Thursday, April 2, 2015

Didn't Jesus teach about hell?

Preached graphic depictions of hell

Everyone knows that “fire and brimstone” preaching is ineffective and, in any case, antithetical to the spirit of the Gospel of love, right?
Then why did Jesus preach about hell so much?
Jesus gave horrifying descriptions of the place. Throughout the Gospels we find that Jesus describes hell as a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” a place where “the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched,” a “blazing furnace,” “darkness,” “unquenchable fire,” and “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Several of these descriptions he repeats several times.)
And he constantly warns people from doing things that would get them sent there. So maybe preaching about hell isn’t so bad?
http://www.churchpop.com/2015/03/30/the-6-most-unchrist-like-things-christ-did/
from Spirit Daily
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FIFTH EXERCISE

IT IS A MEDITATION ON HELL
It contains in it, after the Preparatory Prayer and two Preludes, five Points and one Colloquy:
Prayer. Let the Preparatory Prayer be the usual one.
First Prelude. The first Prelude is the composition, which is here to see with the sight of the imagination the length, breadth and depth of Hell.
Second Prelude. The second, to ask for what I want: it will be here to ask for interior sense of the pain which the damned suffer, in order that, if, through my faults, I should forget the love of the Eternal Lord, at least the fear of the pains may help me not to come into sin.
First Point. The first Point will be to see with the sight of the imagination the great fires, and the souls as in bodies of fire.
Second Point. The second, to hear with the ears wailings, howlings, cries, blasphemies against Christ our Lord and against all His Saints.
Third Point. The third, to smell with the smell smoke, sulphur, dregs and putrid things.
Fourth Point. The fourth, to taste with the taste bitter things, like tears, sadness and the worm of conscience.
Fifth Point. The fifth, to touch with the touch; that is to say, how the fires touch and burn the souls.
Colloquy. Making a Colloquy to Christ our Lord, I will bring to memory the souls that are in Hell, some because they did not believe the Coming, others because, believing, they did not act according to His Commandments; making three divisions...
- The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, [1914] http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/seil/seil15.htm
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A young Korean artist taken to Hell. Drew pictures of it.
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The entrance it seems to me was similar to a very long and narrow alleyway, like an oven, low and dark and confined; the floor seemed to me to consist of dirty, muddy water emitting foul stench and swarming with putrid vermin...The bodily pains were so unbearable that though I had suffered excruciating ones in this life and according to what doctors say, the worst that can be suffered on earth for all my nerves were shrunken when I was paralyzed, plus many other sufferings of many kinds that I endured and even some as I said, caused by the devil, these were all nothing in comparison with the ones I experienced there...-St.Teresa of Avila's description of Hell.
 


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These are the Tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings.
There are special Tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings related to the manner in which it has sinned.
I would have died
There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me...-St.Faustina Kowalska's description of Hell.
 
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"Then I was pushed into one of those fiery cavities and pressed, as it were, between burning planks, and sharp nails and red-hot irons seemed to be piercing my flesh."

Here Josefa repeated the multiple tortures from which no single member of the body is excluded:

"I felt as if they were endeavoring to pull out my tongue, but could not. This torture reduced me to such agony that my very eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets. I think this was because of the fire which burns, burns... not a finger-nail escapes terrifying torments, and all the time one cannot move even a finger to gain some relief, nor change posture, for the body seems flattened out and yet doubled in two.- Sr.Joseph Menendez's description of Hell.
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There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen; and feasted sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, full of sores,
Desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man' s table, and no one did give him; moreover the dogs came, and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham' s bosom. And the rich man also died: and he was buried in hell. And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom: And he cried, and said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said to him: Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazareth evil things, but now he is comforted; and thou art tormented.
And besides all this, between us and you, there is fixed a great chaos: so that they who would pass from hence to you, cannot, nor from thence come hither. And he said: Then, father, I beseech thee, that thou wouldst send him to my father' s house, for I have five brethren, That he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments. And Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. But he said: No, father Abraham: but if one went to them from the dead, they will do penance.
And he said to him: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead. -Luke :19-31, The Rich Man (Dives) and Lazarus.
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Second Circle (Lust)


Gianciotto Discovers Paolo and Francesca
In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust. Dante condemns these "carnal malefactors"[ for letting their appetites sway their reason. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.
In this circle, Dante sees
Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan, and many others who were overcome by sexual love during their life. Dante is told by Francesca da Rimini how she and her husband's brother Paolo Malatesta committed adultery, but then died a violent death, in the name of Love, at the hands of her husband, Giovanni (Gianciotto). Francesca reports that their act of adultery was triggered by reading the adulterous story of Lancelot and Guinevere (an episode sculpted by Auguste Rodin in The Kiss). Nevertheless, she predicts that her husband will be punished for his fratricide in Caïna, within the ninth circle (Canto V).
Alse see Dante's experience in Hell in The Divine Comedy( Inferno)._______________________________________

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