The John-Henry Westen Show - January 04, 2021


The best Christmas gift from a bishop this Christmas

Topics
hell vision
Hosted by
John-Henry Westen
Mentioned
Jesus Christ Joseph Strickland Bishop Strickland Sister Faustina
Act now! Contact your representative to ensure election integrity on January 6 The truth about the 2020 election is far more sinister than you think

Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

147.23

Word count

1,054

Sentence count

69

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The best Christmas gift is always that which is rare, and of great value. Now, naturally for all of us, the greatest gift is Christ himself and the Holy Eucharist, offered to us by priests all around the world. But apart from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there are other great gifts, most valuable gifts due usually to their rarity, our own need of them, and also their import for us. Well, US Bishop Joseph Strickland, who is without doubt one of the most faithful bishops in North America and indeed in the world, offered what some may have thought to be a strange gifts to his flock this Christmas. It was on December 22nd, a blog post called A Very Special Christmas Blessing.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.320 This is John Henry Weston for LifeSite News.
00:00:03.220 Welcome to this special episode of the John Henry Weston Show where we're going to talk
00:00:06.800 about the best Christmas gift from a bishop this Christmas.
00:00:10.700 Stay tuned.
00:00:30.000 Before we begin, let me remind you, you need to subscribe directly to LifeSiteNews.com.
00:00:35.800 You know already that we're being censored by Facebook, by Twitter, even by YouTube.
00:00:40.140 So please go to LifeSiteNews.com.
00:00:42.680 At the top right hand corner, you're going to find the subscribe button.
00:00:45.740 There you can subscribe to receive all of our daily news and also you'll be able to get
00:00:51.800 onto our video list, which is one which will keep you in touch with all of our video offerings
00:00:56.780 and not be deprived of it because YouTube chooses to take down this video or that video.
00:01:03.360 Stay in touch with us directly at LifeSiteNews.com to make sure you don't miss anything.
00:01:08.080 And let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
00:01:10.740 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
00:01:14.660 Amen.
00:01:16.800 The best Christmas gift is always that which is rare.
00:01:20.540 It's truly needed and of great value.
00:01:22.220 Now naturally for all of us, the very greatest gift is Christ himself and the Holy
00:01:26.760 Eucharist and that's offered to us by priests all around the world.
00:01:29.620 But apart from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there are other great gifts, most valuable
00:01:36.120 gifts due usually to their rarity, our own need of them, and also their import for us.
00:01:43.000 Well, US Bishop Joseph Strickland, who is without doubt one of the most faithful bishops
00:01:47.920 in North America and indeed in the world, offered what some may have thought to be a strange
00:01:54.460 gifts to his flock this Christmas.
00:01:56.260 It was on December 22nd, Bishop Strickland issued a blog post called A Very Special Christmas
00:02:03.320 Blessing.
00:02:04.620 Now he himself admitted that many may find it a kind of very strange Christmas blessing,
00:02:11.640 but he added that it was his prayer that this would enhance our celebration of the nativity
00:02:18.440 of our Lord Jesus Christ.
00:02:19.560 So what was this Christmas blessing that was so strange?
00:02:23.540 What was so valuable and so rare and so sorely needed by the faithful today so as to make
00:02:28.940 this blog post the best Christmas gift this year?
00:02:33.080 Believe it or not, it was the description of hell from St. Faustina's vision of hell.
00:02:39.640 Listen to it and see if you've ever heard anything like it before.
00:02:43.400 We're always supposed to contemplate the four last things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell.
00:02:49.280 And here is that description taken from the diary of St. Faustina Kowalska.
00:02:55.300 Now, I warn you before I begin this, that this description is quite disturbing, but it's
00:03:00.920 most beneficial and necessary, especially today.
00:03:05.080 In her diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, St. Faustina writes these words.
00:03:09.900 Today, I was led by an angel to the chasms of hell.
00:03:15.600 It is a place of great torture.
00:03:18.180 How awesomely large and extensive it is.
00:03:22.240 The kinds of tortures I saw.
00:03:24.740 The first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God.
00:03:28.820 The second is perpetual remorse of conscience.
00:03:33.180 The third, that one's condition will never change.
00:03:36.700 The fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it, a terrible suffering
00:03:43.880 since it is a purely spiritual fire lit by God's anger.
00:03:48.620 The fifth torture is continual darkness and a terrible, suffocating smell.
00:03:55.400 And despite the darkness, the devils and the souls of the damned see each other and all the
00:04:01.280 evil, both of others and their own.
00:04:03.720 The sixth torture is the constant company of Satan.
00:04:10.220 The seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses, and blasphemies.
00:04:18.380 These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together.
00:04:23.120 But that is not the end of the sufferings.
00:04:26.280 There are special tortures destined for particular souls.
00:04:30.020 These are the torments of the senses.
00:04:34.620 Each soul undergoes a terrible and indescribable suffering related to the manner in which it
00:04:41.420 has sinned.
00:04:43.240 There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another.
00:04:50.120 I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not
00:04:56.760 supported me.
00:04:57.660 Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity in those senses which 0.99
00:05:05.180 he made use of to sin.
00:05:08.160 I am writing this at the command of God so that no soul may find an excuse by saying that
00:05:14.860 there is no hell or that nobody has ever been there.
00:05:18.640 And so no one can say what it is like.
00:05:21.200 I, Sister Faustina, by the order of God, have visited the abysses of hell so that I might
00:05:28.480 tell souls about it and testify to its existence.
00:05:33.200 I cannot speak about it now, but I have received a command from God to leave it in writing.
00:05:39.120 The devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God.
00:05:44.000 What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw.
00:05:49.360 But I noticed one thing, that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell.
00:06:00.500 End quote.
00:06:01.080 Those are, again, quotes from Saint Faustina Kowalska in her diary.
00:06:07.460 And Bishop Strickland, in putting this out for his Christmas message on December 22nd,
00:06:12.340 said that Sister Faustina speaks of her vision of hell.
00:06:16.300 She reminds us that this is a destiny that we can avoid because God so loved the world,
00:06:22.140 he gave us his only begotten son.
00:06:25.040 And Bishop Strickland concludes, and he says,
00:06:28.300 Let us listen to him, repent of our sins, seek reparation for our sins, and embrace the fullness of his mercy.
00:06:35.040 May our celebration of Christmas this year be enhanced by a sober realization of what
00:06:40.940 Jesus Christ, God's divine son, has saved us from.
00:06:46.620 For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston.
00:06:48.920 May God bless you, and continue to celebrate a Merry Christmas.
00:06:55.180 Hello, this is John Henry Weston.
00:06:57.160 I'd like to invite you to subscribe to the John Henry Weston Show YouTube channel if you haven't already done so.
00:07:03.360 There you will find all the past episodes and much more.
00:07:06.900 Thanks again for watching, and may God bless you.