IF the pain of loss makes but
a feeble impression upon us, it is far different with the pain of sense ; the
torment of fire, the torture of a sharp and intense cold, affrights our sensibility.
This is why Divine Mercy, wishing to excite a holy fear in our souls, speaks
but little of the pain of loss, but we are continually shown the fire, the
cold, and other torments, which constitute the pain of sense. This is what we see
in the Gospel, and in particular revelations, by which God is pleased to manifest
to His servants from time to time the mysteries of the other life. Let us
mention one of these revelations. In the first place, let us see what the pious
and learned Cardinal Bellarmine quotes from the Venerable Bede. England has
been witness in our own days, writes Bede, to a singular prodigy, which may be compared
to the miracles of the first ages of the Church.
To excite the living to fear
the death of the soul, God permitted that a man, after having slept the sleep
of death, should return to life and reveal what he had seen in the other world.
The frightful, unheard-of details which he relates, and his life of
extraordinary penance, which corresponded with his words, produced a lively
impression throughout the country. I will now resume the principal circumstances
of this history.
There was in Northumberland a
man named Drithelm, who, with his family, led a most Christian life. He fell sick, and his malady increasing
day by day, he was soon reduced to extremity, and died, to the great desolation
and grief of his wife and children. The latter passed the night in tears by the
remains, but the following day, before his interment, they saw him suddenly
return to life, arise, and place himself in a sitting posture. At this sight
they were seized with such fear that they all took to flight, with the
exception of the wife, who, trembling, remained alone with her risen husband.
He reassured her immediately : “Fear not” he said; “it is God who restores to
me my life ; He wishes to show in my person a man raised from the dead. I have
yet long to live upon earth, but my new life will be very different from the
one I led heretofore.”
Then he arose full of health,
went straight to the chapel or church of the place, and there remained long in
prayer. He returned home only to take leave of those who had been dear to him
upon earth, to whom he declared that he would live only to prepare himself for
death, and advised them to do likewise. Then, having divided his property into
three parts, he gave one to his children, another to his wife, and reserved the
third part to give in alms. When he had distributed all to the poor, and had
reduced himself to extreme indigence, he went and knocked at the door of a
monastery, and begged the Abbot to receive him as a penitent Religious, who
would be a servant to all the others.
The Abbot gave him a retired
cell, which he occupied for the rest of his life. Three exercises divided his
time prayer, the hardest labour,
and extraordinary penances. The most rigorous fasts he accounted as nothing. In winter he was seen to plunge
himself into frozen water, and remain therefor hours and hours in prayer,
whilst he recited the whole Psalter of David.
The mortified life of Drithelm,
his downcast eyes, even his features, indicated a soul struck with fear of the
judgments of God. He kept a perpetual silence, but on being pressed to relate,
for the edification of others, what God had manifested to him after his death,
he thus described his vision : On
leaving my body, I was received by a benevolent person, who took me under his
guidance. His face was brilliant, and he appeared surrounded with light. He arrived
at a large deep valley of immense extent, all fire on one side, all ice and
snow on the other; on the one hand braziers and caldrons of flame, on the other
the most intense cold and the blast of a glacial wind.
This mysterious valley was
filled with innumerable souls, which, tossed as by a furious tempest, threw
them selves from one side to the other. When they could no longer endure the
violence of the fire, they sought relief amidst the ice and snow ; but finding
only a new torture, they cast themselves again into the midst of the flames. I
contemplated in a stupor these continual vicissitudes of horrible torments, and
as far as my sight could extend, I saw nothing but a multitude of souls which
suffered with out ever having repose. Their very aspect inspired me with fear.
I thought at first that I saw Hell ; but my guide, who walked before me, turned
to me and said, No ; this is not, as you think, the Hell of the reprobate. Do you
know, he continued, what place this is? No, I answered. Know, he resumed, that
this valley, where you see so much fire and so much ice, is the place where the
souls of those are punished who, during life, have neglected to confess their
sins, and who have deferred their conversion to the end. Thanks to a special
mercy of God, they have had the happiness of sincerely repenting before death,
of confessing and detesting their sins. This is why they are not damned, and on
the great day of judgment will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Several of them
will obtain their deliverance before that time, by the merits of prayers, alms,
and fasts, offered in their favour by the living, and especially in virtue of
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered for their relief.”
Such was the recital of
Drithelm. When asked why he so rudely treated his body, why he plunged himself
into frozen water, he replied that he had seen other torments, and cold of
another kind.
If his brethren expressed
astonishment that he could endure these extraordinary austerities,”I have seen,”
said he, penances still more astonishing.” To the day when it pleased God to
call him to Himself, he ceased not to afflict his body, and although broken
down with age, he would accept no alleviation.
This event produced a deep
sensation in England; a great number of sinners, touched by the words of
Drithelm, and struck by the austerity of his life, became sincerely converted. This
fact, adds Bellarmine, appears to me of incontestable truth, since, besides being
conformable to the words of Holy Scripture, Let him pass from the snow waters
to excessive heat Venerable Bede relates it as a recent and well-known event.
More than this, it was followed by the conversion of a great number of sinners,
the sign of the work of God, who is accustomed to work prodigies in order to
produce fruit in souls.
