"Hands Off My Family" Won't Work for the "Big Guy" with Christ the King at the Particular Judgment

There was a time in May of 2000 when I was grading final examinations for a political science course at the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University while having a bite to eat at the Milleridge Inn in Jericho, New York. It was around 4:30 p.m. I had gotten a phone call on my new cellular phone from Terry Jeffrey, who was then editor of the conservative magazine Human Events, under whom I had worked as a volunteer speaker in the Patrick Joseph Buchanan presidential campaign in 1995 and 1996. Mr. Jeffrey told me that he had recommended me to appear on an MSNBC or CNBC program (I forget which) to discuss the revelations of Giuliani's marital infidelity that were torpedoing his putative campaign for the United States Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The producer telephoned a short while later, asking me in what amounted to a pre-interview what I would say if she had me on the program. My answer was simple: "It's easy to betray your wife by violating the Sixth Commandment when you betray your Faith by violating the Fifth Commandment as you support the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn." The producer paused for a long time, ultimately composing herself enough to say, "I think we're going to get someone else."

No, my friends, it's never been about "money" or "exposure." It's always been about the Social Reign of Christ the King, something that does not make one very popular in the world today.

For men like Rudolph William Giuliani, however, it's always been about the money and exposure and power. Lost on the poor man is the fact that only one thing matters: the salvation of his immortal soul, which is advanced by adhering to the totality of the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication as one strives at all times to be in a state of Sanctifying Grace, never knowing when one's next breath will be his last.

Well, the same is true in the case of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who betrayed his Faith shortly after the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973, and learned how to become what President Ronald Wilson Reagan called “smooth but pure demagogue” by the 1980s, as he demonized Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert H. Bork when the latter had been nominated to serve on the Supreme Court in 1987 at a time that he, Biden, was under scrutiny for having plagiarized a speech that had been by the Trotskyite leader of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, Neil Kinnock.

Biden has always become increasingly shameless in the past thirty-six years, so much so that he decided somewhere along the way to make as much money as he could from selling the Biden name to the highest bidder, including those with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party as he has been protected in these dealings by the Deep State every step of the way:

When the Justice Department discovered from journalists a storage locker containing evidence against ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a search was executed immediately.

But when IRS agents found a similar storage area containing evidence in the Hunter Biden criminal tax probe, they were denied the right to search despite meeting the probable cause standard, then Biden's lawyers were tipped off, according to new congressional testimony.

Likewise, when federal prosecutors believed there was evidence of crimes at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, they launched an unprecedented and full scale-raid on the former president. But when agents wanted to execute a search warrant at Joe Biden’s Delaware home because they had probable cause to believe evidence of Hunter Biden tax crimes, they were turned down for a warrant to raid the guest house in which the first son was living.

And when FBI agents believed former Trump adviser Michael Flynn had committed no crime in the Russia collusion case, they nonetheless conducted an interview with him in what a supervisor concluded smacked of an effort to lure him into a lying charge. But when IRS and FBI agents wanted to interview witnesses in the Biden case, they were told most were off limits, including the Biden grandchildren whom agents believed may have unwittingly been entangled in a tax scheme.

A federal prosecutor “told us it will get us into hot water if we interview the president's grandchildren,” IRS supervisory criminal investigative agent Gary Shapley told Congress in blockbuster testimony released last week that furthers an unmistakable portrait being painted by congressional investigators of a whole-of-government effort to preserve Joe Biden’s viability as aresidential candidate while attempting to destroy Trump’s re-election effort in 2020.

The pattern and evidence about the behavior of federal bodies – ranging from the IRS, FBI and spy agencies to the Justice Department, U.S. attorney’s office and National Archives – is enough to even convince one unabashed Joe Biden supporter there has been a scheme to administer unequal justice.

“I don't agree that this is necessarily Republicans versus Democrats. A lot of FBI agents are Republicans. This is a separate system of justice for Donald Trump and anybody who defended him, or who was close to him and everybody else, Republicans and Democrats alike,” said Alan Dershowitz, the famed Harvard law professor emeritus who voted for Biden but also represented Trump at an impeachment trial.

Dershowitz wrote a whole book about the disparate system for Trump world called “Get Trump.” But it was completed before bombshell evidence began emerging that showed:

The FBI long held evidence from a confidential source that Joe Biden was involved in a possible bribery scheme that was allegedly captured on 17 tape recordings;
Biden's son Hunter was engaged in a $2.2 million tax evasion-and-avoidance scheme that IRS agents were thwarted from fully investigating;
The infamous Hunter Biden laptop had been validated by the FBI in 2019, a full year before it was falsely portrayed as Russian disinformation by intelligence professionals, Joe Biden and the news media – in a blitz that misled voters ahead of the 2020 election.

Dershowitz said the plea deal Hunter Biden reached last week on two misdemeanor charges related to tax evasion isn’t the biggest reason for concern.

“Where he may have gotten not only a sweetheart deal, but an incredibly unjust deal, is for [the government's] failure to investigate and perhaps prosecute the laptop, Burisma, those 17 tapes," he said

The latter two in that list refer to the Burisma Holdings Limited in Ukraine in which Hunter Biden had a questionable business dealing and audio tapes a foreign national who allegedly bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter allegedly has in connection to the alleged bribe.

Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, a House Judiciary Committee member, said the FBI is the tip of the spear of a judicial and intelligence system that has been corrupted by political bias.

"There were investigations open that should not have been opened," he said. "There were Americans being spied on, officials of a political campaign for president were being spied on, just based on political preferences of those in charge. And we cannot have a system where political bias gets in the way of what what the head of the FBI or with the leaders of the FBI, are directing or deciding."

That sentiment is shared by some of the federal agents who investigated both Biden and Trump dating to 2016.

“Investigators assigned to this investigation were obstructed from seeing all the available evidence,” Shapley testified in the transcript released Thursday detailing a mountain of political interference in their investigation of the Bidens.

He also said the FBI had testimony and text messages showing Joe Biden was likely involved in meeting with Hunter Biden’s Chinese partners as the family was pressing energy officials from the communist country to pay them millions but were kept from probing the 46th president’s potential culpability.

“Based on guidance provided by the prosecutors on a recurring basis to not look into anything related to President Biden, there is no way of knowing if evidence of other criminal activity existed concerning Hunter Biden or President Biden,” Shapley testified.

He and a second IRS agent, who have been granted whistleblower status by the House Ways and Means Committee, said their team had compelling evidence that Hunter Biden failed to pay taxes all the way back to some of the original monies taken from the Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma Holdings, but they were twice turned down by political appointees of Joe Biden to bring charges on those offenses and then, inexplicably, the statute of limitations was allowed to expire.

“It was a conscious decision by DOJ to let that run,” Shapley said of the statute of limitations. “They could've had them extend '14 and '15, but they said no. … Letting a statute of limitations expire in an active criminal investigation is not normal.”

