HELL? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Caveat: this is an inquiry, not dogmatic assertion. I am no theologian. Please don't get angry.

Long ago I read somewhere that St Augustine said or wrote that the Blessed in Heaven wouls be allowed a pain-free visit to Hell to witness for themselves the Justice of God. I can nowhere find any reference to this, but the idea has stayed with me for 40 years.

Hell certainly terrifies me, sometimes to the point of insomnia, not as a horror film adddict is pleasantly scared, but as the prospect of nuclear war scared most people during the Cuban missile crisis: as a terrible possibility which we know will happen to some people at some future time.

It's been fashionable (and not necessarily incorrect) for a long time now to picture Hell as a state of denial of the Beatific Vision, with the inevitable terrible grief and longing which that state would entail. Such an unassuageable spiritual hunger and thirst is both imaginable and terrifying.

The older picture is of fire, ice, unspeakable filth, and tormenting devils, as depicted by St Alphonsus Liguori, and if we accept, as we must, the Resurrection of the Body, it seems that physical torment will be part of the punishment in Hell.

Polish friends assert that St Faustina was a universalist and believed that, ultimately, everyone will be saved. Julian of Norwich seems to be of the same mind, asserting that "all shall be well". If St Faustina was right, the suffering will be terrible, but only temporary, perhaps only a few million years. Some Poles say that the canonisation of St Faustina may have put the Church's seal of approval on universalism.

The questions that exercise my mind are:

1. Would you or I wish such horror on the worst person who ever lived? I have to admit that, as to people whose sufferings I would like to witness on a Heavenly excursion to Hell, I might have a little list. But then, I am an unworthy, nasty, angry man.

2. Does God will such horror?

3. If not, why does He not prevent it, and allow for the ultimate presence in Heaven of everyone, however wicked? Jesus said ,"Their fire is not quenched", and I suppose He meant that it will last forever.

4. If He does will it, should we not rejoice in His will, and so in the triumph of Divine Justice, and so in the existence of Hell?

And therefore, should we not look forward to such an excursion as a chance to further understand and rejoice in God's Perfect Justice?