How do we make reparation for all of our sins, committed over an entire lifetime-or will purgatory be unescapable?

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mary15

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If one is forgiven, there still needs to be punishment. If there is no punishment for the offense, then there is no justice.

God is a just God.

Therefore, there must be punishment, not just mercy.

Please advise on all the ways to make reparations.

If indulgences will help, how does one gain them? (Please list or link to all the ways)
 
Great question. The way I look at it is refining gold. God needs to purify our wounded souls, otherwise the light of heaven will blind us. So in answer to your question, it would be penance primarily. Mortifications, fasting and lots of prayer. Easier said than done ! God bless
 
penance-examples?

Mortifications-what are they?

Fasting-causes discomfort, so if I offer up the small pain is this making reparation fo my sins?
 
mary15 said:
I offer up the small pain is this making reparation fo my sins?
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It is about self-denial. You offer up the sacrifice of something you like out of love for God in order to make up for the ways you have offended God in your life.
 
mary15 said:
If one is forgiven, there still needs to be punishment. If there is no punishment for the offense, then there is no justice.
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Have you read Romans? Or Galatians? Or Ephesians? Or 2 Corinthians? Or 1 John? Seems we are missing some major points of the gospel here.
 
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All I know is that if I even make it to Purgatory that’s enough for me.
 
Physical and spiritual works of mercy. ‘For charity delivers from death and keeps you from entering the darkness’ - Tobit 4:10
 
Purgatory precedes Heaven, and is inescapable for many, though a temporary stay.

The souls immersed in the flames of Purgatory suffer only from love

Not undeserving of possessing the Light, but not worthy to enter therein immediately either, into the Kingdom of Light, these, on presenting themselves to God, are assailed by the Light. It is a brief, advance blessedness which makes them certain of their salvation, and aware of what their eternity will be like, and knowledge regarding what they did to their souls, defrauding them of years of blessed possession of God. Then, immersed in the place of purgation, they are assailed by the flames of expiation.

The flames are a fire of Love. They purify by inflaming souls with love. They give Love because, when the soul has therein attained the love it did not attain on earth, it is freed from them, and joined to Love in Heaven.

What does the Triune God want for the souls created by Him? Good.
What feelings does the One who wants Good for a creature have for the creature? Feelings of love.

What are the first and second commandments, the two most important ones, the ones regarding which Jesus said that there were no others greater, and that in them was the key to reaching eternal life? It is the commandment of love: “Love God with all your strength; love your neighbor as yourself”. Through His mouth, and that of the Prophets and Saints, what has Jesus said on multiple occasions? That charity is the greatest form of absolution. Charity consumes the sins and the weaknesses of man, for whoever loves in God, and in living in God he sins little, and if he sins, he immediately repents, and for whoever repents is the forgiveness of the Most High.

What did the souls fail in? In Love. If they had loved much, they would have committed few and slight sins, connected with their weakness and imperfection. But, they never would have reached the conscious obstinacy in even venial sin. They would have endeavored not to grieve their Love, and Love, seeing their good will, would have absolved them even of the venial sins committed.

How is reparation made for a sin, even on earth? By expiating it, and, if one can scarcely do so, through the means whereby it was committed. With the one who has done damage, by restoring what he has taken away with overbearance. With the one who has defamed, by retracting the defamation, and so on.

(1 of 3)
 
Now, if poor human justice wants this, won’t the holy justice of God want it? And, what means will God use to obtain reparation? Himself–that is, Love–and by demanding love.

This God, whom we have offended, and who loves us in a fatherly way, and wants to unite Himself to His creatures, leads us to obtain this union through Himself.

Everything hinges on Love, except for the real “dead”, the damned. For these “dead ones” Love, too, is dead. But, for the three realms–the heaviest one: the Earth; the one where the weight of matter is abolished, but not of the soul weighed down by sin: Purgatory; and, finally the one where the inhabitants share with their Father the spiritual nature which frees them from every encumbrance --the motor is Love. It is by loving on Earth that we work for Heaven. It is by loving in Purgatory that we conquer Heaven, which in life we were unable to merit. It is by loving in Paradise that we enjoy Heaven.

When a soul is in Purgatory, it does nothing but love, reflect, and repent in the light of Love, which for its sake has ignited those flames, which are already God, but which conceal God from it for its punishment.

This is the torment. The soul recalls the vision of God received in the private judgement. It bears that memory with it, and since having only glimpsed God is a joy surpassing every created thing, the soul is anxious to experience that joy again. That memory of God and that ray of light which have assailed it in its appearance before God makes the soul “see” the true significance of the faults committed against its Good, and this “seeing” together with the thought that because of those faults it has voluntarily deprived itself of the possession of Heaven, and of union with God of years or centuries, constitutes is purgative affliction.

Love, and the certainty of having offended Love, is the torment of those being purged. The more a soul has been at fault in life, the more it is as if blinded by spiritual cataracts which make knowing, and reaching that perfect loving repentance which is the first factor of its purgation, and entry into the Kingdom of God more difficult for it. The more a soul has oppressed with with sin , the more love is weighed down and sluggish. As it is cleansed by the power of Love, its resurrection to love is accelerated and, consequently, its conquest of Love, which is completed at the moment when, with the end of expiation, and the reaching of the perfection of love it is admitted into the City of God.

(2 of 3)
 
It is necessary to pray a lot so that these souls, that suffer to reach Joy, may be swift in attaining the perfect love which absolves them and unites them to God. Our prayers and our acts of intercession are as many increases in loving fire. They increase the burning. But–oh, blessed torment!–they also increase the capacity for loving. They speed up the process for purgation. They raise the souls immersed in that fire higher and higher degrees. They carry them to the threshold of the Light. They open the gates to Light, finally, and introduce the soul into Heaven.

To each of these operations, provoked by our charity towards those who have preceded us into the second life, there corresponds a leap in charity for us. The charity of God, who thanks us for providing for His children in affliction, and the charity of the afflicted, who thank us for working to introduce them into the joy of God.

Never do your loved ones you love so much as after earthly death, for their love is now infused with the Light of God, and in this Light they understand how you love them, and how they should have loved you.

They can no longer say words to you that ask for forgiveness and provide love. But they say them to Jesus for us, and He takes us these words of our dead, who are now able to see and love us as they should. He takes them to us together with their request for love and their blessing. A blessing already valid from Purgatory on, for it is already infused with the inflamed Charity which burns and purifies them. Perfectly valid, later, from the moment when, freed, they come to meet us on the threshold of Life or rejoin us therein, if we have already preceded them into the Kingdom of Love.

(3 of 3)
 
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When you go to confession or Reconciliation you confess your sins when you say the prayer where you admit your sorrow for the sins you also add for these sins and all the sins of my past life. If you have forgotten specifics, God knows and He also knows you want to start over with a clean slate. When you say those words "for these sins and all the sins of my past life… " the priest gives you absolution. That means your sins up to that point are wiped away by the blood of Jesus. You do the penance the priest gives you and you try to sin no more… Trust in the MERCY of JESUS. HE does forgive sins and you can forgive yourself, too!
 
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Frankly, if I die and find myself in Purgatory I will be happy because it means I have been saved.
 
I want to be restored

Does absolution restore those whom I have hurt through my sinful actions?

Is not reparation the same as restoration?

You confess, you get absolved of your sin from God, do pennance, but then, there needs to be the repair of what was destroyed or affeected at least.
 
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