Shapley was the supervisor of the IRS team investigating the Hunter Biden case.

The formal case agent for the probe backed up his whistleblowing, detailing in an anonymous interview to Congress how evidence of culpability from the Hunter Biden laptop was kept from the team and that the FBI never revealed it had a trusted informant who obtained evidence that the Burisma monies may have been part of a larger bribery scheme involving Joe Biden that were was captured on the 17 tape recordings kept by a Burisma official.

The second agent’s lawyer, Dean Zerbe, wrote a letter last week to Congress revealing his client “has stated to me that he has never seen this FBI Form 1023 and that he does not recall ever hearing about this information being turned over in any meetings with the prosecution team in Delaware."

The agent believes “this information could have been relevant” to the Hunter Biden probe because “it related to a claim of $5 million being paid to the subject,which directly ties to email correspondence reviewed between subject and a business partner,” Zerbe wrote.

Statute of limitations expiring, evidence withheld, witnesses and searches declared off limits, and agents being warned of political consequences for normal investigative tactics are all unusual in a single case, the two agents told Congress.

But they weren’t the only aberrant behavior seen by law enforcement since Trump burst on the scene, records and testimony show.

Former Special Counsel John Durham made clear earlier this month that the FBI and DOJ opened and sustained for 2.5 years an investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion without a single shred of evidence it existed.

The agents forced to work that case also chronicled and blew the whistle on what they believed was improper conduct by DOJ and the FBI.

Agent William Barnett told the Justice Department in 2020 that “he did not see any evidence of collusion between the TRUMP campaign and the Russian government,” but that senior executives as high as then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe kept pressing investigators to charge on, according to a summary of that interview obtained by Just the News.

Barnett said he and other agents found the investigation into collusion so farcical that it could be made into a game, which they referred to as "Collusion Clue." In the hypothetical game, investigators were able to choose any character conducting any activity in any location and pair this individual with another character and interpret it as evidence of collusion, he testified.

Likewise, former Assistant FBI Director William Priestap recounted in his notes his heartburn when the FBI and DOJ decided to interview Flynn, then-national security adviser to Trump, without a basis of evidence of a crime and after career agents had concluded the Flynn part of the probe should be closed.

Priestap’s notes fretted the bureau was "playing games" with the Flynn probe and opined whether the goal was to get the truth or simply to get Flynn to lie so he could be prosecuted and fired.

The efforts to sway the public and the investigative machinery away from Biden and toward Trump involved the intelligence community as well.

An intelligence assessment in summer 2020 suggested evidence about Joe and Hunter Biden's wrongdoings in Ukraine was Russian disinformation, causing a part of the Hunter Biden probe to stop months before the presidential election and thwarting a probe by GOP Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley.

The false narrative of Russian disinformation persisted and expanded in October 2020 when 51 intelligence officials, including former CIA Directors John Brennan and Mike Morell, signed a letter without citing evidence declaring the Hunter Biden laptop that emerged in public in October 2020 was Russian disinformation. The letter was used by Joe Biden and the media and Big Tech to censor stories about the Bidens before Election Day.

In fact, the FBI had already corroborated the laptop and prosecutors had concluded it had not been manipulated months before the intelligence community letter, according to a summary written by case agents. You can read that here.

Morell would later admit to Congress he had no evidence of Russian disinformation and simply organized the letter to help Joe Biden win the election by giving a “talking point” to blunt Trump’s arguments at the last presidential debate.

Johnson, who led a 2020 Senate investigation into the Bidens, said the all-of-government effort now exposed in recent months was backed by the legacy news media and clearly tried to protect Biden and harm Trump.

“Now, unfortunately, in our multi-tiered system of justice, this is how justice is carried out in this country, which is why so very few Americans now have faith in federal law enforcement,” Johnson told Just the News. “I mean, you you're seeing the polls. It's it's sad. I mean, it would be nice if we had complete confidence in the spirit of federal agencies and federal law enforcement, but they've given us no reason to have confidence in them.” (With new evidence, Congress unmasks a multi-year government plot to protect Biden. Also see Freeze Hunter Biden plea deal until we know who lied, Connecting the dots in the IRS whistleblower’s testimony on the Biden family money trail, 'Missing' Biden corruption case witness Dr. Gal Luft details allegations against president's family in extraordinary video, Media silence on Gal Luft's Biden revelations speaks volumes, The Criminal Hunter Biden, Key White House officials had strong ties to Hunter Biden before dad's presidency, emails show, Bidens Do The Crime, But Not The Time, Biden accused of 'scarring' Hunter's estranged daughter in New York Times op-ed, Compelling Reasons For AG Garland To Reconsider Labeling DOJ Criticism As 'Attack' On Democracy, U.S. Atty. Weiss Confirms 'Limited' Authority to Charge Hunter Outside Delaware, Hunter Biden’s Smear Strategy, Blowing the lid off the cover-up of Hunter Biden's cushy plea deal, and A 19-Point Time Line of Joe Biden's Infamous Links to the Family Business,)

It is an easy thing to betray one’s country when one has already profited from betraying his Catholic Faith while retaining his “good standing” in what purports to be—but is not—the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and it an easy thing to become something akin to a Mafia chieftain once one loses his integrity and makes an infallible idol of his family that can do no wrong and can never be held to account for their illegal and immoral actions by even duly constituted legal authorities (if such authorities had any desires to do so, of course):

Joe Biden is a father consumed with his son’s legal problems. That’s troubling news for Americans already worried that the president is not up to doing his job.

Biden is running for re-election and his staffers are worried about the optics of Hunter Biden being attached at the hip to his father, given the recent deal announced that will keep him out of prison. And there is the settlement with the mother of his four-year-old daughter that was submitted to the court for approval this week. It brought lots of headlines, too. Deals all over the place for Hunter Biden, a very special human being, apparently. Any other American would be serving time for what he’s been found guilty of – especially on the charge of lying on a federal form to purchase a gun.

Naturally, when Hunter and his wife showed up for the state dinner held for Indian Prime Minister Modi, so quickly after the plea deal in Delaware was announced, the wisdom of that invitation was called into question. Should Hunter be so conspicuous at his father’s White House events? Under normal circumstances, no. The disgraced criminal child of a sitting president would be kept out of sight from the public. But, this is Hunter Biden and we are being told that his daddy is keeping him close to him because Joe is afraid Hunter will relapse and go back to using drugs.

And, off Hunter went to Camp David last weekend with Joe. No doubt he’ll go again when Joe leaves the White House for Camp David this afternoon for the holiday weekend.

It’s all making sense now. Joe thinks he can keep his troubled son off drugs if he keeps him nearby. That’s not how addiction works but it may be what Joe Biden thinks. Joe Biden looks like he isn’t doing too well in taking care of himself so I don’t know how much good he’s doing for Hunter but he’s keeping him busy. Do you wonder if Hunter was making deals during that state dinner by using his father’s position, as he has done in the past? I did.

