Hell!

All I can say is, it's about time.

Prior to Vatican II, at my local parish, the priest and nuns were not afraid to talk about Hell.  I remember in 8th grade we had a retreat, and it was mainly about Hell.  The priest was very visual, he had all sorts of visual aids to help us 8th graders understand what Hell was going to be like.  He also had some beautiful aids that helped us understand what Heaven was like also.  I still remember his name; Father Bellinger, not sure if I spelled it correctly.  This was in 1954, no computer images, he just had a collection of "things", it was a retreat I never forgot.  

My point is, these young adults of traditional Catholics don't hear enough about Hell; put a little scare into them, it isn't going to hurt them at all.  Give them something to think about.  I say.

Maybe we have to be afraid of God, before we can love Him.  What do you think?  I am not preaching fear before love, I am asking, because I am thinking/wondering what comes first.  For me, I do think it was fear when I was younger, then came the love.  These day, I honestly feel, I love God and my fear of Him has lessoned.  

Just surprised about our sermon today, but it was good to hear since these days"they",  even traditional priests or nuns, don't speak that much about Hell; meaning really speak about it, not just mention it here and there.    

When the flesh is tempting you to some sin of pleasure, it isn't God's perfection and attributes that are going to stop you from jumping in.

Fear of hell is a great backup, for when the emotions/passions threaten to overwhelm a person.

Of course it's more noble to act out of "love" rather than "fear". But we're human beings -- since when are we always perfect? Fear of hell "works" when all else fails.

That's why it needs to be there.

That's wonderful! Good for him. I wonder why we don't hear about it as an exclusive sermon topic (I've certainly heard it mentioned generously, but never focused on exclusively). For the record, I'm not discounting liberalism and "fear" of turning people off, I'm just including other possibilities.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is an intimidating subject to preach on and they need a little nudge. Example: while we were out to dinner with our priest it came up that he never seemed to preach exclusively on the lives of the Saints. He seemed embarrassed and mentioned that it was difficult, but he would try. Sure enough, about a month later we had a lovely sermon on the life of St. John Bosco. He just didn't realize that he hadn't been doing it, and took on the challenge in stride.

I say, bring it up and see what happens! It's the only way to really know, and how wonderful would it be if they just needed reminded.

If it doesn't work, then that's a whole other subject...

.


This is a great topic!

(I repaired your formatting, MyrnaM - your red font codes were misplaced.)

I must say, however, it does absolutely NO GOOD for the forum Index
page to exile the subject (hell) from the title of the thread.  Anyone going
down the list of Index titles looking for a thread on hell will be entirely
unable to find this thread.  You might have thought it is somehow dramatic
or clever or interesting to make the title deliberately vague, but that is really
very short-sighted and silly.  The list of thread titles in the Index pages
is all anyone has to go by to find a particular topic unless they resort to the
practically useless search feature, which uses too much bandwidth, even
though it's useless.

         Hell!

All I can say is, it's about time.

Prior to Vatican II, at my local parish, the priest and nuns were not afraid to talk about Hell.  I remember in 8th grade we had a retreat, and it was mainly about Hell.  The priest was very visual, he had all sorts of visual aids to help us 8th graders understand what Hell was going to be like.  He also had some beautiful aids that helped us understand what Heaven was like also.  I still remember his name; Father Bellinger, not sure if I spelled it correctly.  This was in 1954, no computer images, he just had a collection of "things", it was a retreat I never forgot.  

My point is, these young adults of traditional Catholics don't hear enough about Hell; put a little scare into them, it isn't going to hurt them at all.  Give them something to think about.  I say.

Maybe we have to be afraid of God, before we can love Him.  What do you think?  I am not preaching fear before love, I am asking, because I am thinking/wondering what comes first.  For me, I do think it was fear when I was younger, then came the love.  These days, I honestly feel, I love God and my fear of Him has lessened.  

It's too bad you're not posting a link to a recording so we can all
hear the sermon!   HAHAHAHAHA

You touch on several themes here, MyrnaM.  Very interesting, indeed!
Thank you very much.  

I recall you mentioning in a previous post about your husband's recent
passing, about 8 or 9 months ago, correct?  This is very much a part of
your life right now, and it affects your feelings about your fear of God
compared to love of God.  

