I saw a throne in the sky, and on it sat the Lord Jesus Christ as Judge. Before his feet sat the Virgin Mary; and around the throne, there was an army of angels and an infinite multitude of saints. A religious, very learned in theology, stood on a high rung of a ladder which was fixed in the earth and whose summit touched the sky. His gestures were very impatient and restless, as if he were full of guile and malice. He questioned the Judge, saying. . .
[The Sixth Interrogation]
First question. Again there appeared on the rung the same man as before, and he said: “O Judge, I ask you why one infant comes forth alive from its mother’s womb and obtains baptism while another, after receiving a soul, dies within its mother’s viscera?”
Second question. “Item. Why, for the just, do many things have an untoward outcome while, for the unjust, all things are as they wish?”
Third question. “Item. Why do plagues and famines come - and the inconveniences that afflict the body?”
Fourth question. “Item. Why does death come so unexpectedly that it can very rarely be foreseen?”
Fifth question. “Item. Why do you suffer men to go to war with deliberate wrath and envy and in a spirit of vengeance?”
Response to the first question. The Judge replied: "Friend, you question not out of charity but only because I permit it. And that is why I answer you in a way that resembles words. You ask why one infant dies within its mother’s viscera and another comes forth alive. The reason is this. All the strength of a child’s body is taken from the seed of its father and mother; but if it is conceived without due strength because of some infirmity of the father or the mother, it quickly dies.
As a result of the parents’ neglect or lack of care - and also as a result of my divine justice - many things happen so that what was joined together quickly separates. Nevertheless, although the soul had no longer time to vivify the body, it will not therefore meet with a harsh punishment but rather with a mercy known to me. When the sun streams into a house, its rays alone are seen. Only those who gaze at the sky see the sun as it is in its beauty. So it is with the souls of such children. Because they lack baptism, they do not see my face. Nevertheless, they do draw nearer to mercy than to punishment - although not in the same way as my elect."
The Revelations of St. Bridget
This of course is testifying to the necessity of baptism, and that men conceived in original sin and unable to enter Heaven without it. Nevertheless. . an afterlife of natural happiness, like that the Patriarchs lived, is a great mercy.
Theologically all deprivation of the beatific vision is often spoken of as ‘Hell’, but truly it is not in the sense we normally picture it, anymore than the Patriarchs were tormented. It is a punishment, in that there is a lack of the beatific vision, but there are no other pains – and so a ‘punishment’ that is only the one we are conceived in from the start due to our parentage.
Therefore the Ecumenical Council of Florence states it in theological language:
“Also, the souls of those who have incurred no stain of sin whatsoever after baptism, as well as souls who after incurring the stain of sin have been cleansed whether in their bodies or outside their bodies, as was stated above, are straightaway received into heaven and clearly behold the triune God as he is, yet one person more perfectly than another according to the difference of their merits. But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains.”