Biden is telling his staff that he won’t listen to their suggestions that having Hunter so close to him brings unwanted press attention. He’s going to do this his way. Staffers are concerned that the pictures and videos will draw attacks from Trump, who will likely face him in the 2024 election, as things stand now.

Behind-the-scenes, aides have tried to delicately tell the president that the optics of keeping Hunter at his side amid the first son’s legal drama may not help him win reelection, especially against former President Donald Trump.

Biden can fall back on the attentive dad routine. Things took a serious twist this week when a text message on WhatsApp showed an alleged direct reference that Hunter was making pay-for-play deals with a Chinese Communist Party official – Henry Zhao. When Republicans took back the majority in the House, they opened investigations into probing the corrupt Biden family “influence peddling.”

Hunter is the central figure in those investigations, as Republicans are hoping sources come forward to tie his foreign business deals – which were happening during his period of addiction, Hunter’s lawyer recently noted – to the president, who has long denied involvement.

A WhatsApp message from Hunter to a Chinese business associate provided to Republican by an IRS whistleblower caused the White House headaches, as it purported to show Hunter using his father’s clout to get paid.

In a July 2017 message to Communist Party official Henry Zhao, Hunter said I’m ‘sitting with my father,’ adding, ‘and we would like to know why the commitment made was not fulfilled.’

Staffers say he is all-consumed with Hunter’s troubles and he told his staff, “Hands off my family.” After Biden has reportedly angrily responded to concerns from those around him, they have given up.

Now aides have given up trying, with one source saying, ‘it is what it is, and we’re dealing with it.’

The push-and-pull bubbled up to the surface earlier this week, when former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the optics of Hunter being at the state dinner – especially with Attorney General Merrick Garland – were ‘absolutely not’ good.

Deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton, who was leading her first press briefing Tuesday, was asked about that comment by Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich.

‘Like every other administration, like every other president, this president has a family, and he did exactly what many prior administrations have done. And beyond that, I really don’t have any comment on this,’ she said.

Those investigations are also exposing The Big Guy (Joe Biden) and his role in the Biden crime family. The legacy press has no interest in these investigations, though, and will likely continue to give the Bidens a pass. There’s nothing to see here, why do you ask?

The additional stress of trying to keep an eye on Hunter will not be good for the 80-year-old president who is already failing because of the onset of dementia. No one wants to hear that Joe Biden is “consumed” with Hunter’s problems when the old man is barely keeping it together himself. His day job is rather important, after all. No one faults Biden for professing his love for his son.

Look for Democrats to rally around Joe and run interference against the poor optics of Hunter tagging along with his father on the campaign trail.

Here’s a thought – what if Joe Biden realizes that he isn’t up to being president and steps aside, using Hunter as his excuse? Would Jill let that happen? I don’t know that either of their egos would allow that kind of concession but that would make things pretty interesting on the Democrat side of the 2024 presidential election. (Biden is "consumed" with Hunter's legal woes -tells aides “Hands off my family”.)

A Catholic father who can shirk his responsibility to advance the salvation of his children’s immortal souls and, quite indeed, is their accomplice in acts that are tantamount to, if not actually, treasonous by selling one’s family name and the influence it brings to the Chicoms, who are enemies of Christ the King and of all mankind in addition to be enemies of the legitimate national security interests of the United States of America. No. “hands off my family” won’t work for the “Big Guy,” who supports and promotes baby-killing and perversity with a sickening glee that betrays the darkness of a heart so hardened as to deny the existence of his own granddaughter that Hunter “Monty Hall” Biden fathered out-of-wedlock with a woman in Arkansas at the same time he was having an illicit affair with his late brother’s widow, when he faces Christ the King at the terrible moment of his Particular Judgment:

Beloved Christians, of all the goods of nature, of fortune, and of grace, which we have received from God, we are not the masters, neither can we dispose of them as we please; we are but the administrators of them; and therefore we should employ them according to the will of God, who is our Lord. Hence, at the hour of death, we must render a strict account of them to Jesus Christ, our Judge. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the 'proper things of the body as he hath done, whether it be good or evil"--II. Cor., v. 10. This is the precise meaning of that "give an account of thy stewardship", in the gospel of this day. "You are not," says St. Bonaventure, in his comment on these words, "a master, but a steward over the things committed to you; and therefore you are to render an account of them". I will place before your eyes to-day, the rigour of this judgment, which shall be passed on each of us on the last day of our life. Let us consider the terror of the soul, first, when she shall be presented to the Judge; secondly, when she shall be examined; and thirdly; when she shall be condemned.

First point. Terror of the souls when she shall be presented to the Judge.

1. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and, after this, the judgment"--Heb., ix. 27. It is of faith that we shall die, and that, after death, a judgment shall be passed on all the actions of our life. Now, what shall be the terror of each of us, when we shall be at the point of death, and shall have before our eyes the judgment which must take place the very moment the soul departs from the body? Then shall be decided our doom to eternal life, or to eternal death. At the time of the passage of their souls from this life to eternity, the sight of their past sins, the rigour of God's judgment, and th uncertainty of their eternal salvation, have made the saints tremble. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi trembled in her sickness, through the fear of judgment; and to her confessor, when he endeavoured to give her courage, she said, Ah, father, it is a terrible thin to appear before Christ in judgment. After spending many years in penance in the desert, St. Agatho trembled at the hour of death, and said: What shall become of me when I shall be judged? The venerable Father Louis de Ponte was seized with such a fit of trembling at the thought of the account which he should render to God, that he shook the room in which he lay. The thought of judgment inspired the venerable Juvenal Ancina, Priest of the Oratory, and afterwards the Bishop of Saluzzo, with the determination to leave the world. Hearing the Dies Irae sung, and considering the terror of the souls when presented before Jesus Christ, the Judge, he took, and afterwards executed, the resolution of giving himself entirely to God.

2. It is the common opinion of theologians, that, at the very moment and in the very place in which the soul departs from the body, the divine tribunal is erected, the accusation is read, and the sentence is passed by Jesus Christ, the Judge. At this terrible tribunal each of us shall be presented, to give an account of all our thoughts, of all our words, and of all our actions. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he heath done, whether it be good or evil"--II. Cor., v. 10. When presented before an Earthly judge, criminals have been seen to fall into a cold sweat through fear. It is related of Piso, that, so great and insufferable was the confusion which he felt at the thought of appearing as a criminal before the senate, that he killed himself. How great is the pain of a vassal, or of a son, in appearing before an angry prince or an enraged father, to account for some crime which he has committed! Oh! how much greater shall be the pain and confusion of the soul in standing before Jesus Christ enraged against her for having despised him during her life! Speaking of judgment, St. Luke says, "Then they shall see the Son of Man"--Luke, xxi. 27. They shall see Jesus Christ as man, with the same wounds with which he ascended into Heaven. "Great joy of the beholders!" says Robert the Abbot, "great terror of those who are in expectation!" These wounds shall console the just, and shall terrify the wicked. In them sinners shall see the Redeemer's love for themselves, and their ingratitude to him.

