Home of the Mother

A drop of sulfur

I am in front of the Blessed Sacrament exposed. I don’t know how, but the memory of a scene from my life as a student has come to my mind and I feel impelled by the Lord to put it in writing. This is the story...

It was the academic year 1987-88. A t that time I was a young Christian studying second year of Hispanic Philology in the Complutense University of Madrid. The same as every other day, I set out in a hurry after lunch towards the area of Moncloa to catch the bus which, packed with young people, would take me to the Faculty.

I arrived on time and went in to my class on the History of Art. I sat down in the middle of one of the rows of seats and desks that furnished the hall. These seats were not just uncomfortable, they were also inconvenient. Once you were seated in tem, if you wanted to get out again you had to bother the whole row by making everyone get up.

That evening I sensed something different in the air. At the back of the hall they had placed a machine to which I didn’t pay much attention (I took it for granted that it would be for slides, a frequent enough occurrence in Art class). A group of boys and girls (perhaps eight or ten) were distributed around the class. Some were closing windows and the blinds to block out the light. Another was blocking the door like a security guard. Another was standing over the machine (supposedly the slid projector), and in the area in front of the blackboard, was a group of five or six boys and girls with white overalls conversing and laughing with the young and innovative female Art teacher. They had prepared a continuous sheet of white paper to cover the blackboard.

The professor gave a brief introduction which, in summary, outlined that what we were about to see was a new form of “Art”.

We all fell silent and the show began. The first part consisted of a dialogue, a piece of theatre, between the boys and girls in the white overalls (I don’t remember now anything that they said). Then suddenly their cooperators turned off all the lights of the hall so that we were left in complete darkness, without the slightest glimmer of light. The machine that was behind us lit up and started to project changing colored lights. From I don’t know where, special effects of smoke filled the class accompanied by music to which those in overalls began to dance a lustful dance. But first they began to paint on the white paper covering the blackboard symbols and images of such bad taste that I prefer not to describe them here. It didn’t end there. They painted their faces and opened wide their overalls. Their bodies were naked underneath and covered with tattoos.

And me? My God! I was on the point of fainting! I made to get up and leave. But how? It was impossible to get out of there! I couldn’t see and I didn’t know how to get out! Perhaps I might be able to get out by stepping on the heads of all my classmates.

This was my state of anguish when those perverts climbed up on the benches to crawl along them making lewd gestures. I understood in that moment, undoubtedly inspired by God, that I shouldn’t blindly get up to leave, because if I were to climb up on that same catwalk that they were on, what more fun could a pervert have than to find fresh fodder for his impurities!

I forced my eyes away from it all and began to talk with God and the Most Holy Virgin, asking Them for help. My soul cried out with all its strength: “I am a child of the Light! I am not a child of this darkness!” I surrendered myself to God with all my heart, more than ever. And I shouted and shouted interiorly: “God alone is my God! You are my All! Only You! I don’t want this!”

And since Satan knows how to manage his agents well to molest God’s chosen ones, he sent me one of those boys who, with a demonic face, came towards me over the tables. He wanted to caress my face like a slug but I have him a hard slap and pushed him away from me. Eventually, the Lord permitted that he leave me alone.

The whole thing stank of Hell. And it was only a drop of sulphur. My God, what must Hell itself be like! To be separated from You forever! Eternal suffering!

The overalls were fastened and the show was over. All the lights went on and “nothing has happened here.” The music became more pleasant and the professor applauded effusively. It ended with a party where the students were invited to drink and dance.

I left the hall practically flying. I didn’t know whether to shout, to cry, or what to do. I was overwhelmed, in shock, it had all been so unexpected. I was very angry, but I din’t feel in any way stained. I knew that I had won a battle in which God had been my shield.

And everyone so normal! Three or four classmates came out with me. With them I was able to unload as much as my poor words were able to say, because I certainly wasn’t capable of finding words to describe what I had seen. But then I received even a greater surprise! Apart from one of them who was very annoyed, the others thought it was just a simple piece of theatre. They couldn’t see anything deeper in it No matter how much I tried to reason with them, their eyes were blindfolded. According to one of them my problem was that I was too “puritan.”