Scripture says, "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  

There can be no true love of God without awareness of his power and
glory and majesty and providence and mercy and beauty and other
attributes.  You cannot love something that you don't know.  And while
there is a saying that "to know God is to love him," that is not from
Scripture.  And it is actually false, because it is definitely most possible
to know God and to not love him, as the devils can attest, as well as
everyone who is in hell.  

Fear of God is a necessary starting point.  And lack of this fear, combined
with any knowledge of God, is the same thing as contempt of God, which
is a most serious sin.  In the ultimate case, it is the "unforgivable sin."  

So this is really important stuff.  It could be what decides your fate in
eternity.  And that's no small thing.

Just surprised about our sermon today, but it was good to hear since these days, "they"  (even traditional priests or nuns) don't speak that much about Hell; meaning really speak about it, not just mention it here and there.    

It is most instructive to me that here you are, in your present state of
recent loss of your husband, and you are touched and actually
CONSOLED by hearing a sermon on hell.  That is proof positive against
the canards of Liberals who accuse such principles as preaching on hell
as being somehow 'offensive' to listeners and making them 'feel bad'
or 'uncomfortable' - very, very interesting!    Thank you!

You know what . . . I haven't heard a sermon about Hell in the few years I have been attending Mass at a SSPX Chapel. I have heard that things were sins and Hell was mentioned, but there was never a sermon focusing solely on Hell and why we want to love God so that we don't end up there.

You know, I have been to several Requiem Masses recently.  In 1994, when
I had not been aware of the CTLM movement's existence, I had not been to
a real Requiem Mass since 1968!  That's 24 years of no Requiem Masses!

There is A LOT TO THIS!  Perhaps members here have not been aware of
the history of how Requiem Masses had changed the practice gradually
over 72 years prior to Vat.II.  It was the Faure Requiem in 1890 that was
the first "foray" into the Catholic Requiem Mass WITHOUT the Dies Irae.
(The Dies Irae is a topic all unto itself, but it is the Sequence for the
traditional Requiem Mass, always read by the priest, but in sung Masses,
the priest intones it and the choir sings the Gregorian Chant -- for music
fans, Wolfgan Amadeus Mozart said that he would have gladly given up
authorship of "ALL OF HIS COMPOSITIONS" if he could only have had the
honor of having been the composer of the Dies Irae Gregorian Chant.)

The Faure Requiem was shunned in Catholic Church settings for all those
72 years.  I don't know if it was ever performed in a Catholic Requiem
Mass before Vat.II, but I highly doubt that it had been.  It was from the
start nothing but a concert piece, performed for entertainment purposes
alone, since great Mass music had by that time already become more of
a grand concert/stage/entertainment genre rather than music for actual
Mass settings.  Only after Vat.II were certain selections of the Faure
Requiem started to be used in so-called Catholic funeral services.  The
Roger Wagner Chorale got a lot of mileage on some parts of the Faure.

But the key aspect of the Faure Requiem, outside of its somewhat
unorthodox chord structure and mode and composition (as beautiful as
it is, nonetheless), is the glaring fact that it has no Dies Irae.

And the Dies Irae is all about the 4 Last Things, most tellingly, it is
principally about the end of the world and the Last Judgment Day.  It
literally means "Day of Wrath" in Latin.  Now, for anyone to take
consolation from this Sequence, it is necessary for them to have a firm
foundation in the One True Faith outside of which there is no salvation,
and to have an instinctive and habitual desire to be in the state of grace
"and things like that," as Fr. Schell used to say, God rest his soul.



You probably are aware that it is improper to have any "eulogy" or such
speeches about the life of the deceased at the Requiem, nor is it appropriate
to have any sermon - unless it is a sermon on doctrine regarding the 4 Last
Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell).  The closest thing you'll find in any
Novus Ordo setting would be a sermon on God's mercy and forgiveness.
That's because the 4 Last Things are too "negative" in Liberalism.  You can't
put a smiley face on the 4 Last Things, unless you only mention one or two
aspects of the third item among the four.

This limitation makes for very dull sermons, therefore, the NovusOrdo
solution is to protestantize the "funeral service" and make it into
a kind of entertainment.

The Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass for Pope John XXIII was the last
real example we have of what Church Tradition has handed down to us.

Take even the funeral of JFK in 1963.  There was no sermon about his
life, demise or works.  And he was the first Catholic President in the USA.