3. "Who," says the Prophet Nahum, "can stand before the face of his indignation?--i. 6. How great, then, shall be the terror of a soul that finds himself in sin before this Judge, the first time she shall see him, and shall see him full of wrath! St. Basil says that she shall be tortured more by her shame and confusion than by the very fire of Hell. "Horridior quam ignis, erit udor". Philip the Second rebuked one of his domestics for having told a lie. "Is it thus", said the kin to him, "you deceive me?" The domestic, after having returned hom, died of grief. The Scripture tells us, that when Joseph, reproved his brethren, saying, "I am Joseph, whom you sold", they were unable to answer for fear, and remained silent. "His brethren could not answer him, being struck with exceeding great fear"--Gen., xlv. 3.Now, what answer shall sinners make to Jesus Christ when he shall say to them: I am your Redeemer and your Judge, whom you have so much despised? Where shall the miserable beings fly, says St. Augustine, when they shall see an angry Judge above, Hell open below, on one side their own sins accusing them, and on the other devils dragging them to punishment, and their conscience burning them within? "Above shall be an enraged Judge; below a horrid chaos; on the right, sins accusing him; on the left, demons dragging him to punishment; within, a burning conscience. Whither shall a sinner, beset in this manner, fly?" Perhaps he will cry for mercy? But how, asks Eusebius Emissenus, can he dare to implore mercy, when he must first render an account of his contempt for the mercy which Jesus Christ had shown to him? "With what face will you who are to be first judged for contempt of mercy, ask for mercy?" But let us come to the rendering of the accounts.

Second point. Terror of the soul when she shall be examined.

4. As soon as the soul shall be presented before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, he will say to her: "Give an account of thy stewardship": render instantly an account of thy entire life. The Apostle tells us, that to be worthy of eternal glory, our lives must be found conformable to the life of Jesus Christ. "For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son;...them he has also glorified"--Rom., viii.. 29, 30. Hence St. Peter has said, that in the judgment of Jesus Christ, the just man, who has observed the divine law, has pardoned enemies, has respected the saints, has practised chastity, meekness and other virtues, shall scarcely be saved. "The just man scarcely shall be saved." The Apostles adds: "Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"--I. Pet. iv., 18. What shall become of the vindictive and the unchaste, of blasphemers, and slanderers? What shall become of those whose entire life is opposed to the life of Jesus Christ?

5. In the first place, the Judge shall demand of sinners an account of all the blessings and graces which he bestowed upon them in order to bring them to salvation, and which they have rendered fruitless. He will demand an account of the years granted to them that they might serve God, and which they have spent in offending him. "He hat called against me the time"--Lam., i. 15. He will then demand an account of their sins. Sinners commit sins, and afterwards forget them; but Jesus Christ does not forget them: he keeps, as Job says, all our iniquities numbered, as it were in a bag. "Thou has sealed up my iniquities, as it were in a bag"--Job, xiv. 17. And he tells us that, on the day of accounts, he will take a lamp to scrutinize all the actions of our life. "And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps"--Soph., i. 12. The lamp, says Mendoza on this passage, penetrates all the corners of the house--that is, God will discover all the defects of our conscience, great and small. According to St. Anselm, an account shall be demanded of every glance of the eyes. "Exigitur usque ad ictum oculi". And, according to St. Matthew, of every idle word. "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it on the day of judgment"--Matt., xii. 36.

6. The Prophet Malachy says, that as gold is refined by taking away the dross, so on the day of judgment, all our actions shall be examined; and every defect which may be discovered shall be punished. "He shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold"--Mal. iii. 3. Even our justices--that is, our good words, confessions, communions, and prayers--shall be examined. "When I shall take a time, I will judge justices"--Ps., lxxiv. 3. But, if every glance, every idle word, and even good works, shall be judged, with what rigour shall immodest expressions, blasphemies, grievous detractions, theft, and sacrileges be judged? Alas! on that day every soul shall, as St. Jerome says, "see to her own confusion, all the evils which she has done. "videbit unusquisque quod fecit."

7. "Weight and balance are judgments of the Lord"--Prov., xvi. 11. In the balance of the Lord, a holy life and good works make the scale descend; but nobility, wealth, and science, have no weight. Hence, if found innocent, the peasant, the poor, and the ignorant, shall be rewarded. But the man of rank, of wealth, or or learning, if found guilty, shall be condemned."Thou art weighted in the balance", said Daniel to Balthassar, "and art found wanting"--Dan., v. 27. "Neither his gold, nor his wealth", says father Alvares, "but the king alone was weighed."

8. At the divine tribunal, the poor sinner shall see himself accused by the Devil, who, according to St. Augustine, "will recite the words of our profession, and will charge us before our face with all that we have done, will state the day and the hour in which we sinned"--Con. jud., tom. VI. He will recite the words of our profession; that is, he will enumerate the promises which we have made to God, and which we afterwards violated. He will charge us before our face; he will upbraid us with all our wicked deeds, pointing to the day and hour in which they were committed. And he will, as the same saint says, conclude his accusation by saying: "I have suffered neither stripes nor scourges for this man." Lord, I have suffered nothing for this ungrateful sinner, and to make himself my salve, he has turned his back on thee, who hast endured so much for his salvation. He, therefore, justly belongs to me. Even his angel-guardian will, according to Origen, come forward to accuse him, and will say" I have laboured so many years for his salvation; but he has despised all my admonitions. "Unusquisque angelorum perhibet testimonium, quot annis circa eum laboraverit sed ille monita sprevit"--hom., lxvi. Thus, even friends shall treat with contempt the guilty soul. "All her friends have despised her"--Lamen., i. 2. Her ver sins shall, says St. Bernard, accuse her. "And they shall say: You have made us; we are your work; we shall not desert you"--Lib., Medit., cap. ii. We are your offspring; we shall not leave you; we shall be your companions in Hell for all eternity.

