Does purgatory really exist?

[Tantum_ergo]

Rinnie. . . I know YOU know what you’re saying, but look at what you just said here!

You said,

to confess a sin or repent a sin is the same thing. To do penance is how we show repentance or the wrong doing of our sins.

Then you said,

And yes Mickey I am saying confession is not repentance. Repentance is Penance. and penance is a self-punishment.

Now I’m confused. In the first quote you say confession and repentance is the same, and doing penance is different from that. . .

In the second quote, you say confession is NOT repentance and repentance is penance!

I’m not trying to make difficulties, but you can see how confusing this is, right?

 

[rinnie]

Yes Mickey I am. We are to confess our sins and then do repentance. We cannot just we are sorry we must repent and sin no more.

Mickey you are correct in one thing. If your teachings of the faith our true we are on opposite sides. In just about everything.

Tell me did any of you ever go to confession and the Priest say you are forgiven, but in turn never give you some type of penance. Either prayers, or something to do to repent. I sure never got out of there without repenting.

I think my first line made it clear what I meant.

 

[rinnie]

Again to repent or confess a sin is to ask for forgiveness and admit you are wrong. To do Penance is to SHOW repentance for the wrong doing. They are quite different. When you show repentance you are not confessing any longer. You have already confessed and been forgiven. Now you are doing your penance which is praying, or whatever the priest says, which is called repentance. They are different. Mickey said we do repentance then we repent. That is not correct.

 

[Mickey]

Dont we repent BEFORE we confess,then do penance?

Greetings friend. I found this on a Catholic website. It is fairly straightforward:

Before confessing to the priest, we must first make a very good examination of conscience. Then we should repent of our sins, say an act of contrition, and kneel in the confessional for our confession.
dailycatholic.org/issue/2002May/may30cat.htm

 

[sodak]

Tradition is not absolutely authoritative. It is subordinate to Scripture. All tradition is subject to confirmation by God’s word and must be in agreement with it. The Bible is God-breathed. The source is God. Nothing is greater than or equal to that kind of authority. Tradition is not God-breathed. Along with every other thing in this world, it carries less authority than that Bible and is subordinate to it.

Actually, Scripture is a subset of Tradition, both part of the deposit of Faith. God’s word was Jesus Incarnate.

On what authority do you claim that Scripture is God-breathed? Is there a verse in the Bible that uses those words?

 

[rinnie]

Greetings friend. I found this on a Catholic website. It is fairly straightforward:

Before confessing to the priest, we must first make a very good examination of conscience. Then we should repent of our sins, say an act of contrition, and kneel in the confessional for our confession.
dailycatholic.org/issue/2002May/may30cat.htm

As I said, and I made myself quite clear, to repent and do repentance is two very different things. We were talking about the good thief on the Cross Mickey, which you know very well this is what this is about. I said and you know what I am talking about that once your sins are forgiven you must do penance which is to do repentence. You can not just ask to be forgiven for your sins you must also repent. And to prove my point is how we even got on confession to begin with, and that is how I said even in confession the Priest gives us prayers to say. That is our Penance. Abd that is what we call repenting. I have been going to confession all of my life, So I do not need you or a web site to tell me how to go to confession. And If I do have any problems I can ask my Priest On Sunday.

 

[tm30]

Tradition is not absolutely authoritative. It is subordinate to Scripture. All tradition is subject to confirmation by God’s word and must be in agreement with it. The Bible is God-breathed. The source is God. Nothing is greater than or equal to that kind of authority. Tradition is not God-breathed. Along with every other thing in this world, it carries less authority than that Bible and is subordinate to it.

Since the Gospels are exclusively composed of Oral Tradition, calling it subordinate to Scripture is puzzling.

What’s ironic, is that, although Scripture confirms Tradition, it was Tradition that confirmed what is Sacred Scripture in the first place. So, as you can see, they are co-dependent. One cannot be removed without diminishing the other.

