There is a claim of near consensus among saints, Church Fathers, and Doctors of the Church that most people will be damned. A sermon by St. Leonard of Port Maurice seems to point in this direction. This is not to mention the revelations given by Our Lady at Fatima. Our Lord Himself made clear in Luke 13:24: “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”
Now I’m a bit scrupulous, so how do I live a normal faithful life without the anxiety and constant fear of hell for me and my loved ones? The sermon by St. Leonard of Port Maurice got me particularly triggered. Now when I look at a person, almost every person in fact, I get compulsive thoughts that “this person will most likely go to Hell.” And it bothers me a lot. Help?
St. Faustina had also one daily prayer that she never missed which was, “O Jesus inspire people to pray for the dying”. St. Faustina said that by prayer, “God’s mercy can touch the sinner even at the last moment, in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly,** it seems as if everything is lost**, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, can turn to God even in the last moment, with such a power of love that in an instant, it receives from God, forgiveness of all sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things”. (Diary 1698)
An Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory
Excerpt :
I can tell you about the different degrees of Purgatory because I have passed through them. In the great Purgatory there are several stages. In the lowest and most painful, like a temporary hell, are the sinners who have committed terrible crimes during life and whose death surprised them in that state. It was almost a miracle that they were saved, and often by the prayers of holy parents or other pious persons. Sometimes they did not even have time to confess their sins and
the world thought them lost, but God, whose mercy is infinite, gave them at the moment of death the contrition necessary for their salvation on account of one or more good actions which they performed during life. For such souls, Purgatory is terrible. It is a real hell with this difference, that in hell they curse God, whereas we bless Him and thank Him for having saved us.
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6253
Dante’s Purgatorio
The Unshriven: Violent Deaths
We are all souls who met a violent death,
and we were sinners to our final hour;
but then** the light of Heaven lit our minds**,
and penitent and pardoning, we left
that life at peace with God, Who left our hearts
with longing for the holy sight of Him.”