9. Let us now examine the excuses which the sinner will be able to advance. He will say, that the evil inclinations of nature had drawn him to sin. But he shall be told that, if concupiscence impelled him to sins, it did not oblige him to commit them; and that, if he had recourse to God, he should have received from him grace to resist every temptation. For this purpose Jesus Christ has left us the sacraments; but, when we do not make use of them, we can complain only of ourselves. "But," says the Redeemer, "now they have no excuse for their sin"--John, xv. 22. To excuse himself, the sinner shall also say, that the Devil tempted him to sin. But, as St. Augustine says, "The enemy is bound like a dog in chains, and can bite only him who has united himself to him with a deadly security." The Devil can bark, but cannot bit, unless you adhere and listen to him. Hence the saint adds: " See how foolish is the man whom a dog loaded with chains bites". Perhaps he will advance his bad habits as an excuse; but this shall not stand; for the same St. Augustine says, that though it is difficult to resist the force of an evil habit, "if any one does not desert himself, he will conquer it with the divine assistance". If a man does not abandon himself to sin, and invokes God's aid, he will overcome evil habits. The Apostle tells us, that the Lord does not permit us to be tempted beyond our strength. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able."--I. Cor., x. 13.

10. "For what shall I do", said Job, "when God shall rise to judge me? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him?"--Job., xxxi. 14. What answer shall the sinner give to Jesus Christ? How can he, who sees himself so clearly convicted, give an answer? He shall be covered with confusion, and shall remain silent, like the man found without the nuptial garment. "But he was silent"--Matt., xxii. 12. His very sins shall shut the sinner's mouth. "And all iniquity shall stop her mouth"--Ps., cvi. 42. There, says St. Thomas of Villanova, there shall be no intercessors, to whom the sinner can have recourse. "There, there is no opportunity of sinning; there, no intercessor, no friend, no father shall assist". Who shall then save you? Is it God? But how, asks St. Basil, can you expect salvation from him whom you have despised? "Who shall deliver you? Is it God, whom you have insulted?"--S. Bas., Or. 4, de Pen. Alas, the guilty soul that leaves this world in sin, is condemned by herself before the Judge pronounces sentences. Let us come to the sentence of the Judge.

Third point. Terror of the soul when she shall be condemned.

11. How great shall be the joy of a soul when, at death, she hears from Jesus Christ these sweet words: "Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things. Enter into the joy of thy Lord"--Matt., xxv. 21. Equally great shall be the anguish and despair of a guilty soul, that shall see herself driven away by the Judge with the following words: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire"--verse 41. Oh! what a terrible thunderclap shall that sentence be to her! "O how frightfully", says the Carthusian, "shall that thunder resound!" Eusebius writes that, the terror of sinners at hearing their condemnation shall be so great, that, if they could, they would die again. "The wicked shall be seized with the terror at the sight of the Judge pronouncing sentence, that, if they were not immortal, they should die a second time" But, brethren, let us, before the termination of this sermon, make some reflections which will be profitable to us. St. Thomas of Villanova says, that some listen to discourses on the judgment and condemnation of the wicked, with as little concern as if they themselves were secure against these things, or as if the day of judgment were never to arrive for them. "Heu quam securi haec dicimus et audimus, quasi nos non tangeret haec sententia, aut quasi dies haec nunquam esset venturus!" Cone. i., de Jud. The saint then asks: Is it not great folly to entertain security in so perilous an affair? "Quae est ista stulta securitas in discrimine tanto?" There are some, says St. Augustine, who, though they live in sin, cannot imagine that God will send them to Hell. "Will God" they say, "really condemn us?" Brethren, adds the saint, do not speak thus. So many of the damned did not believe that they should be sent to Hell; but the end came, and, according to the threat of Ezechiel, they have been cast into that place of darkness. "The end is come, the end is come. . . and I will send my wrath upon thee, and I will judge thee"--Ezec., vii. 2, 3. Sinners, perhaps vengeance is at hand for you, and still you laugh and sleep in sin. Who will not tremble at the words of the Baptist, "for now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire"?--Matt., iii. 10. He says, that every tree that does not bring forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire: and he promises that, with regard to the trees, which represent sinners, the axe is already laid to the roots--that is, the chastisement is at hand. Dearly beloved brethren, let us follow the counsel of the Holy Ghost--"Before judgment, prepare thee justice"--Eccl., xviii. 19. Let us adjust our accounts before the day of accounts. Let us seek God, now that we can find him; for the time shall come when we will wish, but shall not be able to find him. "you shall seek me and shall not find me"--John, vii. 36. "Before judgment," says St. Augustine, "the Judge can be appeased, but not in judgment". By a change of life, we can now appease the anger of Jesus Christ, and recover his grace; but when he shall judge, and find us in sin, he must execute justice, and we shall be lost. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Sermon on the Particular Judgment, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.)

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is a serial liar. He is a man of iniquity himself and he has suborned iniquity, impurity, indecency, filth, and degradation in those around him, especially the family’s breadwinner, the “recovering” crackhead named Hunter Biden. Biden’s mouth is an open sepulcher, and is mind, such as it has ever been, is filled with the falsehoods of a false age that was described by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to Blessed Anna Taigi in 1829 as follows:

The precursor signs revealed to the Blessed have little to do with the assumptions of worldly prudence. On November 9, 1820, the priest recorded: 'When you see a happy, quiet day of great contentment, then store food: bread, wine, oil. Money will not be lacking. (...) wicked Rome, cruel Rome, you will see the end of iniquity' (Vol. VI, p. 96). The confusion of ideas is one of the signs that are most found in the records of Mons. Natali. On June 8, 1829, he notes: 'Now reign bad customs, politics, human respect, simulation. There is a general scandal everywhere. This is the greatest and strongest punishment that has fallen upon the whole world: the confusion of ideas. I often told you that before the end we would pass by the Tower of Babel. But the end will come when I see fit' (Vol. VII, p. 468). And in 1828: 'Remember, my daughter, that I told you that the Tower of Babel is installed' (Vol. VII, pp. 375-376). On March 31, 1819, he wrote Mons. Natali: 'the Blessed told me that one day she would not know how to point out, during the first years [of the revelations], she heard that the world would be reduced to such a state that the few priests who remained would be forced to live hidden in the sewers carrying the Blessed Sacrament in their bosom' (Blessed Anna Maria Taigi: The Contemplative of the Struggle between Light and Darkness, Vol. IV, p. 391).

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is an end product of Modernity’s confusion of ideas that leaves no place for Christ the King and His true Church in the lives of nations and even, sadly, in the lives of so many people who consider themselves “good” Catholics even though they support evils that cry out to Heaven for vengeance and suborn extortive acts to shake down oligarchs no matter what it might cost their country as long as it enriches their own coffers by means of dummy bank accounts and shell corporations based in the “First State,” Delaware, a place where classified documents had been stored in a garage next to a Corvette, of course.

