“But as it is written: ‘What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
Years ago, during one of his homilies, the late Fr. Thomas Weiss shared a story of when he was at the Juneau airport checking in for his flight to Cordova Alaska. At the check in counter the airline employee asked, “So is Cordova your final destination?” With a smile, his response was “Heck, no, Heaven is my final destination.”
Born and raised a Catholic, I believe that it is only our physical body that dies, and our soul lives forever – its destination is Heaven or Hell. Jesus is the Way to Heaven, He is the Door to Heaven; the surest way to Jesus is through His Holy Mother Mary; and The Ten Commandments, whose Author is God Himself, gives us the rules to live a life pleasing to God. Sadly, these days, many do not believe in either Jesus or Mary; many have forgotten or now ignore the Ten Commandments, and many do not believe in Heaven or Hell.
For many years, I have been interested in learning anything about Heaven and Hell. Visions of Heaven and Hell by saints are documented and can be found on the internet and in books that have been written about their mystical experiences. Also in books, and on the internet are stories of real people who shared what they had seen and experienced during their near-death moments. Books like “Touched by the Light”, “Heaven is for Real” , “Proof of Heaven”; “90 Minutes in Heaven” and many others provide glimpses of Heaven. Even medical doctors who had near-death experiences have documented their journey.
In the Scriptures, Saint John the Evangelist described his glimpse of Heaven in Revelation 21: “ Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Saint Faustina Kowalska, a humble Polish Catholic nun and mystic recognized by the Church as the “Apostle of Divine Mercy”, recorded her vision of Heaven in her diary entry for November 27, 1936: “ Today I was in heaven, in spirit, and I saw its unconceivable beauties and the happiness that awaits us after death. I saw how all creatures give ceaseless praise and glory to God. I saw how great is happiness in God, which spreads to all creatures, making them happy; and then all the glory and praise which springs from this happiness returns to its source; and they enter into the depths of God, contemplating the inner life of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, whom they will never comprehend or fathom. This source of happiness is unchanging in its essence, but it is always new, gushing forth happiness for all creatures. Now I understand St. Paul, who said, ‘Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him.’ God has given me to understand that there is but one thing that is of infinite value in His eyes, and that is love of God; love, love and once again, love; and nothing can compare with a single act of pure love of God. Oh, with what inconceivable favors God gifts a soul that loves Him sincerely!
The sight of this great majesty of God, which I came to understand more profoundly and which is worshipped by the heavenly spirits according to their degree of grace and the hierarchies into which they are divided, did not cause my soul to be stricken with terror or fear; no, no, not at all! My soul was filled with peace and love, and the more I come to know the greatness of God, the more joyful I become that He is as He is. And I rejoice immensely in His greatness and am delighted that I am so little because, since I am little, He carries me in His arms and holds me close to His Heart. She concludes: “O my God, how I pity those people who do not believe in eternal life” and prayed “a ray of mercy would envelop them too, and that God would clasp them to His fatherly bosom …”
Saint Faustina Kowalska also saw Hell and wrote about it in her Diary : “Today, I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a place of great torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is! The kinds of tortures I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one’s condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it, a terrible suffering, since it is a purely spiritual fire, lit by God’s anger; the fifth torture is conditional darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of Satan, the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses and blasphemies. These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned. There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin. [I am] writing this at the command of God, so that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like. I, Sister Faustina, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence. I have received a command from God to leave it in writing.
The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God. What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell.
When I came to, I could hardly recover from the fright. How terribly souls suffer there! Consequently, I pray even more fervently for the conversion of sinners. I incessantly plead God’s mercy upon them. O my Jesus, I would rather be in agony until the end of the world, amidst the greatest sufferings, then offend You by the least sin.”
The children of Fatima, Saints Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Servant of God Sister Lúcia, saw the horrors of hell. In her Memoirs Lúcia gave the details of their July 13, 1917, apparition: “Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent.
This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror. Some people, even the most devout, refuse to speak to children about hell, in case it would frighten them. Yet God did not hesitate to show hell to three children, one of whom was only 6 years old, knowing well that they would be horrified to the point of, I would almost dare to say, withering away with fear.”
Heaven and Hell are real, and our free will determines our soul’s final destination. I pray that while we are still here on earth, those who do not believe in God will have a change of heart and experience conversion. God is real, God loves us, and He wants us to be with Him in Heaven when this earthly life is over!
I will leave you with the Blessed Virgin Mary’s latest Message for the World, given in Medjugorje on August 25, 2026:
“Dear children, Today I am calling you: return to God, return to prayer, so that you may become carriers of peace. Pray, little children, for peace that is in danger; and may prayer begin to flow anew from your hearts and from your families, so that, in joy, you may feel the voice of Jesus in your hearts: ‘Peace be with you.’ Be, little children, carriers of peace and prayer for all those who do not pray.
I am with you and I pray for you before my Son Jesus.
Thank you for having responded to my call.” (With Ecclesiastical approval)
Gina Del Rosario is a Roman Catholic who was born and raised in the Philippines, and is a parishioner at Saint Paul’s Catholic Church in Juneau.
“Living and Growing” is a weekly column submitted by local clergy and spiritual leaders. It appears every Saturday on the Juneau Empire’s Faith page.
