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Row upon row of flames can be seen in the depths of Hell, where are nestled - because of their own choices - impenitent souls who lived until death in lust, pride or disobedience, or lacking compassion and love.

A person who lives in selfish isolation, with a cold-hearted stance towards others, nevertheless benefits from the kind acts by which others reach out in charity. Kind people with the 'fuel' or 'fire' of love, help to keep that soul alive in his self-chosen winter.

When the praise of the Church on earth, with and through Christ its Head, rises up to Heaven, it's as if Heaven is startled and delighted - so powerful and glorious is that praise. It 'explodes', as when the light from thousands of fireworks explodes during a national celebration.

To persevere in intercession, and help someone to abandon grave sins, is to save him from the fires of Hell.

To commit grievous sin is like climbing down towards Hell, where the suffering of unrepentant sinners is so great that it can be pictured as 'fire', in which the demons wait for new victims to torment.

Christ our God is Really Present with us, in His glory, at the Consecration, aflame with holiness. He asks: can we not adore Him, as the Angels do, instead of showing irreverence by our chatter and our careless gestures and lukewarm prayers?

Where divine fire blazes up from a human heart - fire which is perfect charity - it reaches as far as the great 'Fire of Charity' of Heaven, which is the Godhead; and so there is union. Where a soul lacks charity, there is no union - though only God can judge.

The Lord showed me little 'fires' of love for God, burning all over the world, especially wherever people praised God through Christ at Mass, with reverence, and particularly through the 'Ancient Rite'.

Truly, when the priest has pronounced the words of Consecration, Jesus Christ is Present, in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. This is Jesus, Who once appeared to Moses, in the burning bush, as fire.

When the Priest has pronounced the words of Consecration, and Jesus Christ is Sacramentally and substantially Present in His Blood and Blood, Soul and Divinity, we are very close to Our God and Saviour. Truly, this is Jesus, who once appeared to Moses, in the burning bush, as Fire.

There are people apparently respectable who look lustfully at other people and so sin against God and break their marriage vows. All who commit adultery, and who persevere in it, without repenting before they die, will be in danger of hell-fire - as Christ told us.

All who persist in mortal sin until they die will fall immediately into the fires of Hell, as Christ Himself has warned us. Through their own fault, they will suffer for all Eternity, having abandoned God, preferring the pleasure they found in adultery, pornography, or other serious sins.

God looks upon the world as the Christ-figure looks down from the mountain-top to see Rio and Brazil spread beneath Him; and He sees the fate of all those who refuse to allow him to lift them up to glory. Those who will not obey His instructions must fall, when they die, into the Abyss nearby, into the Eternal Fire of the damned.

We can no more know what it is 'like' at the heart of the Godhead than we can know what it is 'like' at the centre of an exploding star in the heavens. But we do know some things which are certain, because God has revealed them, through His Son. First, He is Love: like a fire of love. Secondly, we need to be pure if we hope to enter God and be joyful rather than tormented.

Christ came from Heaven as a man: a fire of Divine Love, embodied. His presence 'melted' and changed some people, who enjoyed a new and glorious life; but other people had no desire to allow Him to 'thaw' their frozen hearts and cold souls, and reacted to Him with anger.

People who meet Christ after death vary in their reactions. A person on fire with Divine Love is overjoyed to greet Him. Someone aware of her still-cold heart will accept the painful 'thawing' which is her purification. Someone frozen in spirit and unwilling to be changed will freely choose to hurl himself away, into Hell.

Someone who persists in sin but who says to himself that his sin is not serious, or who tells himself that he will give up his sin later on, is like a man who has let himself down into the lift-shaft of an old mine, pretending that there is no danger from fire, flood, or a frayed rope.

We sometimes receive special consolations in prayer as if bathed in a river of love, flowing over and around us like the torrent of graces I once painted in the 'Sanctus' picture on the Mass Poster.

It's as if it almost breaks Christ's heart when someone refuses to listen to Him, refuses to accept the truths taught by His Church about good and evil, and deliberately walks away from the life of grace, joy and union with God to enter the fire of Hell, where live Satan and the demons and all rebellious and unrepentant souls.

To be beset by spiritual assaults in prayer or 'outside' it is like being in a war-zone, amidst sniper-fire, in a street littered with broken glass. We can retreat to a side-street for a few moments; but if we want to win the war we must be courageous, and trust God, and continue with our prayer and our work.