Don Bosco's vision of Hell

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I always find it difficult what to think of these private visions. If they can draw you closer to God then it’s always good, but they’re not official church teaching so if people choose not to believe in them then it’s their choice and fine as well.
 
Le_Bonvivant said:
I always find it difficult what to think of these private visions. If they can draw you closer to God then it’s always good,
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Some of them are amazing to me, and some really throw me off. Especially ones in which the Saint is doing battle against demons. Or ones where the demon appears as Jesus or Mary. Eep.

I believe them, but I don’t know what to believe about them, so I feel safer leaving those ones alone. The ones about Hell helped me, though. You don’t know how good it feels to be dry until you’ve been miserably wet. You don’t know how good it feels to be offered salvation if you don’t know the vast and incalculable difference between what you are saved from, and what you are saved for!
 
Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven a lot more than the two times he mentioned hell.

Jim
 
twf said:
While she is a Blessed, I understand that the records of her visions have not been endorsed by the Church as she herself did not write them.
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The Church rarely “endorses” in any way private revelations. There are a handful of apparitions that the Vatican has chosen to specifically approve (e.g. Fatima, Lourdes, Kibeho, a couple of others). Other than that, the Church really doesn’t say much one way or the other about people’s private visions. There are dozens of cases on the Miracle Hunter website where the Church may have approved some prayer or allowed private devotion in a particular case, without “endorsing” the visions.

The question here was whether people ever reported visions of Heaven as opposed to Hell, not whether the vision in either case is the absolute truth or endorsed by the Church.
 
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I have read the book “The Forty Dreams of St John Bosco,” and have it in my library.

I remember Mother Angelica talking about it, so I got a copy.

Anyway, in a dream he was taken to Purgatory. It was so beautiful, he thought he was in heaven. However, some of the young boys he had helped who had died came to see him and informed him that this was Purgatory and they needed prayers to get into Heaven, which was far more beautiful.

Jim
 
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Mel Gibson based the movie, The Passion, on the book, “The Dolorous Passion Of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” which is from the Meditations of Ann Catherine Emmrech.

Jim
 
God gave us so many different saints to get inspiration from, we all have different ones with different visions we can relate to.

This one of Bosco is a tough one though. It’s more about things that can lead to hell than about hell itself. What’s not that great to me is that he’s harsh to people who have confessed but not in the right way; especially because i may be doing that myself because i don’t like going into details during confession and keep it as short and vague as possible.
 
So, is this “dream” of Don Bosco’s supposed to be accurate to reality or a personal interpretation? I get the sense of it being a narrated story written in the present tense to emphasize a point. I’ve read many cases of visions of hell and n.d.e.’s and have yet to see a consistent experience between them. Might this mean that ones experience of hell is unique to the individual or effected by and/or a product of ones cultural and environmental experiences?
 
If the report about Anne Emmerich’s comment about blacks is true do you agree with her?..about blacks?
 
  1. I haven’t read up in detail on Anne Catherine Emmerich. I just know she is one person who at some point may have reported a vision of Heaven.
  2. As someone else noted, there’s significant evidence suggesting that someone else may have “made up” a lot of her visions and her sainthood is not based on any of that evidence because it is unreliable.
  3. If she said something racist about black people then of course I don’t agree with it, any more than I believe women all have to dress in long sleeves and skirts 8 inches below the knee because St. Padre Pio thought they were immodest otherwise. I also don’t believe that we should perform corporal punishment on mentally challenged people like St. Thomas More advocated.
One can admire a saint while realizing that the person is human, imperfect, and speaking in what my history professor used to call “the social construct of their reality” which basically means people in history say things that were reasonable at the time based on the knowledge and thought of that time, but sound awful today because we have evolved as a society in our thoughts, knowledge and beliefs.
 
You would agree then that saints can be mistaken in their conception of truth?
 
Sure, but if this is you trying to lead me into some circular argument about Mary again, please have the argument with yourself.
Have a nice day
 
JimR-OCDS said:
We’re save to share in eternal happiness with God.
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We’re created to share eternal happiness with God. We’re saved from our sins. We are saved from death. We are saved by God from damnation.

God sent His Son in order to redeem man and to restore him to his original state —union with God.
 
Circular argument? Mary? No, since you’ve refused or are incapable of refuting my assertions about Mary I had given up on that discussion with you.
 
Is it possible that some church fathers might be incorrect in their opinions about scripture? I am merely getting a feel for your opinions and how you recognize the truth of a matter.
 
Anyways, about Don Bosco’s vision…anyone have an opinion on what I asked?
 
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