Although there are untold numbers of Catholic parents who, despite their best efforts after having given their children all the benefits of the Holy Faith, are suffering today in the pattern of Saint Monica herself, there are, most unfortunately, millions upon millions more who treat their grown children as demigods who must be pampered, enabled, and abetted at every turn no matter what they say, what they do, how they act, or who they hurt. No parent, however including Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, and his wife, Dr. Jill Tracy Jacobs Stevenson Biden, who has been so bold as to wear Rosary beads around her neck while promoting baby-killing in Africa, where so many unsuspecting women have been sterilized by means of “vaccines” imported from the West, has anything other but the empty love of sentimentality for his children if he or she does or says anything that impedes their salvation of their souls by reaffirming them in lives of debauched sin and debauched hedonism; and, similarly no parent has any true love for his children if he omits to do or say anything that could dissuade them from displeasing God by Moral Sin and thus risk perishing in the eternal flames of hell described so vividly by Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri:

13. The reprobate shall be likewise tormented by the stench which pervades hell. The stench shall arise from the very bodies of the damned. “Out of their carcasses shall arise a stink.” (Isaiah 34:3). The bodies of the damned are called carcasses, not because they are dead (for they are living, and shall be forever alive to pain), but on account of the stench which they exhale. Would it not be very painful to be shut up in a close room with a fetid corpse? St. Bonaventure says, that if the body of one of the damned were placed in the earth, it would, by its stench, be sufficient to cause the death of all men. How intolerable, then, must it be to live forever in the dungeons of hell in the midst of the immense multitudes of the damned! Some foolish worldlings say, If I go to hell, I shall not be there alone. Miserable fools! do you not see that the greater the number of your companions, the more insufferable shall be your torments? “There,” says St. Thomas, “the society of the reprobate shall cause an increase and not a diminution of misery.” (Suppl., q. 86, art. 1). The society of the reprobate augments their misery, because each of the damned is a source of suffering to all the others. Hence, the greater their number, the more they shall mutually torment each other. “And the people,” says the prophet Isaias, “shall be ashes after a fire, as a bundle of thorns they shall be burnt with fire.” (Is. 33:12). Placed in the midst of the furnace of hell, the damned are like so many grains reduced to ashes by that abyss of fire, and like so many thorns tied together and wounding each other.

14. They are tormented not only by the stench of their companions, but also by their shrieks and lament. How painful it is to a person longing for sleep to hear the groans of a sick man, the barking of a dog, or the screams of an infant. The damned must listen incessantly to the wailing and howling of their associates, not for a night, nor for a thousand nights, but for all eternity, without the interruption of a single moment.

15. The damned are also tormented by the narrowness of the place in which they are confined; for, although the dungeon of hell is large, it will be too small for so many millions of the reprobate, who like sheep shall be heaped one over the other. “They are,” says David, “laid in hell like sheep.” (Ps. 38:15). We learn from the Scriptures that they shall be pressed together like grapes in the winepress, by the vengeance of an angry God. “The winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God the Almighty.” (Rev. 19:15). From this pressure shall arise the pain of immobility. “Let them become unmovable as a stone.” (Ex. 16:16). In whatever position the damned shall fall into hell after the general judgment, whether on the side, or on the back, or with the head downwards, in that they must remain for eternity, without being ever able to move foot or hand or finger, as long as God shall be God. In a word, St. Chrysostom says, that all the pains of this life, however great they may be, are scarcely a shadow of the torments of the damned. “Hæc omnia ludicra sunt et risus ad ilia supplicia, pone ignem, ferrum, et bestias, attamen vix umbra sunt ad ilia tormenta.” (Hom, xxxix. ad pop. Ant).

16. The reprobate, then, shall be tormented in all the senses of the body. They shall also be tormented in all the powers of the soul. Their memory shall be tormented by the remembrance of the years which they had received from God for the salvation of their souls, and which they spent in laboring for their own damnation; by the remembrance of so many graces and so many divine lights which they abused. Their understanding shall be tormented by the knowledge of the great happiness which they forfeited in losing their souls, Heaven, and God; and by a conviction that this loss is irreparable. Their will shall be tormented by seeing that whatsoever they ask or desire shall be refused. “The desire of the wicked shall perish.”(Ps. 111:10). They shall never have any of those things for which they wish, and must forever suffer all that is repugnant to their will. They would wish to escape from these torments and to find peace; but in these torments they must forever remain, and peace they shall never enjoy.

17. Perhaps they may sometimes receive a little comfort, or at least enjoy occasional repose? No, says Cyprian, “Nullum ibi refrigerium, nullum remedium, atque ita omni tormento atrocius desperatio.” (Serm. de Ascens). In this life, how great soever may be the tribulations which we suffer, there is always some relief or interruption. The damned must remain forever in a pit of fire, always in torture, always weeping, without ever enjoying a moment’s repose. But perhaps there is someone to pity their sufferings? At the very time that they are so much afflicted the devils continually reproach them with the sins for which they are tormented, saying, Suffer, burn, live forever in despair, you yourselves have been the cause of your destruction. And do not the saints, the divine mother, and God, who is called the Father of Mercies, take compassion on their miseries? No; "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from Heaven.” (Matt. 26:29). The saints, represented by the stars, not only do not pity the damned, but they even rejoice in the vengeance inflicted on the injuries offered to their God. Neither can the divine mother pity them, because they hate her Son. And Jesus Christ, who died for the love of them, cannot pity them, because they have despised his love, and have voluntarily brought themselves to perdition. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, “On the Pains of Hell,” Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori For All the Sundays of the Year, published originally in 1852 and photographically reproduced by TAN Books and Publisher in 1982, pp. 93-95. The entire sermon is appended below.)

Our sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer unspeakable horrors in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and they caused Our Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with those Seven Swords of Sorrow, four of which were plunged deep into that same Immaculate Heart during her Divine Son's Passion and Death. We must be punished because of our own sins, and it is important for us to remember that even though the Biden Family Crime Syndicate will not escape scrutiny if its members and beneficiaries persist in their moral and financial crimes until they die, the reality is we are more responsible for the foul state of the world and of the Church Militant on earth than we realize or would like to admit.

The worst kind of slavery is slavery to Original Sin, wherein one's soul is captive to the devil and thus blinded from seeing the world clearly and whose disorderly passions are even more inclined to act in accord with the spur of the moment rather than in accord with even natural reason.

Fallen human nature is such, however, that men vie with each in acts to aggrandize themselves, their power, and their fame while seeking to escape all just punishment in this life. Men who fall into the habit of persisting in and multiplying unrepentant Mortal Sins, blind themselves voluntarily as they seek after everything but the Catholic Faith as the means to guide their lives, being content to remain in slavery to devil, whether by means Original Sin or Mortal Sin, as they heap up riches, power, and influence in this life in the belief that this is the singular and all-defining purpose of human existence justifying whatever means are employed to obtained monetary wealth and/or worldly power.

The insanity and madness of Modernity that is supposed to produce "happiness" in this mortal vale of tears winds up producing anxiety and fear and misery and sadness.

This is the time of Antichrist, who has many figures walking abroad amid the lords of Modernity in the world and the lords of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. We must simply endeavor to remain faithful to the very end.

