What is hell like?
Few would want to find out first-hand.
But hell there is.
It's where the soul that rejects God gravitates: to a place with no
direct Presence, where there is the frightening absence of
God.
Mostly, we associate fire -- flames -- with sheol. The seers at
Fatima, Portugal, saw it as such: roaring fires that flamed up into themselves.
We all are familiar with the term "hellfire." This was also described at the
apparition site of Medjugorje: fire into which a beautiful woman entered and
came out half-human, half-beast (the classic depiction, too, of a
demon).
The Bible described a netherworld called Gehenna. Jesus described
the "outer darkness" (Matthew 22:13).
When one rejects the Light of God, there is darkness.That darkness is often described both in the mystical literature of Catholicism as well as recent alleged near-death experiences as a place of pits, of caves, of dungeons.
We just viewed a video of a man
who nearly drowned (his heart had stopped for nine minutes), and while they
tried to revive him, found himself heading to a dark place and two torches.
There was a heap of gold (coins, goblets) and sitting atop of this tall pile of
gold was the devil or a major demon, with a bull's head but a human face, and
curved horns.
It was a dungeon. So many describe a thick blackness -- more than
flames.
One of the most sobering such accounts comes to us from the great
doctor of the Church, Saint Teresa of Avila.
"I was at prayer one day when suddenly, without knowing how, I
found myself, as I thought, plunged right into hell," she wrote in her
autobiography. "I realized that it was the Lord's Will that I should see the
place which the devils had prepared for me there and which I had merited for my
sins. This happened in the briefest space of time, but, even if I were to live
for many years, I believe it would be impossible for me to forget it.
"The entrance, I thought, resembled a very long, narrow passage,
like a furnace, very low, dark, and closely confined; the ground seemed to be
full of water which looked like filthy, evil-smelling mud, and in it were many
wicked-looking reptiles. At the end there was a hollow place scooped out of a
wall, like a cupboard, and it was here that I found myself in close
confinement."
There was an "interior fire and despair"
that were "the worst things of all."
Went on the saint: "In that pestilential spot, where I was quite
powerless to hope for comfort, it was impossible to sit or lie, for there was no
room to do so. I had been put in this place which looked like a hole in the
wall, and those very walls, so terrible to the sight, bore down on me and
completely stifled me. There was no light and everything was in the blackest
darkness." This reminds us too of the account from a Protestant named Angie
Fenimore, who said the darkness was "alive" and so thick she felt she could form
things from it.
Darkness. Pits. Caverns.
There is also the amazing account (in Struck By Lightning)
by the dentist Gloria Polo, who said after a life of materialism, lack of
compassion, and sexual sin she found herself in a place of "emptiness" and
"headed toward several tunnels that went down toward the bottom. At the
beginning, there was still a little light, like a beehive in which there were
many people: young and old, men and women who were crying and grinding their
teeth with frightening screams... I roamed in those tunnels, in the frightening
darkness, until I arrived to an obscurity that cannot be compared to anything
else. I can only say that a comparison would be the darkest corner on earth
compared to the full sunlight at midday. Down there, the darkness generates
pain, horror, and shame. It smells terribly. It is a living obscurity, yes, it
is alive."
How many people might we know who may be at similar risk
(especially non-believers) -- and what can we do to inform them of that
risk?
Are we ourselves cleansed?
Next, we'll take a look at more recent experiences.
http://www.spiritdaily.com/pits.htm
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