When the flesh is tempting you to some sin of pleasure, it isn't God's perfection and attributes that are going to stop you from jumping in.

Fear of hell is a great backup, for when the emotions/passions threaten to overwhelm a person.

Of course it's more noble to act out of "love" rather than "fear". But we're human beings -- since when are we always perfect? Fear of hell "works" when all else fails.

That's why it needs to be there.

Very well said, Matthew!  


[Referring to the OP]

That's wonderful! Good for him.

I wonder why we don't hear about it as an exclusive sermon topic (I've certainly heard it mentioned generously, but never focused on exclusively). For the record, I'm not discounting liberalism and "fear" of turning people off, I'm just including other possibilities.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is an intimidating subject to preach on and they [our priests] need a little nudge. Example: while we were out to dinner with our priest it came up that he never seemed to preach exclusively on the lives of the Saints. He seemed embarrassed and mentioned that it was difficult, but he would try. Sure enough, about a month later we had a lovely sermon on the life of St. John Bosco. He just didn't realize that he hadn't been doing it, and took on the challenge in stride.

I say, bring it up and see what happens! It's the only way to really know, and how wonderful [it would] be - if they just needed [to be] reminded.

If it doesn't work, then that's a whole other subject...

This is a great point.  If each one of us were to tell our priests that we
heard a friend whose husband recently passed away say she was actually
consoled by hearing a sermon entirely on hell, it might go a long way to
getting them thinking about this topic for their own sermons!

I always tend to benefit from a Hell sermon. It prods me to do more than I did before.

This sounds like you've had a number of 'hell sermons' lately.  Am I wrong?

When the flesh is tempting you to some sin of pleasure, it isn't God's perfection and attributes that are going to stop you from jumping in.

Fear of hell is a great backup, for when the emotions/passions threaten to overwhelm a person.

Of course it's more noble to act out of "love" rather than "fear". But we're human beings -- since when are we always perfect? Fear of hell "works" when all else fails.

That's why it needs to be there.

Yes hell is scary

http://www.reinadelcielo.org/estructura.asp?intSec=2&intId=105

"¡El infierno existe y podríamos ir ahí!  Fátima y la visión del infierno
 
Padre Marcel Nault (1927-1997)  (Montreal, Canada)

Discurso pronunciado por el Padre Marcel Nault en la Conferencia Mundial de Paz de Obispos Católicos, en Fátima, Portugal, en el año 1992. Este discurso causó tal impacto que después de la conferencia, algunos Obispos pidieron al Padre Nault que escuchara sus confesiones."

5 pages. In Spanish though...The Bishops got really scared because this Father was addressing it to them because they didn't preach about Hell.

"'Monseñor", le dije, 'usted está en la vía del Infierno para toda la eternidad. Monseñor, usted predica para complacer al hombre, en lugar de predicar para complacer a Cristo y salvar a las almas del Infierno. Monseñor, es un pecado mortal de omisión el rehusarse a enseñar el Dogma Católico sobre el Infierno'."

"El Obispo me dijo: 'Mire, a la gente no le gusta que prediquemos sobre el Infierno, la palabra Infierno les asusta'. No estamos para predicar lo que complazca a las multitudes sino para salvar sus almas del Infierno, para evitar que vayan al Infierno eternamente".

"El Infierno es eterno, y todos iremos al Infierno si morimos en estado de pecado mortal. Yo puedo ir al Infierno. Ustedes pueden ir al Infierno. Si algunos de nosotros morimos en pecado mortal, estaremos en el Infierno por toda la eternidad, ardiendo, llorando y gritando sin consuelo. No por un millón de años, sino por billones y billones y billones de años y más allá, por toda la eternidad".

"San Juan Crisóstomo dijo: 'Pocos Obispos se salvan y muchos sacerdotes se condenan'".

Seemed good to me. Scary though...

Mea Culpa, Thank you so much for bringing that to our attention. 5 sermons by Father Pfeiffer each around 9'  :surprised: Listen to all those children in Hell...Better I start doing something about my soul...


"Scarcely 1 in 100,000 souls are saved"-St.Jerome.

Myrna,

Thank you for posting this.  I am very sorry about the loss of your husband.  I will pray for him.  It sounds to me that all the signs of salvation were there.  We can always trust Our Lady as well that those who die wearing the scapular will not suffer in Hell.