These words from the book that inspired fourteen-year-old Therese Martin to seek admission the Carmel of Lisieux are rather pertinent:

However, it would not be correct to conclude from this testimony that there will be none of the elect left on earth, and that the Son of God will not fail to keep the promise made to His Church, when He sid, Propter electos, dies breviabuntur ("because of the elect, the days will be shortened"). Moreover, St. John, in his [Apocalypse] adds, "And he [the beast] will be worshiped by those who dwell upon the earth whose names are not written in the book of life."

St. Augustine tells us that, in the reign of the Antichrist, thee will be multitudes of martyrs who will display a heroic constancy, and also a number, more or less large, of confessors who will manage to escape into caves and high or sheer mountains, and God will see to it that these sanctuaries shall elude the vigilance and investigations of the persecutors, and will not permit the Devil to point them out them.

Daniel tells us that, at the time of when this terrible persecution breaks out, the abomination of desolation will openly sit enthroned in the holy place. "The king shall do s he pleases," says Daniel. "He shall exalt himself and make himself greater than any god; he shall utter dreadful blasphemies against the God of god . . . He shall have no regard for the gods of his ancestors . . . for no good shall he have regard."

In other words, once the man of sin has cowed the human once by his threats and entangled it in the meshes of his lies and wiles, he will observe no restraint, show his hand, and act openly. He will not permit anyone to worship or invoke any other god than himself, and will proclaim himself sole lord of heaven and earth. Wherever he is not present in person, men will be obliged to pay homage to his image or statue. Et elevabitur, mangifcabitur adversus ominem Deum. He will tolerate neither the Mosaic religion, nor natural religion itself. He will persecute with equal thoroughness Jews, schismatics, heretics, deists, and every sect that recognizes the existence of a supreme being and the immortality of the life to come. Yet God, in His wisdom, will draw good from evil. The horrible tempest that His justice has allowed to be unleashed upon the earth will result in the disappearance of false religions. Along with Judaism, it will abolish the remains of Mohammedans, idolatrous superstitious, and every religion hostile to the Church.

It will dead the finishing blow to the sects of darkness. Freemasonry, Carbonarism, Illuminism, and all subversive societies will vanish in the vortex of wickedness which will be their work, and which they had prepared for centuries in the belief that it would be their definitive, supreme triumph. They will have assisted unintentionally in the establishment of the reign of unity foretold by our Lord: "There one flock then, and one shepherd."

The triumph of the wicked one will be of short duration, but the consolations that follow will be universal, abundant, proportionate to the extent of the tribulations to the Church will have suffered.

However, the final consummation will not come yet, as it is written:

And when the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and loud voices in heaven cried out; the voices of angels and of virgins, together with the voices of confessors and holy martyrs, will hail Christ with praise and acclamations, giving thanks for His victory over the Antichrist, and for the extermination of the wicked. All men, now become worshipers of one and the same God, all professing the same faith, united in the same adoration, sharing the same table, will exclaim in chorus: "The kingdom of this world now belongs our Lord and to his Anointed One . . . We praise you, O Lord God Almighty, who is and who was and who are to come; because You have assumed your great power, and You have begun Your reign. (Father Charles Arminjon, The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, translated by Susan Conroy and Peter McEnerny. Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2008, pp. 67-68.)

Perhaps the octogenarian in the White House will read Father Arminjon’s words one day and be converted away from his life of perdition, demagoguery, deceit, and the full use of the levers of state-sponsored injustice against his political opponents. We must pity his fate if does not convert as hell is for all eternity, and telling people to keep “hands off his family” in this life simply will not keep him from hell’s torments barring a miraculous conversion, for which we must pay, of course.

We, for our part, must remember that our weapon in these times of the open promotion of sin is Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary.

Pray the Rosary.

We must enfold ourselves into the love of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we make reparation for our own many sins, which are so responsible for the worsening of the state of the Church Militant on earth and of the world-at-large, as we seek to restore all things in Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.

The enemies of Christ the King within in our souls and in the world-at-large will be defeated by Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary and the fulfillment of her Fatima Message.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

The Seven Holy Brothers, pray for us.

Saints Rufina and Secunda, pray for us.

Appendix

“On The Pains of Hell”

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

“Gather up first the cockle, and bind into bundles to burn.” Matt. 13:30.

I shall first speak of the fire, which is the principal pain that torments the senses of the damned, and afterwards of the other pains of hell.

1. Behold! the final doom of sinners who abuse the divine mercy is to burn in the fire of hell. God threatens hell, not to send us there, but to deliver us from that place of torments. “Minatur Deus gehennem, “says St. Chrysostom, “ut a gehenna liberet, et ut firmi ac stabiles evitemus minas.” (Hom. v. de Poenit). Remember, then, brethren, that God gives you Today the opportunity of hearing this sermon, that you may be preserved from hell, and that you may give up sin, which alone can lead you to hell.

2. My brethren, it is certain and of faith that there is a hell. After judgment the just shall enjoy the eternal glory of Heaven, and sinners shall be condemned to suffer the everlasting chastisement reserved for them in hell. “And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting.” (Matt. 25:46). Let us examine in what hell consists. It is what the rich glutton called it a place of torments. “In hunc locum tormentorum.” (Luke 16:28). It is a place of suffering, where each of the senses and powers of the damned has its proper torment, and in which the torments of each person will be increased in proportion to the forbidden pleasures in which he indulged. “As much as she has glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give you to her.” (Rev. 18:7).

3. In offending God the sinner does two evils, he abandons God, the sovereign good, who is able to make him happy, and turns to creatures, who are incapable of giving any real happiness to the soul. Of this injury which men commit against him, the Lord complains by his prophet Jeremiah, “For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have dug to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2:13). Since, then, the sinner turns his back on God, he shall be tormented in hell, by the pain arising from the loss of God, of which I shall speak on another occasion [see the Sermon for the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost], and since, in offending God, he turns to creatures, he shall be justly tormented by the same creatures, and principally by fire.

4. “The vengeance on the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms.” (Eccl 7:19). Fire and the remorse of conscience are the principal means by which God takes vengeance on the flesh of the wicked. Hence, in condemning the reprobate to hell, Jesus Christ commands them to go into eternal fire. “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire.” (Matt. 25:41). This fire, then, shall be one of the most cruel executioners of the damned.

5. Even in this life the pain of fire is the most terrible of all torments. However, St. Augustine says, that in comparison of the fire of hell, the fire of this earth is no more than a picture compared with the reality, “In cuius comparatione noster hie ignus depictus est." Anselm teaches, that the fire of hell as far surpasses the fire of this world, as the fire of the real exceeds that of painted fire. The pain, then, produced by the fire of hell is far greater than that which is produced by our fire because God has made the fire of this earth for the use of man, but he has created the fire of hell purposely for the chastisement of sinners; and therefore, as Tertullian says, he has made it a minister of his justice. “Longe alius est ignis, qui usui humano, alms qui Dei justitiæ deservit.” This avenging fire is always kept alive by the wrath of God. “A fire is kindled in my rage." (Jer. 15:14).

