Between us and you a great chasm is established

Am 6,1a.4-7; Ps 145; 1Tm 6,11-16; Lk 16,19-31
29 SEPTEMBER

Before Jesus had the bad rich speak from hell to manifest to us what the anguish and sufferings of eternal hell are, the Lord God had already caused the damned to speak to reveal to us the depth, the breadth and the width of their foolishness and ignorance. For a moment of time, indeed for a second of time given to wickedness, they are condemned to the torments of hell that are eternal. Every fool is invited to think, reflect and decide to pay all obedience to the Word of God.

Then shall the just one with great assurance confront his oppressors who set at nought his labours. Seeing this, they shall be shaken with dreadful fear, and amazed at the unlooked-for salvation. They shall say among themselves, rueful and groaning through anguish of spirit: “This is he whom once we held as a laughingstock and as a type for mockery, fools that we were! His life we accounted madness, and his death dishonoured. See how he is accounted among the sons of God; how his lot is with the saints! We, then, have strayed from the way of truth, and the light of justice did not shine for us, and the sun did not rise for us. We had our fill of the ways of mischief and of ruin; we journeyed through impassable deserts, but the way of the Lord we knew not. What did our pride avail us? What have wealth and its boastfulness afforded us? All of them passed like a shadow and like a fleeting rumour; Like a ship traversing the heaving water, of which, when it has passed, no trace can be found, no path of its keel in the waves. Or like a bird flying through the air; no evidence of its course is to be found – But the fluid air, lashed by the beat of pinions, and cleft by the rushing force Of speeding wings, is traversed: and afterward no mark of passage can be found in it. Or as, when an arrow has been shot at a mark, the parted air straightway flows together again so that none discerns the way it went through – Even so we, once born, abruptly came to nought and held no sign of virtue to display, but were consumed in our wickedness.” Yes, the hope of the wicked is like thistledown borne on the wind, and like fine, tempest-driven foam; Like smoke scattered by the wind, and like the passing memory of the nomad camping for a single day. But the just live forever, and in the Lord is their recompense, and the thought of them is with the Most High (Wis 5,1-15).

The bravado, strength as a rule of justice, death inflicted on the just do not produce any life for those who let their hearts be conquered. Does perhaps wealth experienced as an end in itself benefit or save us? Not even this way of leading our lives produces salvation. Wealth lived in a selfish way is theft of God’s goods bestowed to us, so that we could comfort with them to all the poor of the earth. We have defrauded the Lord. There is no place for us in his holy skies.

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'”

Today not only do we not believe in these voices that speak to us from the place of their perdition. You can’t even believe in it. We have established, lying and deceiving, that hell is empty and that Paradise is given to all. Eternal lie.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that no Christian tells lies to others.