In writing my script for the Blue Army Shrine, I got the chance to explore a bit of Salvador Dali’s Catholic side, something I had experienced on a trip to Barcelona in 2006, when David and I went to the Dali museum and were blown away by some of his pieces on Christ crucified.
The image above was painted by Dali specifically for the Blue Army. It’s called Vision of Hell, and it is Dali’s take on what Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta saw on July 13, 1917, when Our Lady showed them Hell. This is what Lucia says about it in her memoirs:
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 repulsive 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.
We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly:
“You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.
—Taken from Sr. Lucia’s Third Memoir (August 31, 1941)
It astonishes me that Our Lady showed Hell to three children, all under the age of ten. It astonishes me even more that they dealt with it. What this vision did for them, as I understand it, is it made Hell a very real place for them. They began to offer up sacrifices more and more as a result of this vision, to help save souls from Hell, because their sacrifices were nothing compared to Hell.
This painting was commissioned to remind those of us who didn’t get to see the real thing (thank God) that Hell is real.
I’m typing this at 2:13 a.m. in my dark living room… I think I’ll turn some lights on… Much better.
Since having written the script for the Blue Army Shrine, I can’t get the little shepherds out of my head. The other day, my poor mother was feeling under the weather. I told her about poor little Jacinta’s many sufferings, especially at the end of her brief life, and how she and Lucia and Francisco looked for every opportunity to offer some little suffering up for the conversion of sinners.
When she pricked her finger on a thorny bush, she cried out with glee that she had found a new way to make a sacrifice for souls. The three children found an old bit of rope somewhere and began to wear it around their waists, day and night, causing them endless discomfort and pain. They did that until Our Lady had to tell them to stop wearing the ropes at night. (That makes me laugh. I can just imagine Jesus saying to Mary, “Ok, that’s going a bit too far! tell them to stop that!”) They went a month, in the scorching hot summer of Portugal, without drinking any water. And once, when she couldn’t take the thirst, she drank dirty water—water that animals drank and in which people washed—just to keep her sacrifice going.
Shortly after Francisco died, Jacinta became ill, and had to stay in the hospital for two months, mostly alone. I believe that after the apparitions of Our Lady at the Cova da Iria, Mary would continue to visit the children and give them other messages or consolations. I believe she told Jacinta that she would die all alone, and while this made Jacinta very afraid, she was thrilled to be able to offer up something so terrible.
She said to Lucia, “I suffer, yes. But I offer everything for sinners and in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. … I love so much to suffer for [Our Lord and Our Lady’s] love and to make Them happy! They love very much those who suffer for the conversion of sinners.”
Even though Jacinta knew she wouldn’t get better, her parents kept sending her away for medical treatments. They sent her to Lisbon, where she was left in an orphanage. She was diagnosed with “purulent pleurisy of the large left cavity, with fistula; osteitis of the seventh and eighth ribs of the same side.” As a result, the doctors found it necessary to remove two ribs from her left side. But because she was so weak, they couldn’t give her anesthesia, so she felt the whole operation! The doctors said she never complained, and apparently overheard her saying,
“Now Jesus You can save many souls because I suffer very much.”
She was only 9 when she died all alone.
Why would a little girl suffer like this, and so cheerfully? Well, I suppose if we saw Hell, and were told we could save people from going there by suffering, wouldn’t we do what we could? And cheerfully? I guess the thing is, although we haven’t seen it, we have been told—through Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta—that we can save souls, if only we offer prayers and sacrifices up in reparation and for the conversion of sinners.
What does Jesus say to Thomas? “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”