The Bible is God-breathed, but it was mediated through human authors that turned to oral tradition to relate the Good News.

Tradition is certainly God-breathed, since the Holy Spirit was breathed by God directly upon the Apostles to guide them in their administration of the faith. He did not breathe upon them with instructions to write a book - which only two of them eventually did. All of those actions of the apostolic Church can be considered nothing but Tradition, since there were no written Gospels with which they preached.

 

[tm30]

I hold my hand high and admit that I am not without sin…
…but I give praise, thanks and glory that there is forgiveness for any sin commited when repenance is given. This is the grace of God. Why would a merciful God, after giving me grace want to continue to punish/purifiy me…when he reconciled humanity through Christ on the cross?

If all that’s true, how do you explain the continuing curse of “death”? (the ultimate punishment for man’s sin… )

If your reconciliation with Christ were complete, you would have no temptation to sin whatsoever - sin would cease to exist.

The Paschal Sacrifice makes possible man’s entry into heaven. It gives man access to his mercy. It does not guarantee our salvation, nor remove the effects of our sin, which are referred to as their “punishments”. If we accept his mercy, we are justified through the Paschal Sacrifice, but as often as we sin, we just as often must accept his mercy. If we stop accepting his mercy on the erroneous assumption that “once saved, always saved”, the punishment of the sins we commit thereafter goes unsatisfied, and will be sorted out either in Purgatory for venial sins, or Hell (mortal sin).

 

[tm30]

I recently found out I might have cancer again and decided I won’t go through the chemo/radiation again. Since, I’ve been pondering the Purgatory thing and became quite upset. I finally went and talked to my priest just yesterday. I had this stupid idea that it was a place of great suffering. Like, if I lived to be say 80 years old and counted up the moments of my life that were impure and the pure moments, if I was lucky I might come out with about 20 years of purity (not consistantly of course) so I got this idea that I might be sentenced to suffer 60 years of cleaning so to speak. So, that frightened me and death didn’t look so fun anymore. But he explained it in such a good way. He said it’s like when you are working toward something that makes you happy, the work and toil seems so much worth it. I got to thinking about teaching CCD and how there were times that were so hard, and how the days leading to First Communion and Confirmation for my classes were so stressful. Then I’d work all the day before and most of the night (sometimes until 5 in the morning) getting the church and parish hall cleaned and decorated but I enjoyed it. Yes, it made me tired and I sacraficed my regular life for those days but knowing the outcome gave me the energy and stamina to do it even when I was sick. He also told me the angels visit Purgatory too. He said I was looking at Purgatory as an extension of hell rather than heaven. Funny how the devil can play with our minds. Yes, there is a Purgatory and please pray daily for those souls. While we’re on earth we pray for the Saints to pray for us but when we’re in Purgatory we must also rely on the living to pray for us, to help us become pure. God Bless.

My heart goes out to you.

Look at it this way - Purgatory, for all it’s purported suffering, cannot possibly outweigh the realization that your salvation is CERTAIN. I think about it, too, although I am not ill. Whatever “suffering” takes place in Purgatory, if you do not go straight to heaven, you will have an unquenchable consolation in KNOWING that you are saved.

It is also uncertain what role chronological time plays, if any. The Church uses a timespan of years to relate a degree of purging, but once we leave this earth, time no longer exists. Perhaps it will feel like a single instance of terrible and profound grief for our sins, to the degree of our attachment to concupiscence - and whatever level of pain that is, is the purging that unites our will to God’s. We don’t know. We pray for the departed souls because they are in some sort of constant state of purgation, and perhaps the prayers lessen the degree of pain required to surrended their concupiscence and unite their selves entirely to God’s will. We don’t know. But the use of “time” to describe the punishment in Purgatory is, I believe, an expression that conveys degree, rather than an elapse of time. But I could be wrong. It’s speculative, at best.

