feel that God is absent, He is certainly not absent.

And that is the difference between this life and Hell.  For in Hell, God really is absent.  And the horror of such a thing is so foreign to us – who have never been without God despite all our whining that we have – that it is unimaginable.

And there is such anguish among those lost souls – for their eternal death.  For there is an anguish caused by a lack of hope that the human soul cannot fathom because it was created to know, love and serve God and be with Him forever in Heaven (as per the Catechism of the Catholic Church).  And today, I pray for the sinners – like me – because I feel so sorrowful that souls such as mine risk eternal damnation simply because we do not understand how important it is to take Hell seriously and to LOVE THE LORD…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.