I HAVE NEVER NEEDED THE IDEA OF HELL TO BRING ME TO GOD

When looking at Eugene’s retreat meditations, one is tempted to think that he has an morbid preoccupation with sin and punishment. In these retreats he is following the meditations suggested by Ignatius, the first week of which is focused on sin and all the obstacles that prevent a person from achieving that end for which God has created them. I find it very significant that on the day when the retreatant is invited to meditate on hell and all its punishments in a graphic way, Eugene only wrote the title in his notes and left the rest blank – presumably not having done these meditations.

He speaks about this repugnance, three years earlier, in his retreat just before his priestly ordination, when he came to the section on hell, and was unable to get very far. It was God’s love for him, and not fear, that was the motivating force of his life. He wrote:

On hell. No, I do not seem to be able to relish and find profit in the great truths that ought to throw a soul that has committed so many sins into confusion. As I have remarked elsewhere, death, judgment, hell are not a nourishment that is suited to my present state. I hope I am in a state of grace, and definitely I must believe it, as I draw near to the moment and give my consent to have hands imposed on me, on my spiritual father’s advice. The soul, vast as it may be, cannot absorb so many different objects, or at least they cannot all at the same time make an equal impression on it.

Preoccupied at this time with the great marvels that God in his omnipotence is ready to work in it, moved almost exclusively by sentiments of love, it is only with extreme reluctance that it tears itself away from that sweet occupation to surrender itself to fear, terror, etc. So it was in vain that I sought to put it in the depths of hell, in the shadowy dungeon that divine justice had prepared for it; in vain did I bury it beneath pitch, sulphur, devouring fire, the gnawing worm, devils of all description, etc.; I was soon obliged to come and bring it back to the feet of the altars, beside the innocent Victim which in a few days time it will immolate for the remission of its sins, etc.

Here is this horrible place, I said to it, where reprobate souls hate God and never cease to curse him, etc.; it is not made for me, it replied, as I love him, this good God, this merciful God, more than myself, as I would rather die a thousand times than offend him, as I consecrate to him my life and all that I am, that I wish to use and consume only in his service.

Why spend in the company of devils the little time left to me to converse with my Master who is soon to place himself within my power; it is his voice I want to listen to, it is his orders, inspirations that I want to hear, it is his love that I want to nourish me. The language of terror no longer speaks to me; love alone has power over me. I must prepare a dwelling for my well-beloved; it is love, love alone that must bear the entire cost.

In any case, I have never needed the idea of hell to bring me to God; I have never been able to bring myself to dwell on it in my acts of contrition. When I ignored God, fear of hell did not hold me; now that I have come back to him [by a quite different road than fear of hell], even were there no hell I would want to love my God and serve him all my life.

Retreat notes before his ordination, December 1811, O.W. XIV n.95