 

[tm30]

Purgatory isn’t biblical. It’s a story made up by Catholics who are long since dead and has been changed up a couple of times over the centuries. Unsaved people who really weren’t so bad used to have a place there, but they couldn’t get into heaven. Then it was a place for people who were saved, but they didn’t do their last rites right or something, so there was some tricky wording that got some people thinking they could be purified and then enter heaven but some people thought it looked more like they were in a state of eternal purification, ie. limbo, and not in heaven. (Of course, this is interpretation of human writing, not of anything in the Bible). That got cleared up after awhile- kind of, anyway- and now there’s official doctrine that I’m sure you’ve seen via the links by now, but there’s still plenty of room for interpretation of that stuff among Catholics. Anyway, Purgatory is not Biblical, it’s something made up by ordinary humans beings, and it’s become a part of “official church doctrine” that Catholics take a little too seriously. It’s not the Bible, people. And if it says stuff that contradicts Scripture, you shouldn’t be keeping it around. Anyway, the Bible tells you all you need to know about who goes where when they die, and purgatory is not involved. That’s it.

Strange, the Bible doesn’t say anything about compiling a “New Testament”, either. How do you support an unbiblical canon like that?

 

[tm30]

Nope.
Lazarus has a name. The rich man does not for a reason. Could it be because he was scratched from the book of life?

Ask your priest.

That’s a very liberal inferrance. The author of the Gospel of John refers to himself several times, too, but never reveals his own name (it was attributed to John by others). Does that mean the author of the Gospel of John is not in the book of life?

 

[tm30]

What my point is There is no way that you could be in hell (eternal separation from God and see the kingdom of heaven) If the Rich man was in hell there is no communication with the righteous. TOTAL SEPARATION. He was in torment, temporary torment. Had to be. Purgatory is for people who have un -repented sins. If you have repented your sins, and had none, why would you have to have the final cleansing? What is being pure and clean. Means you have asked for forgiveness for your sins, repented and are cleansed from them. No need for purgatory then. I agree with the one Post the Blessed Mother is all I can see who was sinless and got the free pass. I am not saying others did not but she is the only one I could say for sure. But my point is there is no way someone in hell could ever see Abraham.

The Rich Man was in neither Hell nor Purgatory. He was in Sheol. If God had already judged the dead, there was no reason for Jesus to preach to them on Holy Saturday. The very purpose of that preaching was to bring to them the Good News, and then judge them according to their acceptance or rejection. Christ, who “judges the living and the dead”, separated the goats from the sheep, and sent the reprobate to Lucifer’s abode (Hell, as we know it as the place of eternal torment), while those who accepted either went to heaven or Purgatory. Since no one could enter heaven prior to the Sacrifice on Calvary, there was no need for Purgatory until that time, either. The prayers for the dead, in O.T. perspective, indeed prepared the dead to hear the Good News on Holy Saturday, and I would hazard to guess went a long way to their disposition to accept or reject. But they were not in Purgatory prior to the Sacrifice.

Think of Sheol as a two-tiered “place”. You have those in the bosom of “Father” Abraham, and those who are separated from “Father” Abraham. Scripture conveys a familial relationship among the Isrealites. The rich man, separated from his brother Lazarus (and Abraham) suffered torment from this alienation, due to his sins. But the price of those sins could not be paid in earnest until the choice could be made to accept or reject Christ’s mercy on Holy Saturday when He “descended to the dead” and preached the Good News.

The reason we know that the rich man was not in hell, is because he willed the good of others by asking Abraham to send someone to warn them. The damned cannot love, since God is love. This being the case, the rich man must have been in a part of Sheol that still presented separation from the family of Abraham, but without yet exacting the ultimate punishment.

