Back in seventh grade, Sister Loretta used to say that even if hell was not the firepit with the horned demons and the pitchforks that the medievalists supposed, it was, make no mistake, a void. It was an eternal separation from love. What love? God’s love. Anyone’s love. All love. The pain from a pitchfork or even from an eternal flame cannot compare to the pain of that void. “Everlasting exile,” Sister Loretta said, “the heart forever untouched and forsaken.”
The heart forever untouched
