When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by the greatest commandments, he could do nothing greater. But how did Jesus love all his neighbours as he loves himself? Those who condemned him to death and nailed him to the cross?Ha-ha a priest suggested I listen to Frozen. I wish forgiveness were easier for me though. I guess we all have spiritual weaknesses.
We can’t see inside other people’s hearts. God wants everyone to turn from his wickedness and be saved.But is it true that we can repent of awful sins just before death if we were not already Christian in the first place? To be a born again. saved Christian. you would have to repent, be baptised and sin no more, surely? Doesn’t repentance mean that you turn away from your sin and change, by God’s grace, not just that you are sorry?
Maybe her mother had no choice. Maybe she couldn’t manage financially without her husband’s help. Or maybe she didn’t know she had a choice.Her mother did what “good wives” are supposed to do forgive the infidelity, deal with his abuse and of course accepted him when he decided to come back even though leaving his family cost them much financially because he was the breadwinner.
Perhaps saints like Maria Goretti and saint Rita are difficult to understand from a nonreligious perspective
thanks for both your answers. It is quite sad what some women endure from other cultures.Maybe her mother had no choice. Maybe she couldn’t manage financially without her husband’s help. Or maybe she didn’t know she had a choice.
it’s not necessarily God’s will to stay in a marriage and accept abuse. That’s just foolish. Although in many cultures it is encouraged, that’s not the fault of God or the teaching of the church.
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I think it could be real repentance. When someone is on their deathbed they may have a change of heart and feel genuine contrition for their sins and repent.It could be that God gives a glimpse on their deathbed to some people of how their sins have affected others, and they could sincerely repent, and God is quick to forgive. But waiting til death to repent is playing with fire, it’s not real repentance. We can’t just say “sorry I killed all those people” and be forgiven…
You truly do see the good in people. God bless your soul. Some may see this as a last act of desperation. That is the cynic in me.I think it could be real repentance. When someone is on their deathbed they may have a change of heart and feel genuine contrition for their sins and repent.
You are quite right. It is very easy to simply point the finger at others and wonder why they won’t listen or haven’t learned. Ultimately we can only change or help ourselves. Sometimes we may give up on people because they fail to see the bigger picture or what we are trying to convey. We never really know what a person is going through. There are some terrible mistakes I have made or bad things that have happened that feel honestly difficult to overcome. People are WAY TOO QUICK to preach, rebuke and correct but never seem to model. Some people have never experienced forgiveness or were never shown forgiveness. There are many misconceptions on what forgiveness actually means. To demand a person to forgive is God’s job. You are very right people often envy the wicked but we must all pay for our sins whether we deny them or not.I think there’s a few important things to think about here that can help us, because it is a difficult subject and forgiveness can be hard thing to do. It is easy to talk about when we are not in a situation of being wronged ourselves, but when we experience injustice first hand, it is different.
One gifted Catholic speaker described the distinction between pleasure and joy. Pleasure ceases as soon as the activity producing it ceases. For example, eating a pizza is pleasurable, but it ceases to be pleasurable once the pizza is consumed. Joy is something that is lasting: it penetrates & consolidates us even during moments of suffering.
- We must not envy the wicked. It is so easy to fall into an attitude where we perceive a sinful lifestyle as though a person were getting away with something. As though a person who lived a sinful life and then repented on their deathbed got to enjoy things that a holy person did not. This isn’t true. Although sin - like a soft drink - can offer a rush of pleasure and energy, it is not a sustaining pleasure that offers true joy.
So, in the case of men who commit crimes against women, either as harassment or as more atrocious rape, they are not in truth getting away with anything. Without an interior conversion, a toy is the best thing they will know a woman as. They will never understand her deeper beauty or her likeness to God. They will be deprived of that intimacy forever. They are like a dog listening to Mozart: the beauty escapes them and they are unable to discern it. To an animal, it is just noise.
- Purgatory. The forgiveness of sins is not a remission of temporary consequences & removal of impurities.
- Hell. When we contemplate hell, and its endless magnitude, even terrible crimes like rape and murder ought to leave us cold and move us towards prayer for those in most need of God’s mercy… God will continue to plea with a soul until that final decision is made. He does the same thing for us.