TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
ON THE ETERNITY OF HELL.
And his Lord, being angry, delivered him to the torture.
In this day’s gospel, we find that a certain servant, having badly administered the affairs of his master, was found to owe him a debt of ten thousand talents. The master demanded payment; but the servant, falling down, said: Have patience and I will pay thee all. The master took pity on him, and forgave the entire debt. One of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred pence besought him to have patience, and promised to pay him the last farthing; but the wicked servant cast him into prison. Hearing of this act of cruelty to his fellow-servant, the master sent for him, and said to him: Wicked servant, I have forgiven thee ten thousand talents, and for a debt of a hundred pence thou hast refused to show compassion to thy fellow-servant. He then delivered him to the tortures till he paid all the debt. Behold, dearly beloved brethren, in these last words, a description of the sentence of the eternal death which is prepared for sinners. By dying in sin, they die debtors to God for all their iniquities; and being unable to make any satisfaction in the other life for their past sins, they remain for ever debtors to the divine justice, and must suffer for eternity in hell. Of this miserable eternity, I will speak today: listen to me with attention.
1. The thought of eternity is a great thought: so it was called by St. Augustine: Magna cogitatio. According to the holy doctor, God has made us Christians, and instructed us in the maxims of faith, that we may think of eternity. We are Christians so that we may always think of the world to come. This thought has driven from the world so many of the nobles of the earth, has made them renounce all their riches, and shut themselves up in the cloister, there to live in poverty and penance. This thought has sent so many young men into caves and deserts, and has animated so many martyrs to embrace torments and death, in order to save their souls for eternity. For, exclaims St. Paul, we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come. xiii. This earth, dearly beloved Christians, is not our country; it is for us a place of passage, through which we must soon pass to the house of eternity. Man shall go into the house of his eternity. In this eternity, the house of the just, which is a palace of delights, is very different from the house of sinners, which is a dungeon of torments. Into one of these two houses each of us must certainly go. In hanc vel illam æternitatem, says St. Ambrose, cadam necesse est. Into this or that eternity I must fall.
2. And where the soul shall first go, there she shall remain for ever. If the tree fall to the south or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it lie. On what side does a tree fall when it is cut down? It falls on the side to which it inclines. On what side, brethren, will you fall, when death shall cut down the tree of your life? You will fall on the side to which you incline. If you shall be found inclining to the south, that is, in favour with God, you shall be for ever happy; but if you will fall to the north, you must be for ever miserable. There is no middle place: you must be for ever happy in heaven, or overwhelmed with despair in hell. We must all die, says St. Bernard or some other author (de Quat. Noviss.), but we know not which of the two eternities shall be our lot after death. Necessi morem, post hæc autem dubia ceternitatis.
3. This uncertainty about his lot for eternity was the constant subject of the thoughts of David: it deprived his eyes of sleep, and kept him always in terror. My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not. I thought upon the days of old, and I had in my mind the eternal years. What, says St. Cyprian, has encouraged the saints to lead a life, which, on account of their continual austerities, was an uninterrupted martyrdom? It was, he answers, the thought of eternity that inspired them with courage to submit to such unceasing rigours. A certain monk shut himself in a cave, and did nothing else than constantly exclaim: eternity!” eternity! The famous sinner converted by the Abbot Paphnutius kept eternity always before her eyes and was accustomed to say: Who can assure me of a happy eternity, and that I will not fall into a miserable eternity. The same uncertainty kept St. Andrew Avellino in continual terrors and tears till his last breath. Hence he used to ask everyone he met, What do you say? shall I be saved or damned for eternity ?
4. O! that we, too, had eternity always before our eyes! We certainly should not be so much attached to the world. Quisquis in æternitatis disiderio figitur, nee prosperitate attollitur, nee adversitate quassatur: et dum nihil habet in mundo quod appetat, nihil est quod de mundo pertimescat." He who fixes his thoughts on eternity, is not elated by prosperity nor dejected by adversity; because, having nothing to desire in this world, he has nothing to fear: he desires only a happy eternity, and fears only a miserable eternity. A certain lady, who was greatly attached to the world, went one day to confession to Father M.D Avila. He bid her go home, and reflect on these two words always and never. She obeyed, took away her affections from the world, and consecrated them to God. St. Augustine says that the man who thinks on eternity, and is not converted to God, either has no faith, or has lost his reason. “O æternitas! qui te cogitat, nec pœnitet, aut certo fidem non habet, aut si habet, cor non habet. (In soliloq.) O eternity! He who thinks on thee, and does not repent, has certainly no faith, or has lost his heart. Hence St. Chrysostom relates, that the pagans upbraided the Christians with being liars or fools: liars, if they said they believed what they did not believe; fools, if they believed in eternity and committed sin. Exprobabant gentiles aut mendaces, aut stultos esse Christianos; mendaces si non crederent quod credere dicebant; stultos si credebant et peccabant.
5. Woe to sinners, says St. Cesarius of Arles; they enter into eternity without having known it; but their woes shall be doubled when they shall have entered into eternity, and shall never be able to leave.Væ peccatoribus, ineognitam ingrediuntur.To those who enter hell, the door opens for their admission, but never opens for their departure. I have the keys of death and of hell. God himself keeps the keys of hell, to show us that whosoever enters has no hope of ever escaping from it. St. John Chrysostom writes, that the condemnation of the reprobate is engraved on the pillar of eternity, so that it never shall be revoked. In hell there is no calendar; there the years are not counted. St. Antonine says, that if a damned soul heard that she was to be released from hell after so many millions of years as there are drops of water in the sea, or grains of sand in the earth, she would feel a greater joy than a criminal condemned to death would experience at hearing that he was reprieved, and was to be made the monarch of the whole world! But, no! as many millions of years shall pass away as there are drops of water in the ocean, or grains of dust in the earth, and the hell of the damned shall be at its commencement. All these millions of years shall be multiplied an infinite number of times, and hell will begin again. But of what use is it, says St. Hilary, to count years in eternity? Where you expect the end, there it commences. Ubi putas finem invenire, ibi incipit. And St. Augustine says, that things which have an end cannot be compared with eternity. Each of the damned would be content to make this compact with God. Lord, increase my torments as much as thou pleasest; assign a term for them as distant as thou pleasest; provided thou fix a time at which they shall cease, I am satisfied. But, no! This time shall never arrive. My end, the damned shall say, is perished. Then, is there no end to the torments of the damned? No! the trumpet of divine justice sounds in the caverns of hell, and continually reminds the reprobate that their hell shall be eternal, and shall never have an end.
6. If hell were not eternal, it would not be so frightful a chastisement. Thomas a Kempis says, that everything which passes with time is trifling and short. Any pain which has an end is not very appalling. The man who labours under an imposthume or a cancer, must submit to the knife or the cautery: the pain is severe; but because it is soon over it can be borne. But a toothache which lasts for three months without interruption is insupportable. Were a person obliged to lie in the same posture for six months on a soft bed, or even to hear the same music, or the same comedy, night and day for one year, he would fall into melancholy and despondency. Poor blind sinners! When threatened with hell, they say: If I go there I must have patience. But they shall not say so when they will have entered that region of woes, where they must suffer, not by listening to the same music or the same comedy, nor by lying in the same posture, or by toothache, but by enduring all torments and all evils. I will heap evils upon them. And all these torments shall never end.
