im confused

[hi_im_catholic]

i was wondering where people went before Jesus died since the gates of Heaven weren’t open yet…i think i learned that they went to limbo but now im not sure. So did the souls go to limbo or hell before Jesus opened the gates of heaven???

 

[CARose]

It’s either gehena or shaol, I don’t remember which. It is the place for the dead, before the gates of heaven were opened by Christ. I think it’s kind of like purgatory, except even after purging the attachment to sin, one couldn’t move into heaven as the gates had not yet been opened.

It was here to which Christ descended after his crucifixion, and he brought forward those who were deserving of salvation, according to their particular judgement.

I tried looking this up in the CCC, but couldn’t find it. Perhaps someone else has a better answer for you.

CARose

 

[hi_im_catholic]

CARose:

It’s either gehena or shaol, I don’t remember which. It is the place for the dead, before the gates of heaven were opened by Christ. I think it’s kind of like purgatory, except even after purging the attachment to sin, one couldn’t move into heaven as the gates had not yet been opened.

It was here to which Christ descended after his crucifixion, and he brought forward those who were deserving of salvation, according to their particular judgement.

I tried looking this up in the CCC, but couldn’t find it. Perhaps someone else has a better answer for you.

CARose

Thank you very much

 

[Todd_Easton]

Before Christ, the abode of the dead (the hell mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed: He descended into hell…) was divided into two parts: one part was where the spirits of the unjust experienced a fiery torment and the another part was where the spirits of the just went to experience comfort. The comfortable part where the spirits of the just went Jesus called Abraham’s bosom. (Luke 16:22-26). St. Peter called the comfortable part where the spirits of the just went a prison. (1 Peter 3:18-19) When Jesus died, He went to this prison to proclaim the Good News to the spirits of the just, to free them, and lead them all to heaven. The comfortable part where the spirits of the just went has sometimes been called the Limbo of the Fathers in Christian tradition. (This is a different Limbo from the Limbo where theologians once speculated that unbaptized infants who died went.) When Jesus led all the spirits of the just to heaven, Abraham’s bosom or the Limbo of the Fathers or the prison became obsolete.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions some of this:
633. Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.