Seventh meditation. Hell

First point.

Reflect that, after the judgment^ the condemned souls will be united to their bodies, the accomplices of their guilt and the companions of their punishment^ and will enter into their loathsome abode, to dwell eternally in that place of darkness, in which horror and fearful confusion reign.

Second point.

The unfortunate beings will remain in their infernal prison, filled with despairing rage at the remembrance of that unparalleled happiness which they will never possess, because, when they could have

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loved and served God, they refused to do so. This teaches me that I should work whilst I have the light.

Third point.

Eeflect that, above all their other torments, they will burn with a thirst made the more violent by the remembrance of the eternal fountains. They will forever be like mad dogs, perishing with hunger, rendered all the more gnawing by the recollection of the eternal banquet of which they are deprived. Cursing one another, they will unite in blaspheming their Creator, for they know that for all eternity they will be utterly wretched.

Affections.

O God, when I behold Adam and Ev« departing from the terrestrial paradise (after having been loaded with so many

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graces), crashed by the weight of their sins and full of misery, I am forced to exclaim: Who are they that are quitting paradise overwhelmed with woe? I am astounded. But, O Saviour of the world, I am still more astonished when I see a soul nourished in the paradise of the Church, enriched with her treasures, susceptible of eternal happiness, descending through her own fault into eternal perdition. " Alas, O God, my God! " I say, " She could have been Thy spouse, and behold she is Thy enemy! She could have enjoyed Thy Church triumphant, and behold, she is a citizen of the infernal Babylon! " O sin! O self-will! It is you that have led this unfortunate creature into this disaster, and, consequently, it is you whom I detest with all my might

Hasten, O religious souls, to serve God, to enter into the narrow way of all our

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observances, for it conducts to life. 0 my sweet Jesus! turn away my feet from that broad and deceitful route, a route sensual, wilful, and worldly, which conducts to eternal death, and upon which so many enter. Preserve me from following the broad and tortuous path which leads hypocrites to perdition.

" O religious souls! you have so many means to perfeet yourselves, you are on the mystical ladder which reaches to heaven. Alas! if, through your own unworthiness, you cast yourselves into the eternal abyss, if you are profoundly buried therein, it will be in the lowest depths," says a holy contemplative. O most blessed Virgin, never permit that any one of the sheep of your flock be rejected with the infernal goats and wolves.

O Mother of all sweetness, I fly from hell, because there you and your Son are

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not loved. The blessed would consider themselves damned, if they were for a moment deprived of this love. O Mother of fair love, grant that I may begin so to love, as for all eternity to love your divine Son!

HE A VEN.