Lent With Job and Saint Thomas Aquinas: Chapter Twenty-Four

In this chapter Job asserts that the wicked are punished in this world or in the next:

After describing the different kinds of sin in detail, he speaks then about their punishment. First he speaks about the punishment in the present life when he says, “Cursed be his lot on the earth.” Each one’s lot seems to be to him what he desires as the highest good. The sinner sets up his ultimate end in earthly things as his lot, according to Wisdom, “This is our portion and this is our lot.” (2:9) This lot has been cursed because the goods of this world which he uses badly turn to evil for him. He shows this clearly when he says, “nor let him walk on the road of the vineyards.” Roads in vineyards are usually shady and consequently cool. Vines even require a moderately cool place, for they are destroyed by the ice in places which are too cold, and in places which are exceedingly hot they are scorched by the heat. The evil man does not walk on the road of the vineyards because he does not use the things of this world moderately, but sometimes he goes aside to one extreme, sometimes to another, and to express this he then says, “let him pass over to great heat from freezing waters,” as though changing from one vice to a contrary vice because he does not remain in the mean of virtue. All wicked men suffer this punishment because, “the inordinate soul is a punishment unto itself,” as Augustine says in the Confessions.

He places next the punishment which will come after death when he then says, “and his sin to hell,” by which he means: His portion is not only cursed on earth when he uses the things of the world inordinately, but he will also suffer the punishments for this in hell. One can also refer these punishments to the text, “he passes to great heat from freezing waters,” because in hell there is no moderate temperature. Lest anyone believe that those punishments will end through the mercy of God, he adds, “the mercy,” of God, “let it forget him,” the sinner condemned to hell will never be freed from there. He shows what sort of punishment this is saying, “let his sweetness become a worm,” for the pleasure of the sinner will be changed for him into a worm, which is the remorse of conscience about which the last chapter of Isaiah speaks: “Their worm will not die.” (66:24) So he continues addressing the endless character of this punishment, “let him not be in remembrance,” that is, let him be so totally abandoned by God without hope of being freed, as though he had forgotten him. He makes a comparison when he says, “but let him be cut down like a tree which bears no fruit.” “For a tree which does not bear good fruit will be cut down and burned,” (3:10) as we read in Matthew, whereas a fruitful tree is clipped so that it may be pruned as John says, “He will prune every tree which bears fruit, so that it may bear more.” (15:2) Evil men are therefore punished for their extermination, just men for their perfection.

Go here to read the rest.  Without a doubt the greatest French songstress of the last century, Edith  Piaf led a life of tortured immorality, and yet she, by her own account, was  the beneficiary of a miracle.  From three to seven she was blind as a result of keratitis.  She was cured when the prostitutes of her grandmother, who ran a brothel, contributed money to send her on a pilgrimage honoring Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.  On her deathbed, dying an agonizing death of liver cancer at age 47, she had a last moment of moral clarity when her final words were uttered:   “Every damn fool thing you do in this life, you pay for.”