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In medieval times, powerful men had a castle, with towers used as dungeons for enemies. A worse fate awaits people who die in unrepented sin, especially acts of malice or cruelty towards their fellow men. God does not want to send people to Hell. Wicked people condemn themselves, for if they refuse to live with God, Who is good, they must live without goodness, or peace, or love.

Though we do not usually see them, the Saints and Angels are very close to us, urging us on, as we follow the path to Heaven in this dark world. They delight in our successes in the spiritual life. Their companionship is not enjoyed by people who take the wrong path which leads down low, as if into a ditch, as they try to hide their sins from God.

A person who knowingly refuses Baptism and all that it means cannot be saved, because his refusal stems from a refusal to believe what God's only Son has said: that whoever repents and is Baptised will be saved, but that whoever refuses to believe is already condemned.

It is a marvel of grace, that the Blessed Trinity is present within the soul of a Baptised person. That person shares God's life, and power, and joy and peace. Yet God's presence is light as well as life. There is nothing worse than to extinguish that light, by deliberate mortal sin. If we die in such a state, we are doomed to an Eternity without God.

We need to pray for ourselves, and for others. We must remember that a simple choice lies before each of us, whether to follow the Way that leads to life: Christ's Way - or to follow the other fork in the road, into a dark path that leads downwards, amongst trees, where people try to hide their sins from God. Only one Way leads towards Heaven.

Whenever we make choices that lead us away from God it's as if we leave the safety of our home-town to wander off into a vast desert where there is neither shelter nor refreshment. Only by coming 'home' to the Church and the sacraments can we find peace, nourishment, the companionship of Christ, and the hope of Heaven.

The truth about salvation is that no unrepentant sinner can reach Heaven. Those who have freely chosen to refuse God's friendship and to continue in their sins are lost. Entry into Heaven is an amazing privilege: a gift given to the pure, not a right. Those who insist on enjoying forbidden pleasures, and never repent, shall fall into the pit, when they die.

Christ saw dreadful sights as He suffered on the Cross. He saw the aborted babies whose lives would be cruelly ended; but even worse for Him was the sight of many 'dead' souls: diseased souls in mortal sin, souls now made foul and repulsive through their own thoughts and actions; so Christ's torment was spiritual and mental, as well as physical, in His Passion.

Through faith in Christ, the Baptised person can call out to the Father, confident that her prayers are heard and answered. Because of her obedience to Christ, the Son of God, Who intercedes for her, it's as if she is held in Christ's arms, as Christ vouches for her, before Heaven, because she is a 'child of God' - unlike people who don't know Him, or who have refused to believe in Him.

The state of someone who trusts in Christ, and who therefore prays confident prayers in and through Christ to the Father is very different from the state of a person who seems to say to Christ, in unbelief: 'Go away. I don't believe in You.' That person has rejected the one means of being brought towards Heaven and having access to the Father; in other words, he has refused to be saved.

A person who refuses Baptism refuses to be made a member of the Body, for whose members Christ prays: Christ who is the Son of God, God-made-man, and Head of the Church, as He prays for all members, and perpetually intercedes for them. It is a dreadful thing, to refuse to allow Christ to pray for one's Salvation! This is a much-neglected truth.

Only God can judge the hearts of human beings; but we must be wise, not naïve to the point of foolishness. The most dreadful cruelties are sometimes perpetrated behind the most beautiful facades, as if tortures go on, within a doll's house. Yet cruel people who refuse to repent, and who die, will fall into the Abyss, through their own fault.

Whether we are Christian or non-Christian, we cannot be saved if we are guilty of grave sin and refuse to repent. God gives constant helps to human beings, including those who do not know His Son Jesus, to help them to do good. Though minds have been darkened by original sin, all people can realise, through reflection, and use of their conscience, if they are willing, that certain things are wrong: stealing, murder, rape, slander, betrayal, and much more.

The state of soul of a faithful person is peaceful at its heart - like that of a man who drifts along a calm river until he is lifted up by Christ at the moment of death. But one who had chosen to avoid Christ and His Will follows a stormy route, interiorly - as if on a raging river; and unless he repents, he is hurled, when he dies, into the Abyss.

We receive the free gift of Divine Life in Baptism. That is the start of our journey with and through Christ towards Heaven; but we choose at each moment whether to persevere. Some people do so, but some seem to throw the gifts away, and they will be lost, unless they repent.

Those nurses and doctors who dispose of some unborn babies and adult patients, having judged them to be inconvenient or useless, are as if casting them into a pit. Yet they themselves will fall into the pit of doom, unless they repent before they die. The pit represents, for evil-doers, the perpetual alienation from God that they might freely choose.

There are people who lead outwardly respectable lives but who are half-way to Hell, God sees, because of their disbelief, and their deliberate refusal to lead good lives in obedience to His laws of morality. Unless they repent before they die, they will fall into the bottomless pit, which represents eternal alienation from God chosen by the wicked.

We are present at Mass to the one Sacrifice of Christ by which mankind was redeemed. This does not mean that everyone is saved. Christ died for all. Everyone is offered opportunities in life, by God, by which to benefit from the graces poured out for souls through Christ's self-giving love; but He sees how tragic it is, that so few of us believe in Him, and follow Him.

A Catholic who can not be bothered to practice the faith has a soul so dead, perhaps, as to be almost lifeless - like the frozen landscape pictured here. Where can he go when he dies, except into the Abyss, if he has refused to acknowledge, honour or serve God and enjoy His friendship - if he has refused the help of the Holy Spirit, Who carries towards Heaven, after death, all who die 'in Christ': as friends of God?

All of those Catholics who cannot be bothered to go to Mass once a week are like people marching across an icy landscape towards the Abyss. The snow represents the deadness of the souls of all who, by refusing to attend Mass, are as if saying to Christ: 'I don't need your prayers, at the Holy Sacrifice' - 'I'm not bothered about my salvation'; 'I'm not going to confess my sins, to be reconciled with You'.