[snip]
You aped other’s opinions. I quoted patristics.
And I re-posted the patristics.
Excuse me?? Aped other’s opinions? like Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid, Jimmy Akin, Benedict XVI, … etc. I think that’s pretty good company
mickey:
Wow! Unbelievable! I usually have some respect for Hahn’s views but he is way off here. He actually pities the rich man and says that he is showing compassion. That is totally against every patristic interpretation I have ever read! I am shocked. Good thing he is not the Pope, eh? I must now re-think everything I’ve read by Scott Hahn. What a shame! Thank you for that link. It is eye-opening!
Again, unbelievable. No wonder you have been misled! This site is also saying that the rich man had compassion. That is against all patristic interpretations.
No. The rich man is in hell and Lazarus was lifted by angels to the Bosom of Abraham–heaven.
keep reading
:
Originally Posted by
steve b forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cad/viewpost.gif
But Benedict makes it clear, the parable is NOT the final judgement on the rich man.
mickey:
That’s not how I read it.
the pope is very clear. How could you miss it?
From Spe Salvi
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (cf.* Lk* 16:19-31), Jesus admonishes us through the image of a soul destroyed by arrogance and opulence, who has created an impassable chasm between himself and the poor man; the chasm of being trapped within material pleasures; the chasm of forgetting the other, of incapacity to love, which then becomes a burning and unquenchable thirst. We must note that in this parable Jesus is not referring to the final destiny after the Last Judgement, but is taking up a notion found,* inter alia*, in early Judaism, namely that of an intermediate state between death and resurrection, a state in which the final sentence is yet to be pronounced.
45. This early Jewish idea of an intermediate state includes the view that these souls are not simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable ofthe rich man illustrates, are already being punished or are experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea that this state can involve purification and healing which mature the soul for communion with God. The early Church took up these concepts, and in the Western Church they gradually developed into the doctrine of Purgatory. We do not need to examine here the complex historical paths of this development; it is enough to ask what it actually means. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word* Hell*
37]. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are
38].
46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his
First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God’s judgement according to each person’s particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (*1 Cor *3:12-15).
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