Bare essentials of getting to heaven?

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upbeatjonm

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If we were to boil down our salvation to the bare essentials, here is my initial list. Please give me your thoughts on what I have missed:


  1. *]Believe in Jesus
    *]Keep the commandments
    *]Avoid mortal sin like the plague
    *]Acknowledge your sins often in confession
    *]Frequent the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, confession
    *]Educate your conscience
 
upbeatjonm said:
If we were to boil down our salvation to the bare essentials, here is my initial list. Please give me your thoughts on what I have missed:


  1. *]Believe in Jesus
    *]Keep the commandments
    *]Avoid mortal sin like the plague
    *]Acknowledge your sins often in confession
    *]Frequent the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, confession
    *]Educate your conscience
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  1. While your essentials are certainly worthy, I think that if we had to boil it down to the bare essentials one certainly couldn’t do any worse than calling on Jesus for His Divine Mercy. Remember what he told St. Faustina (I’m paraphrasing);

    “All souls have a right to my mercy; the greater the sinner the greater the right, even though their sins be as scarlet.”

    Remember the words of the Good Thief: “Jesus, remember me when you enter into your kingdom,” and Our Lord’s reply, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

    So, while your list is a good example of what a Catholic should strive, I think the bare essentials is a complete trust in Jesus.

    And before anyone criticizes my post, by a complete trust in Jesus I mean His mercy, but also His Church, too, which he gave us to aid in our salvation. The Church, through the sacraments, contains His mercy.
 
Timothysis said:
While your essentials are certainly worthy, I think that if we had to boil it down to the bare essentials one certainly couldn’t do any worse than calling on Jesus for His Divine Mercy. Remember what he told St. Faustina (I’m paraphrasing);

“All souls have a right to my mercy; the greater the sinner the greater the right, even though their sins be as scarlet.”

Remember the words of the Good Thief: “Jesus, remember me when you enter into your kingdom,” and Our Lord’s reply, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

So, while your list is a good example of what a Catholic should strive, I think the bare essentials is a complete trust in Jesus.

And before anyone criticizes my post, by a complete trust in Jesus I mean His mercy, but also His Church, too, which he gave us to aid in our salvation. The Church, through the sacraments, contains His mercy.
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Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut Timothysis. I need to learn more about the Divine Mercy. Just got into it recently, but just scratching the surface.

My intention with all of this is to have certain truths to instill into my children. Sort of a “if you don’t learn anything else, keep these truths in mind…”.
 
  1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
  2. You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
 
Consider adding prayer to the list 🙂

St Alphonsus tells us “In conclusion, to save one’s soul without prayer is most difficult, and even (as we have seen) impossible, according to the ordinary course of God’s providence.”
ourladyswarriors.org/prayer/mustpray.htm
 
upbeatjonm said:
If we were to boil down our salvation to the bare essentials, here is my initial list. Please give me your thoughts on what I have missed:


  1. *]Believe in Jesus
    *]Keep the commandments
    *]Avoid mortal sin like the plague
    *]Acknowledge your sins often in confession
    *]Frequent the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, confession
    *]Educate your conscience
Click to expand...

  1. I would say the bare minimum is a deathbed confession and absolution with imperfect contrition (contrition based on fear of Hell) or a deathbed baptism (a la Constantine).

    My guess is a significant portion of the populations of Heaven and purgatory were saved in that manner.

    God Bless
 
bilop said:
I would say the bare minimum is a deathbed confession and absolution with imperfect contrition (contrition based on fear of Hell) or a deathbed baptism (a la Constantine).

My guess is a significant portion of the populations of Heaven and purgatory were saved in that manner.

God Bless
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I know what you mean, but I don’t want to encourage my children to wait until the deathbed to get serious about God.👍
 
antimon said:
  1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
  2. You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
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And if you can’t do it when you get to Purgatory, be sure that you’ll be able to do it when you get out.

It’s a long road…may as well start the work now! 😉 😃

There is no “bare minimum” for heaven. You have to give all, and that “all”, marred and reduced to nothingness as it is by sin, must be redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you insist on holding back anything whatsoever, you will be lost. If you will not eventually submit to the necessity of Jesus’ saving grace–which may happen beyond the knowledge of those of us who still live on earth–you have no hope. That’s all there is to it.
 
upbeatjonm said:
I know what you mean, but I don’t want to encourage my children to wait until the deathbed to get serious about God.👍
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Of of course, that’s not the ideal.

