Repetition on Hell & Judgment
Note: This meditation will be a repetition of the points that have been considered on the Last Judgment and on Hell. You may begin the meditation the same way: Preparatory Prayer, Imagining the Judgment or the place of hell, asking for grace you desire to receive – to experience the pain felt by the lost souls in hell. Consider those things that caught your attention last meditation.
Additional Considerations:
- Balance your personal effort in the meditation with the understanding that grace must also do its part. If for some reason, you experience dryness or the meditation does not go the way you would like, always wait with patience — God sends His grace at the correct time. Such moments might be times for you to restate the grace you are requesting. God is pleased when we patiently persevere.
- Make sure to be examining the meditation afterwards: Did I enter the meditation with generosity, magnanimity? Did I give all the time I was supposed to, or did I end early? Did I keep a good disposition (good sign) or was I anxious or frustrated with myself (i can correct this next time.) We should give 15 minutes to this examination after each of our meditations.
- Saint Ignatius wants us to eventually arrive at the Colloquy. It is to be made by one as if speaking exactly as one friend speaks to another, or as a servant speaks to his master…asking for favors, admitting faults, making known his ideas and plans, seeking advice.
Take, Lord,
and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.
(Spiritual Exercises #234. Louis Puhl SJ, Translation.)
