Is there hope for me even though I am not Roman Catholic?

[natsclem]

Scary isn’t it. I promise you there are more Catholics like “George” who believe just like I did when I was in Catholic church.

Imagine, if I was not whatisthetruth but “George’s” brother who has been exposed to the Catholic faith, but refuses to be Catholic and now is “Protestant”.

Can you imagine the internal family struggle knowing and believing in your that your loved one is lost for eternity unless they return to the Catholic church.?

Since George knows his brother is eternally separated from God because he left the Catholic church, every time he encourages his brother to come back, his brother responds I am not coming back.

George says, “I love you brother and you are in my prayers”
His brother responds,
"thank you. My church believes in assurance of salvation, which apparently you do not believe God gives you. You are in my prayers that you will trust God in your own salvation.

I promise you the above scenario is happening all over the world.
maybe even in this community.

I say that because, if I were Catholic and God only knows if I would still be believing my brother is destined for hell if he DID NOT come back to the Catholic Church.

You see, I do have a brother who not only left the Catholic church he was exposed to, but left God entirely. He is lost

I am hoping and praying he returns to **any church **who worships Jesus Christ. After reading that, I promise you there are Catholic who will believe, and if my brother does not return to the Catholic Church he still is lost for eternity.

You may believe what you want to believe. But in the end, it is between you, your conscience, and God. I just hope that before you die, God in His Mercy, send you an angel to instruct you of the true Faith and, that by His grace, you be able to accept it with genuine repentance.

Please take this advice, when you will feel you will be dying soon…do not wait for an angel to come…ask for a priest, a Catholic priest, for the last sacrament.

The time for mercy is now, while you are still alive. The time for justice is tomorrow, after your last breath.

While it is still the time for mercy, do not rest; do not be comfortable; as Apostle Paul will say it, “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).”

 

[AquinasT]

truth,

The scenario you gave of living in the mountains and dying before you were baptized is a good example to work from. But again there would not be a %100 assurance of salvation. (I would however disagree with anyone that says you would be %100 assured of hell.) I would say that you probably had a baptism of desire. In other words, you WOULD have gotten baptized if you had been properly catechized and had been given the opportunity to receive the Sacrament, but you simply may not have ever had that chance. However it would be utterly impossible to say that you would go to heaven based on our limited knowledge of such things here on earth. We are given HOPE in our personal salvation but not definite knowledge.

We ARE %100 sure that what Jesus did on the cross accomplished exactly what He set out to do, which is redeem fallen humanity. Whether we as individuals decide to accept the salvation offered by Christ’s death is a more complex issue. The Body of Christ (the Church) has definitely been saved, of that I am %100 sure. That is to say, Christ’s death offers salvation and we accept that salvation by incorporation into His Body. On earth we do this specifically by being baptized into the Church - born again into His Body. As individuals that alone is not a %100 assurance, since we can loose salvation through mortal sin. Only the whole Body is %100 assured of salvation, but the question is whether you have cut yourself off from the Body.

That does not mean that all are lost who do not visibly join the Body. Any person who does not join Christ’s Body on earth is not entirely outside the reach of God (there is the possibility of baptism of desire for instance, and God’s Mercy is not bound by the Church), but it certainly makes matters more difficult if someone remains visibly cut of from Christ’s Mystical Body. The person in your scenario seemed to be a virtuous person who desired salvation from Christ, but without a visible connection to Christ’s Body on earth it would be impossible to say that you will then be united to His Body in heaven. There is no salvation outside of the Church, there is no salvation apart from Christ’s Body, there is simply the question of how a person can attain membership in that Body without receiving the physical Sacraments. It makes salvation all the more uncertain.

Your concept of salvation as a personal, one-to-one, “me-and-Jesus” experience is incomplete. Salvation is as much “communal” as it is “personal.” We are saved through communion with Christ and His Church (His Body). We are saved by faith, but it is a faith we receive from OTHERS, passed on through generations. And to save us it must be a faith lived out in works done for OTHERS. There is most definitely a social aspect to salvation. The Church was specifically established as the communion of saints on earth for that very reason.

When you say that you have %100 assurance of salvation you set yourself up as a “locus” for salvation. That is, you put yourself on display as the very example of Christian salvation - %100 complete - “Follow me; do as I do, listen to what I say, and you too will be saved.” That is the great error of this %100 assurance myth. It inflates the individual. You are %100 assured all by yourself. If you instead see the %100 assurance as being located in the larger Body of Christ - the Church - then the individual is no longer the center, the Church becomes the locus of salvation. “Follow the Church; do as Christ’s Body does; listen to what she says, and you too will be saved.” Christ died to save the whole Body and that is %100 assured. THAT is the locus of our assurance. Our individual assurance hinges on our relationship to Christ through His Body. And that relationship can change with our own sinfulness. Christ’s work on the cross remains %100 effective. It is us who fail and cut ourselves off.

You will never find agreement from Catholics on this issue of %100 assurance of salvation unless you remove the emphasis on one’s self and seek out the Body of Christ.

Thomas

 

[Claudius]

Background info: Heaven is the place where everyone has to follow the rules, the rules laid out by God.

Hell is the place where there are no rules so deamons get to run around hurting humans at pleasure and nothing can stop them.

Show God that you are willing to follow the rules and I bet there is a good chance of getting invited to go to heaven. Show God that you want to follow your own rules and not His and you don’t get invited into Heaven.

You have not provided enough information about this thief you describe. We don’t know if he really wants to follow the rules and would actually do so if given the chance so it is impossible for us to answer. God however would know, just as God know about all the means of salvation where as we humans only know about what God reveals to us.

I will say this, if the theif in jail is going to die but he had decided to follow the rules then perhaps God would spare his life. The thief then by the grace of God would wake up the next morning still alive and being released from prison. What would the thief do, would he follow the rules and become Catholic and do and believe all the Jesus taught us or would he again go and do his own thing and not care about the teachings of Jesus? Those are the two choices. One leads to Heaven the other to the place where you can do whatever you want but the bad guys can also do whatever they want to you.