But, it’s important that people know, no matter how bad a life you’ve lived, you can always ask God for forgiveness and receive it.

Everyone needs to remember this, and call a priest when anyone, no matter how fallen away, is at death’s door (even if they are not Catholic if they’ve shown any propensity towards the Church).

The number of people who’ve converted to Catholicism on their deathbed is truly staggering. Some famous ones include Constantine, Charles II of England, and John Wayne.

God Bless

God Bless
 
upbeatjonm said:
If we were to boil down our salvation to the bare essentials, here is my initial list. Please give me your thoughts on what I have missed:


  1. *]Believe in Jesus
    *]Keep the commandments
    *]Avoid mortal sin like the plague
    *]Acknowledge your sins often in confession
    *]Frequent the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, confession
    *]Educate your conscience
Click to expand...

  1. The bare essential is Love.
 
Nickkname said:
The bare essential is Love.
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Agreed. However, love is often misunderstood in our society, getting lost in feelings. I believe in John’s epistle he said that love of God is following His commandments.
 
I agree with the love …St Therese said it was and she is a Dr of the church
 
There is no “bare minimum”

unless God allows it and accepts it - his Grace.

So, should we trust in our luck ? “I’ll just wait until my deathbed…and get hit by a bus while crossing the street”

Or trust in God?

Do the most you can do, let God do the rest with his grace.

Reach out your hand for as long as possible, let God yank you up.
 
The bare essential of getting to heaven is dying in the State of Grace.
 
upbeatjonm said:
If we were to boil down our salvation to the bare essentials, here is my initial list. Please give me your thoughts on what I have missed:


  1. *]Believe in Jesus
    *]Keep the commandments
    *]Avoid mortal sin like the plague
    *]Acknowledge your sins often in confession
    *]Frequent the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, confession
    *]Educate your conscience
Click to expand...

  1. Also, fight for humanity.
 
The single most bare essential for salvation is Sanctifying Grace.

That said, here is what many saints have said will almost give you a path to heaven.
  1. Daily or frequent mass and Communion
  2. Eucharistic Adoration
  3. Daily Rosary
  4. Devotion to the passion of Christ and frequent way of the cross.
  5. While I hope we are all saints some day (one who is in heaven) I will add one more. i.e., The daily Chaplet of Divine Mercy
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B
 
I rely quite a bit on the sacrament of Reconciliation . To draw the fullest measure possible of God’s Mercy from that sacrament, we also need to be able to forgive others; as we say in the Our Father…“and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…”

And as Our Beloved Lord said in Matt 18:32b-35 :

…I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
33
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’
34
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. 23
35
24 So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart

Just my personal view here but, I realize I can’t forgive my brother from my heart unless God enables me to. And I can’t draw on the fullness of God’s mercy unless I can forgive others from my heart.
 
Deacon_Ed_B said:
The single most bare essential for salvation is Sanctifying Grace.

That said, here is what many saints have said will almost give you a path to heaven.
  1. Daily or frequent mass and Communion
  2. Eucharistic Adoration
  3. Daily Rosary
  4. Devotion to the passion of Christ and frequent way of the cross.
  5. While I hope we are all saints some day (one who is in heaven) I will add one more. i.e., The daily Chaplet of Divine Mercy
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B
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Thanks Deacon, good stuff. I go to daily mass about 3 times during the week, and say the rosary the other two days. I’m not sure what you mean with #4.

Jon
 
NeedImprovement said:
I rely quite a bit on the sacrament of Reconciliation . To draw the fullest measure possible of God’s Mercy from that sacrament, we also need to be able to forgive others; as we say in the Our Father…“and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…”

And as Our Beloved Lord said in Matt 18:32b-35 :

…I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
33
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’
34
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. 23
35
24 So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart

Just my personal view here but, I realize I can’t forgive my brother from my heart unless God enables me to. And I can’t draw on the fullness of God’s mercy unless I can forgive others from my heart.
Click to expand...
Good point, I will add this to the list.
 
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