examination of the heart 556 are gathered there from the whole world; terrors, ghosts, insults, reproaches, and torments with which demons harass men; tight places, in which souls are squeezed like sardines in a barrel; complaints, groans, abuses, blasphemies, wailing, and gnashing of teeth (cf. Mt 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; Lk 13:28), which will never leave the damned. Oh you, the fortunate one, if only you would willingly resolve to treat yourself severely in a prudent way here, rather than be compelled to suffer countless torments there. 3. Now turn your attention to considering the internal punishments of the condemned, and imagine especially the torments of the three powers of the soul: intellect, memory, and will. The intellect will be tormented first by reflecting on the heavenly glory of the blessed and by recognizing with the greatest insight its punishment and condemnation. The memory will be tormented by the recollection of former worldly pleasures and delights, while it will comprehend the torments into which it fell because of them. The will shall gnaw and tear itself apart with inexplicable rage, while it continuously chews over and over that God is an unjust, pitiless, harsh, and most cruel tyrant (although the condemned suffer everything justly), who punishes and torments it forever in such a horrible way. But not last will be the pain that the no-longer-beneficial worm of conscience will provoke out of the unceasing examination of sins. This worm will gnaw at the insides of the condemned so bitterly that each of them would prefer to suffer all the torments together than to be tortured by this worm (cf. Mk 9:45, 47) [DRB].284 284 The RSV omits these two verses, which it numbers as 44 and 46. In the DRB both verses say: “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished.”
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