Thank you for your responses. I think my problem is in my understanding of Purgatory. I know, for instance, that I am truly sorry for my own sins (in this case, venial sins) and that I desire to grow in holiness and break free from them. However, I see this as an ongoing struggle that may only be completed when the Lord cleanses my heart in purgatory. Isn’t it possible that a person could be baptized on their deathbed (truly repentant and making an honest confession of faith), yet still require that deeper conversion of heart that would rid them of those desires that are not yet submissive to the Lord?
(To further clarify) Might such a person have habitual sins that are not conquered, even though they are baptized with repentance and faith?
[For the record, I am a former Protestant who is currently attending RCIA in order to join the Church]
That’s wonderful, I’ll keep you in prayer.
What’s helpful to me in understanding our “state of grace” is just that, to view it as a “state”, or more precisely, as a “snapshot”. A snapshot that is the reality of your situation, your relationship with God, NOW, at any given “now”. Thus, if one has a truly repentant heart on one’s deathbed, then even if they were a mass murderer in their life, they will go straight to Heaven after being Baptized on the bed, because at that instant moment in time, they were in a state of grace. The “snapshot” at that time, that “now”, portrays a person who is as sin free as any could be.
This may seem strange, or even contradictory to the teaching of Purgatory, however it’s not really so. Purgatory is offered to those who still have an attachment to sin, still have some temporal consequence to sin, but yet are otherwise in a state of grace when they die. These attachments to sin, the temporal consequences that necessitate Purgation come AFTER Baptism, by definition.
It’s all about what state you are in when you die. Once you die, this “state” is frozen for all eternity, and thus, is reflected in the “place” you go to (Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven). In Purgatory, this state is further cleansed through God’s power, however one’s initial “destination”, right after death, is determined by one’s “state” at death.
As an aside, this is why it’s perfectly reasonable to say that God loves everyone, even those in Hell, because He isn’t “torturing” them, He is giving those in Hell what everyone gets when they die, the fire of His Love. For those in Purgatory, this “fire” is effectual, since when they died, their “state” was still open to His Love, and thus, can still be cleansed of their temporal consequences. Those in Hell, however, are eternally frozen in a state of separation from God, thus, the “fires of Hell” can never purify them, as they are eternally separated from God by their own choice. Their own choice that’s an eternal choice, a choice that can never be taken back. Those in Heaven feel His Love and are not “tortured” by it at all, since they are in perfect friendship (perfect grace) with Him.
IOW, it’s the same Love poured out to every soul in the afterlife. The affects this Love has is determined by their state at the instant of death. This is why the Church teaches to live for today, live day to day, for it’s useless to worry about tomorrow. It’s our task to always stay in a state of grace TODAY, and the best way to do this is to live daily for God, and let Him take care of tomorrow. IOW, we have enough to worry about TODAY, this instant! Each instant one lives is reflective of one’s state; in an instant one can fall out of grace in sin, in an instant, one can be back in grace through Confession. In an instant, we can die! It’s this “instantaneous state” that is what we are judged on when we die. We aren’t judged on the totality of our life of sin as if there is some “equation” that adds up all our sin, and adds up all our good deeds, and if we have more good than evil, we go to Heaven. No. We are judged based on our instantaneous relationship with God, and where we are IN that relationship, at the exact moment of our death.
(It’s a common, and true, saying to say, “A Saint isn’t someone who’s perfect, rather someone who may have sinned 100 times, but repented 101 times”. This may seem to be the kind of “equation” I described above, but it isn’t, as it is, to put it in mathematical terms, a binary function. One is either a 0 or a 1, as far as Heaven and Hell are concerned. We constantly battle to be a 1, but sometimes fall back to being a 0. When we fall to 0, we can be a 1 again via Confession, but Purgatory may be necessary if our 1 still has some attachment, some tendancy to sin. The main point to remember is that God doesn’t remember our sins after we confess them, thus there’s no way to “add them up” at our death)
Thus, returning to the deathbed confession (and Baptism), we are here PRE-SUPPOSING that someone has a truly repentant heart, truly despises all the sin they did in their life, THUS, once Baptized, the Power of Baptism REMOVES the temporal consequences to the sins they committed, as well as of course the sins themselves are forgiven. This complete removal occurs in Baptism, PRE-SUPPOSING a complete repentant heart (faith) as another poster pointed out upthread from Trent, thus, this hatred of sin is, IN OF ITSELF, in cooperation with the Baptism, a purgation of the temporal consequences of sin.
Thus, the “state” of such a person is a state of perfect friendship with God (a state of perfect grace). They are as sinless as Adam and Eve were before the fall.
For infant Baptism, this of course only removes Original Sin, since a baby cannot have personal sin. But the effect is the same. If a baby dies shortly after Baptism, he/she goes straight to Heaven, because in that instant, the baby was as sinless as Adam and Eve before the fall.
