Christ Descended Into Hell

on Holy Saturday.  Excerpts:

What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.



Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam's son.

The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'My Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light...

The whole thing is gorgeous awesomeness.  From Scripture, thanks to Taylor Marshall.  Excerpts:

1. ...Saint Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4:9 that Christ our Lord descended into Hell after He offered His life on the cross. "Now that He ascended, what is it, but because He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" Note here that Hell is described as having "parts" that is the four parts of Hell.
2. Saint Peter wrote in Acts 2:24 that "God hath raised up Christ, having loosed the sorrows of hell, as it was impossible that He should be holden by it." Christ loosed the Old Testament saints from hell.
3. Saint Peter also wrote in 1 Peter 3:19 that "Christ coming in spirit preached to those spirits that were in prison, which had some time been incredulous." On this verse, Saint Athanasius says that "Christ's body was laid in the sepulchre when He went to preach to those spirits who were in bondage, as Peter said." (Ep. ad Epict.)
4. The prophet Hosea foretold the descent of Christ into Hell in Hosea 13:14 by placing these words into the mouth of the Messiah: "O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite." 
5. Zechariah foretells the redemption of those in the Limb of the Fathers in Zech 9:11: "Thou also by the blood of Thy Testament hast sent forth Thy prisoners out of the pit." What could this mean except that the Messiah would free people from the underworld?
6. Colossians 2:15: "Despoiling the principalities and powers, He hath exposed them confidently." This refers to Christ's victory over the condemned angels who are the demons of Hell.
7. Psalm 23:7: "Lift up your gates, O ye princes," which the medieval Gloss interprets: "that is--Ye princes of hell, take away your power, whereby hitherto you held men fast in hell".
8. In Ecclesiasticus 24:45, Siracides prophecied: "I will penetrate to all the lower parts of the earth..."

As the Catechism teaches, Jesus descended to bind the devil and his minions, and to release the faithful who had died before his coming from the outer reaches of the place of the dead.  They did not suffer there--they merely waited.

How do we know hell is real?  We have plenty of Scriptural testimonies to its existence, of course, and testimony from the Fathers of the Church, but also, hell has been seen. Saint Faustina writes:

I, Sister Faustina Kowalska, by the order of God, have visited the Abysses of Hell so that I might tell souls about it and testify to its existence...the devils were full of hatred for me, but they had to obey me at the command of God, What I have written is but a pale shadow of the things I saw. But I noticed one thing: That most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell...

St. John Bosco describes a visit to hell he undertook in a dream.  The Fatima visionaries also saw hell.  There's more where that came from, but those are a start.

Happy Good Saturday!