My God, too puritan! I was not frightened by seeing a naked body. What frightened me was the evil and the filth of sin that was hidden there, the putrefaction, the falsity, the lie, the slavery of the soul, the hatred of God, the way we were trapped, the huge manipulation we had been subjected to.

And ladies and gentlemen, this they call “Art”.

This is, in great part, the “culture” (culture of death, of course) that our young people and children are acquiring in schools, colleges, and universities. Perhaps not as horrendously as was manifested to me, but without doubt in a more subtle way.

That experience led me to meditate for days, with a lot of benefit to my soul, on how terrible and agonizing Hell must be.

I know it’s not fashionable nowadays to talk about Hell. But I couldn’t care less about whether it’s fashionable or not. It’s a dogma of faith, it’s a Revelation of God and it exists precisely because God is infinite Mercy and gives to each one according to his works. It makes me laugh when they say it’s not a fashionable subject, when it is in fact precisely what is most in fashion. W e are constantly receiving references to hell in the advertising campaigns, in the names of hotels, in commercial brands, slogans, songs, children’s games, etc. etc.. A very charming Devil is presented to us, for example in the form of a baby to inspire tenderness in the children. A very charming little Devil indeed, with a tail, a trident and horns, who invites us to enjoy all kinds of sensual pleasures. Very good. And then they say it’s not in fashion? That’s the greatest victory of Satan: making us believe he doesn’t exist. And how well he is doing it! As long as we Christians remain asleep and believe that this whole lascivious campaign is a simple piece of theatre, a simple publicity announcement or a simple game, he will continues to deceive and to devour those of us who have been born to be children of the Light and to live in happiness with the only true God in Heaven.

In the final analysis, for those who prefer to believe that Hell doesn’t exist or that if it exists it is empty, I remind them of this anecdote about the recently canonized St. Pio of Pietrelcina. A lady approached him and said to him: “I don’t believe in hell.” And with that holy irony that characterizes the saints, St. Pio answered her: “Don’t worry, madam, you’ll believe when you get there.” God wants us to react in time and He wants the one who is immersed in the pigsty of the spirit to rise up out of it, the sooner the better, and to distinguish between the foul odor of sulphur and the sweet scent of Christ.

By way of conclusion, I would like to share with you a poem that Fr. Rafael dedicated to me when I told him about my infernal experience in the University halls.

Towards what regions
-tell me, my spirit-
do you want to go not see
those who are alone?
Yes, the multiplied lonely.
Like a juxtaposed, disconnected
Aggregate,
Repeated and cloned.
And you see them stroll before
Your horrified eyes.
And you see them emerge,
Like emaciated zombies.
And shouting: “We’re happy!”
And strolling naked,
Decapitated and tattooed,
Along the tables
Where scarcely
A few minutes ago
Wisdom rested.
Seized by the silly box,
By the empty passion,
Or by the invisible thread
That conditions them
And makes them emit shameful
-and shaming?-
behaviours,
they follow hoggets’ file
emitting guttural sounds.
Pestilent witches’ Sabbath
In a perverted hall!
Night and darkness,
Hell and life.
But you are there
Without seeing the alone,
Accompanying with your prayer
In the silence
The only solitude of your wound.
Spirit and life
Fought in you
Against the giantised flesh
And rampant death.
And the best that you had
conquered.
You exercised the power
And the energy
That once again
Wished to divinise
Your tremulous assaulted being.
And you came out.
And behind you saw, hell,
The pure representation
Of the current.
And you saw behind the patent,
The hidden denial
Of the divine.
And a “Thank You, Lord”
Sprung forth from your spirit.
And on recalling it
Even still reverberates
In your company,
Your God, your All.

By Sr. Ana Maria Cabezuelo, S.H.M.