 

[rinnie]

The Rich Man was in neither Hell nor Purgatory. He was in Sheol. If God had already judged the dead, there was no reason for Jesus to preach to them on Holy Saturday. The very purpose of that preaching was to bring to them the Good News, and then judge them according to their acceptance or rejection. Christ, who “judges the living and the dead”, separated the goats from the sheep, and sent the reprobate to Lucifer’s abode (Hell, as we know it as the place of eternal torment), while those who accepted either went to heaven or Purgatory. Since no one could enter heaven prior to the Sacrifice on Calvary, there was no need for Purgatory until that time, either. The prayers for the dead, in O.T. perspective, indeed prepared the dead to hear the Good News on Holy Saturday, and I would hazard to guess went a long way to their disposition to accept or reject. But they were not in Purgatory prior to the Sacrifice.

Think of Sheol as a two-tiered “place”. You have those in the bosom of “Father” Abraham, and those who are separated from “Father” Abraham. Scripture conveys a familial relationship among the Isrealites. The rich man, separated from his brother Lazarus (and Abraham) suffered torment from this alienation, due to his sins. But the price of those sins could not be paid in earnest until the choice could be made to accept or reject Christ’s mercy on Holy Saturday when He “descended to the dead” and preached the Good News.

The reason we know that the rich man was not in hell, is because he willed the good of others by asking Abraham to send someone to warn them. The damned cannot love, since God is love. This being the case, the rich man must have been in a part of Sheol that still presented separation from the family of Abraham, but without yet exacting the ultimate punishment.

Ok I understand what you are saying, But I thought that in the OT the souls were held in the Bosom of Abraham. This place of purgation was a place of waiting and cleansing. Entrance into heaven was not opened I agree, until Jesus took away death.
And I was taught that the cleansing of impurity of sin again was called purgatory. That is why I believe this to be the same place. Because even in the OT they believed in the purification of sins.

 

[rinnie]

And also isn’t purgatory for some worse than others. Some are there for a very short time, others longer. Because the way I understood purgatory again in the OT is they always prayed for their loved ones to be free from purgatory. If purgatory did not exist then it would be back to heaven and hell even in the OT right?

 

[tm30]

Ok I understand what you are saying, But I thought that in the OT the souls were held in the Bosom of Abraham. This place of purgation was a place of waiting and cleansing. Entrance into heaven was not opened I agree, until Jesus took away death.
And I was taught that the cleansing of impurity of sin again was called purgatory. That is why I believe this to be the same place. Because even in the OT they believed in the purification of sins.

Well the OT also uses the phrases, Sheol/hell/Hades/Gehenna, but they all mean roughly the same thing. The Bosom of Abraham was, I believe, a term of affection for those who died in the good graces of Israel, whose Father was Abraham. It’s not theologically certain that this represented “purgatory”, but a kind of waystation. Since it was impossible to enter heaven before the Sacrifice, Purgatory would serve no logical purpose. You say the Bosom of Abraham was a place of cleansing: for what? Heaven was an impossibility.

I merely submit that if the souls of the dead were already in a quasi-Purgatory and Hell, there was no apparent reason for Christ to make the trip to “hell” to preach to the souls there. Those not condemned were already “saved” and those condemned would have no use for the Good News, period.

Purgatory is indeed a place of cleansing, but, as I wrote above - if the rich man could will good things for the living, he certainly wasn’t in hell. And if the dead were already judged, why wasn’t he in hell? Likewise, if heaven were out of the question, then Purgatory would serve no purpose. Thus, the hazy relationship of the Bosom of Abraham/Sheol/Gehenna/Hades/hell

 

[tm30]

And also isn’t purgatory for some worse than others. Some are there for a very short time, others longer. Because the way I understood purgatory again in the OT is they always prayed for their loved ones to be free from purgatory. If purgatory did not exist then it would be back to heaven and hell even in the OT right?

Not quite. Prayers for the dead are recommended in Maccabees. Why? It’s not explicit, but if there were no “Purgatory” proper before the Sacrifice, then those prayers likely aided the dead who would receive the Good News from Christ on Holy Saturday, to accept His mercy and salvation.

