“Amongst the other
vices, there are four which send most souls to hell, and on this
earth bring upon men the scourges of God; and these four are, HATRED,
BLASPHEMY, THEFT, and IMPURITY.”
Excerpts from Nine
Discourses for times of Calamity, Fourth Discourse – The Four
Principal Gates of Hell. by St. Alphonsus Liguori.
Broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in
thereat
[Mt. 7:13].
Hell has then different gates, but these gates stand on our
earth. Her gates are sunk into the ground [Lam.
2: 9]. These are the vices by which men offend God, and draw down
upon themselves chastisements and eternal death. Amongst the other
vices, there are four which send most souls to hell, and on this
earth bring upon men the scourges of God; and these four are, HATRED,
BLASPHEMY, THEFT, and IMPURITY. Behold, the four gates by which the
greater number of souls enter hell; and it is of these four that I
mean to speak in order that you may amend and cure yourselves of
these four vices, otherwise God will cure you of them, but by your
own destruction.
HATRED. The first gate of
hell is hatred. As paradise is the kingdom of love, so hell is the
kingdom of hatred. Father, says such a person, I am grateful to and
love my friends, but I cannot endure him who does me an injury. Hear
what I say to you says Jesus Christ; hear my law, which is a law of
love: Love your enemies. I wish, that you, my disciples,
should love even your enemies. Do good to them that hate you;
you must do good to them that wish you ill, and pray for them that
persecute and calumniate you; if you can do nothing else, you
must pray for them who persecute you, and then you shall be the
children of God your father: that you may be the children of your
Father who is in heaven. [Mt. 5: 44-45.]
St. Augustine then is
right in saying that it is by love alone a child of God is known from
a child of the devil. Thus have the saints always done; they have
loved their enemies. Such may indeed be called the children of God.
Forgive, and you
shall be forgiven [Lk.
6;37].
“By forgiving others,” says St. John Chrysostom, “you earn
pardon for yourself.” But he, on the contrary, who will have
vengeance, how can he hope for pardon for his sins? Such a person, in
saying the “Our Father,” condemns himself when he says: “forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” But how, says St. Augustine, how can he who will not
forgive his enemy, according to the command of God, have the face to
ask pardon from God for his offenses.
But, be assured, that you shall be judged without mercy if you show
not mercy to your neighbor. For
judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy [Ja.
2:13].
If
then, my brethren, you wish to have revenge, bid adieu to paradise; Revenge is Mine, and I will repay them in due time [Deut. 22:35]. And
let us further know, my brethren, that revenge and the desire of
revenge are alike enormous, are the same sin. Should we at any time
receive an offense, what are we to do? When our passion begins to
rise, we must have recourse to God, and to the most holy Mary, who
will help us, and obtain strength for us to forgive. We should then
endeavor to say: Lord, for the love of Thee I forgive the injury that
has been done me, and do Thou in Thy mercy forgive me all the
injuries I have done Thee.
BLASPHEMY.
Let us pass on to the second gate of hell, which is blasphemy. Some,
when things go wrong with them, do not attack man, but endeavor to
wreak their vengeance upon God himself by blasphemy. Know, my
brethren, what manner of sin blasphemy is. A certain author says:
“Every sin, compared with blasphemy, is light;” and first of all,
St. John Chrysostom says, there is nothing worse than blasphemy.
Other sins, says St. Bernard, are committed through frailty, but this
only through malice. With reason, then, does St. Bernardine of Siena
call blasphemy a diabolical sin, because the blasphemer, like a
demon, attacks God himself. He is worse than those who crucified
Jesus Christ, because they did not know him to be God; but he who
blasphemes knows him to be God, and insults him face to face.
What punishment, says St. Augustine, will suffice to chastise
so horrid a crime? We should not wonder, says Pope Julius III., that
the scourges of God do not cease while such a crime exists among us.
The
Lord threatens to destroy the kingdom in which this accursed vice
reigns. They have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel; . . your land
is desolate, . . . it shall be desolate [Is. 1:4]. Oh, if there
were always found some one to do what St. John Chrysostom advises:
“Strike his mouth, and sanctify thereby thy hand.” But it would
be better if that were done which St. Louis, King of France, put in
force: he commanded by edict that every blasphemer should be branded
on the mouth with an iron. A certain nobleman having blasphemed, many
persons besought the king not to inflict that punishment upon him;
but St. Louis insisted upon its infliction in every instance; and
some taxing him with excessive cruelty on that account, he replied
that he would suffer his own mouth to be burned sooner than allow
such an outrage to be put upon God in his kingdom. Tell me,
blasphemer, of what country are you? Allow me to tell you, you belong
to hell. What is the
language of the damned?—blasphemy. And they blasphemed the God
of heaven because of their pains and wounds [Apoc. 16:11]. What
do you gain, my brethren, by these your blasphemies? you gain no
honor by them. Blasphemers are abhorred even by their blasphemous
companions.
Resolve
to rid yourself of this vice in any event. Take care, if you do not
abandon it now, that you will not carry it with you to death, as has
happened to so many who have died with blasphemy in their mouths.
But, Father, what can I do when the madness comes upon me? Good God!
and are there no other means of working it off than by blasphemy?
