That day, when we reached the pasture, Jacinta sat thoughtfully on a rock.
“Jacinta, come and play.”
“I don’t want to play today.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m thinking. That Lady told us to say the Rosary and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, so from now on, when we say the Rosary we must say the whole Hail Mary and the whole Our Father! And the sacrifices, how are we going to make them?”
Right away, Francisco thought of a good sacrifice: “Let’s give our lunch to the sheep, and make the sacrifice of going without it.”
In a couple of minutes, the contents of our lunch bag had been divided among the sheep. So that day, we fasted as strictly as the most austere Carthusian!
Jacinta remained sitting on the rock, looking very thoughtful, and asked: “That Lady also said that many souls will go to hell! What is Hell then?”
“It is like a big deep pit of wild beasts, with an enormous fire in it—that’s how my mother used to explain it to me—and that’s where people go who commit sins and don’t confess them. They stay there and burn forever!”
“And they never get out of there again?”
“No!”
“Not even after many, many years?”
“No! Hell never ends!”
“And Heaven never ends either?”
“They’re eternal, don’t you see! They never end.”
That was how, for the first time, we made a meditation on hell and eternity. Even in the middle of a game she would stop and ask: “But listen! Doesn’t hell end after many, many years then?” or again: “Those people burning in hell, don’t they ever die? And don’t they turn into ashes? Poor sinners! We have to pray and make many sacrifices for them!” Then she went on: “How good that Lady is! She has already promised to take us to heaven!”