If the pre-requisite of heaven is the acceptance of Christ’s mercy, and if the pre-requisite of hell is the rejection of Christ’s mercy (blaspheming the Holy Spirit - the unforgivable sin) then it’s hard to argue that souls were in hell with Lucifer and the fallen angels prior to receiving the Good News on Holy Saturday - where each of the dead could then accept or reject the Paschal Sacrifice - the Lamb standing slain before them. Hell, of course, existed from the time Lucifer fell, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the souls of all the dead were kept in Sheol until the appearance of the Lamb. It’s purely speculative theology, but it resolves a lot of questions.

 

[steve_b]

Tradition is not absolutely authoritative. It is subordinate to Scripture. All tradition is subject to confirmation by God’s word and must be in agreement with it. The Bible is God-breathed. The source is God. Nothing is greater than or equal to that kind of authority. Tradition is not God-breathed. Along with every other thing in this world, it carries less authority than that Bible and is subordinate to it.

I think you miss the distinction being made.

(T)radition as opposed to (t)radition

• is absolutely authoratative.
• is NOT subordinate.
  Do you know the difference between (T)radition and (t)radition as it is being used by the Catholic Church?

 

[mmmcounts]

**Jesus tells us that we must be holy as God is holy, perfect as He is perfect, and assures us in the Sermon on the Mount that this cannot be a mere outward show of holiness but a genuine interior transformation, in case we didn’t get it. Most of us probably won’t achieve this goal prior to death, as Protestants generally agree, but Catholics believe we must achieve it prior to heaven and that God’s provided a way to help us achieve it as long as we’ve demonstrated sufficiently during life that our hearts are turned in love towards Him.

And since 2 Thess. 2:15 confirms that there exist non-written traditions within the Church-which makes sense -and since the Church** is the “pillar and foundation of truth”, then I could care less where specifically the tradition comes from as long as it’s a Catholic one.

When Jesus says we must be holy as he is holy and that this must be a genuine interior transformation, he’s talking about something that happens right here right now and it’s also something we can’t do on our own. The transformational power of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son causes this transformation in our lives. We cannot contribute much of anything to the process, except to surrender ourselves to God. This is really what being a Christian is all about. It’s not a transformation that God wants to begin when you die. He wants to do it right now. Again, it’s not something we achieve at all. It’s something that God does in us that is totally contrary to our nature.

Now if it’s something God is doing in us, why exactly do you think God can’t be faithful to “complete the good work in us” before death? It is a process- God is the one who begins the good work, and He will be faithful to complete it. But why is it that it takes so long in your version of the story? Once we’re dead, there’s nothing more we can do in life, and the work being done in us wasn’t generated by us anyway. It’s all God. So why would He choose to putz around when he doesn’t have to? Are you imagining that it’s necessary to undo past sins before entering heaven? I don’t know about you, but mine are forgiven. They’re gone, baby. Cast away. I am good to go. Progressive sanctification will happen for the rest of my life, however long that may be, but my salvation is complete. If you think you’re not completely saved yet, your soteriology needs a little work.

 

[tm30]

Once we’re dead, there’s nothing more we can do in life, and the work being done in us wasn’t generated by us anyway. It’s all God. So why would He choose to putz around when he doesn’t have to? Are you imagining that it’s necessary to undo past sins before entering heaven? I don’t know about you, but mine are forgiven. They’re gone, baby. Cast away. I am good to go. Progressive sanctification will happen for the rest of my life, however long that may be, but my salvation is complete. If you think you’re not completely saved yet, your soteriology needs a little work.

If your salvation is complete - if there’s nothing left to atone for, then explain “death”. Death, according to Scripture, is punishment for man’s sins. Are you saying that you’re saved, but God is going to punish you anyway?

What was that about soteriology again?

 

[tm30]

So why would He choose to putz around when he doesn’t have to?

Didn’t you hear? His ways are inscrutable. Keep trying to cram human logic into the ways of God, and I guarantee you’re going to be wrong.