Say, cursed be my sins. Mother of God, assist me, give me patience;
your passion, your anger, will pass off quickly, and you will find
yourself in the grace of God after the trial. If you do not act thus,
you will find yourself more afflicted and more lost than before.
THEFT. Let us now pass on
to the consideration of the third great gate of hell by which so
large a portion of the damned enter; I mean theft. Some adore money
as their God, and look upon it as the object of all their desires.
The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold [Ps.103:12]. The
sentence of condemnation has already been pronounced against such:
nor thieves . . . nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of
God [1 Cor. 6:10].
It is true that theft is not the most enormous of sins, but St.
Antoninus says that it very much endangers salvation. The reason is
because for the remission of other sins true repentance only is
required; but repentance is not enough for the remission of theft:
there must be restitution, and this is made with difficulty.
The property of another becomes to him who takes it like his
own blood; and the pain of suffering one’s blood to be drawn for
another is very difficult to endure. We learn it every day from
experience: innumerable thefts take place; how much restitution do
you see? My brethren, see that you take not the property of your
neighbor, and if during the past you have ever failed in this
respect, make restitution as soon as possible. If you cannot at once
make full restitution, do it by degrees.
Know that the property of
another in your possession will not only be the means of bringing you
to hell, but will make you miserable even in this life. Thou hast
despoiled others, says the prophet, and others shall despoil thee.
The property of another brings with it a curse which will fall upon
the entire house of the thief. This is the curse that goeth forth
over the face of the earth, . . . and it shall come to the house of
the thief [Zach. 5:3]. that is to say (as St. Gregory Nazianzen
explains it), that the thief shall lose not only the stolen property,
but his own. The goods of another are as fire and smoke to consume
everything that comes in their way. Some persons take the property of
their neighbor, and then are fain to quiet their consciences by
alms-deeds. Christ, says St. John Chrysostom, will not be fed with
the plunder of others. The sins of this kind, committed by the great,
are acts of injustice, injuries that they inflict upon others, and
taking from the poor of what is their due. These are descriptions of
theft which require perfect restitution, and a restitution most
difficult of all to make, and most likely to be the cause of one’s
damnation.
IMPURITY We have now,
lastly, to speak of the fourth gate of hell, which is impurity, and
it is by this gate that the greater number of the damned enter. Some
will say that it is a trifling sin. Is it a trifling sin? It is a
mortal sin. St. Antoninus writes, that such is the nauseousness of
this sin; that the devils themselves cannot endure it.
The impure say, moreover, God has compassion on us who are
subject to this vice, because he knows that we are flesh. But you
must know that the most horrible chastisements with which God has
ever visited the earth have been drawn down by this vice. St. Jerome
says that this is the only sin of which we read that it caused God to
repent him of having made man. It repented Him that had made man;
. . . for all flesh had corrupted its way [Gen. 6: 6 –
12]. Wherefore it is, St. Jerome says that there is no sin which God
punishes so rigorously, even upon earth, as this. He once sent fire
from heaven upon five cities, and consumed all their inhabitants for
this sin. Principally on account of this sin did God destroy mankind,
with the exception of eight persons, by the deluge. You
say, God has compassion upon men subject to this sin. But it is this
sin that sends most men to hell. St. Remigius says, that the greater
number of the damned are in hell through this vice.
It is to be remarked,
moreover, that this sin brings with it innumerable others: enmities,
thefts, and, more especially, sacrilegious confessions and
Communions, by reason of the shame which will not allow these
impurities to be disclosed in confession. And let us remark herein
passing, that it is sacrilege above all things, that brings upon us
sickness and death; for, says the Apostle, He that eateth and
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself not
discerning the body of the Lord; and then he adds: therefore
are many infirm and weak among you
[1 Cor. 11:29-30]. And St. John Chrysostom, in explanation of
that passage, says that St. Paul speaks of persons who were chastised
with bodily infirmities, because they received the sacrament with a
guilty conscience.
My brethren, should you
ever have been sunk in this vice, I do not bid you be disheartened,
but arise at once from this foul and infernal pit; beg of God
forthwith to give you light, and stretch out his hand to you. The
first thing that you have to do is to break with the occasion of sin:
without that, preaching and tears and resolutions and confessions,
all are lost. Remove the occasions, and then constantly recommend
yourself to God, and to Mary the mother of purity. No matter how
grievously you may be tempted, do not be discouraged by the
temptation; at once call to your aid Jesus and Mary, pronouncing
their sacred names. These blessed names have the virtue of making the
devil fly, and stifling that hellish flame within you. If the devil
persists in tempting you, persevere in calling upon Jesus and Mary,
and certainly you shall not fall. In order to rid yourself of your
evil habits, undertake some special devotion to our Lady; begin to
fast in her honor upon Saturdays; contrive to visit her image every
day, and beg of her to obtain for you deliverance from that vice.
Every morning immediately after rising, never omit saying three “Hail
Marys” in honor of her purity and do the same when going to bed;
and above all things, as I have said, when the temptation is most
troublesome, call quickly upon Jesus and Mary. Beware, brother, if
you do not be converted now, you may never be converted. (Act of
contrition.)
Excerpts from Nine
Discourses for times of Calamity, Fourth Discourse – The Four
Principal Gates of Hell, by St.
Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, Founder of the Redemptorist
Order.
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