6 “And the rich man also died, and he was buried in hell.” (Luke 16:22). The damned are buried in the fire of hell; Hence, they have an abyss of fire below, an abyss of fire above, and an abyss of fire on every side. As a fish in the sea is surrounded by water, so the unhappy reprobate are encompassed by fire on every side. The sharpness of the pain of fire may be inferred from the circumstance, that the rich glutton complained of no other torment. “I am tormented in this flame.” (Ibid, v 23).

7 The Prophet Isaias says that the Lord will punish the guilt of sinners with the spirit of fire. “If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion by the spirit of burning” (4. 4).. “The spirit of burning” is the pure essence of fire. All spirits or essences, through taken from simple herbs or flowers, are so penetrating, that they reach the very bones. Such is the fire of hell. Its activity is so great, that a single spark of it would be sufficient to melt a mountain of bronze. The disciple relates, that a damned person, who appeared to a religious, dipped his hand into a vessel of water; the religious placed in the vessel a candlestick of bronze, which was instantly dissolved.

8. This fire shall torment the damned not only externally, but also internally. It will burn the bowels, the heart, the brains, the blood within the veins, and the marrow within the bones. The skin of the damned shall be like a caldron, in which their bowels, their flesh, and their bones shall be burned. David says, that the bodies of the damned shall be like so many furnaces of fire. “You shall make them as an oven of fire in the time of your anger.” (Ps. 20:10).

9. O God! certain sinners cannot bear to walk under a strong sun, or to remain before a large fire in a close room; they cannot endure a spark from a candle; and they fear not the fire of hell, which, according to the Prophet Isaias, not only burns, but devours the unhappy damned. “Which of you can dwell with devouring fire. “(Is.33:14). As a lion devours a lamb, so the fire of hell devours the reprobate; but it devours without destroying life, and thus tortures them with a continual death. Continue, says St. Peter Damian to the sinner who indulges in impurity, continue to satisfy your flesh; a day will come, or rather an eternal night, when your impurities, like pitch, shall nourish a fire within your very bowels. “Venit dies, imo nox, quando libido tua vertetur in picem qua se nutriet perpetuus ignis in visceribus tuis.” (Epist. 6). And according to St. Cyprian, the impurities of the wicked shall boil in the very fat which will issue from their accursed bodies.

10, St. Jerome teaches, that in this fire sinners shall suffer not only the pain of the fire, but also all the pains, which men endure on this earth. “In uno igne omnia supplicia sentient in inferno peccatores.” (Ep. ad Pam). How manifold are the pains to which men are subject in this life. Pains in the sides, pains in the head, pains in the loins, pains in the bowels. All these together torture the damned.

11. The fire itself will bring with it the pain of darkness; for, by its smoke it will, according to St. John, produce a storm of darkness which shall blind the damned. “To whom the storm of darkness is reserved forever.” (St. Jude 13). Hence, hell is called a land of darkness covered with the shadow of death. “A land that is dark and covered with the mist of death a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and no order but everlasting horror dwells.” (Job 10:21, 22). To hear that a criminal is shut up in a dungeon for ten or twenty years excites our compassion. Hell is a dungeon closed on every side, into which a ray of the sun or the light of a candle never enters. Thus the damned “shall never see light.” (Ps 48:20). The fire of this world gives light, but the fire of hell is utter darkness. In explaining the words of David, “the voice of the Lord divides the flame of fire,” (Ps. 28:7,). St. Basil says, that in hell the Lord separates the fire that burns from the flame which illuminates, and therefore this fire burns, but gives no light. B. Albertus Magnus explains this passage more concisely by saying that God “divides the heat from the light.” St. Thomas teaches, that in hell there is only so much light as is necessary to torment the damned by the sight of their associates and of the devils, “Quantum sufficit ad videndum ilia quæ torquere possunt.” (3 p., q. 97, art. 5). And according to St. Augustine, the bare sight of these infernal monsters excites sufficient terror to cause the death of all the damned, if they were capable of dying. “Videbunt monstra, quorum visio postet illos occidere.”

12. To suffer a parching thirst, without having a drop of water to quench it, is intolerably painful. It has sometimes happened, that travelers who could procure no refreshment after a long journey, have fainted from the pain produced by thirst. So great is the thirst of the damned, that if one of them were offered all the water on this earth, he would exclaim, All this water is not sufficient to extinguish the burning thirst which I endure. But, alas! the unhappy damned shall never have a single drop of water to refresh their tongues. “He cried out 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. “ (Luke 16:24). The rich glutton has not obtained, and shall never obtain, this drop of water, as long as God shall be God.

16. The reprobate, then, shall be tormented in all the senses of the body. They shall also be tormented in all the powers of the soul. Their memory shall be tormented by the remembrance of the years which they had received from God for the salvation of their souls, and which they spent in laboring for their own damnation; by the remembrance of so many graces and so many divine lights which they abused. Their understanding shall be tormented by the knowledge of the great happiness which they forfeited in losing their souls, Heaven, and God; and by a conviction that this loss is irreparable. Their will shall be tormented by seeing that whatsoever they ask or desire shall be refused. “The desire of the wicked shall perish.” (Ps. 111:10). They shall never have any of those things for which they wish, and must forever suffer all that is repugnant to their will. They would wish to escape from these torments and to find peace; but in these torments they must forever remain, and peace they shall never enjoy.

17. Perhaps they may sometimes receive a little comfort, or at least enjoy occasional repose? No, says Cyprian, “Nullum ibi refrigerium, nullum remedium, atque ita omni tormento atrocius desperatio.” (Serm. de Ascens). In this life, how great soever may be the tribulations which we suffer, there is always some relief or interruption. The damned must remain forever in a pit of fire, always in torture, always weeping, without ever enjoying a moment’s repose. But perhaps there is someone to pity their sufferings? At the very time that they are so much afflicted the devils continually reproach them with the sins for which they are tormented, saying, Suffer, burn, live forever in despair, you yourselves have been the cause of your destruction. And do not the saints, the divine mother, and God, who is called the Father of Mercies, take compassion on their miseries? No; "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from Heaven.” (Matt. 26:29). The saints, represented by the stars, not only do not pity the damned, but they even rejoice in the vengeance inflicted on the injuries offered to their God. Neither can the divine mother pity them, because they hate her Son. And Jesus Christ, who died for the love of them, cannot pity them, because they have despised his love, and have voluntarily brought themselves to perdition. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, “On the Pains of Hell,” Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori For All the Sundays of the Year, published originally in 1852 and photographically reproduced by TAN Books in 1982, pp. 89-95.)

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