Me in Heaven, my mother in eternal hell

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MaximilianK

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I don’t understand how I can be happy in heaven for all eternity, if my mother or my brother is in the most terrible delusion, full of passions and sins and with all pulsation of sins unfulfilled in hell for all eternity… How is this possible

But For you, what are you thinking? Is forgetting a solution? Or a legalistic God?
 
MaximilianK said:
I don’t understand how I can be happy in heaven for all eternity, if my mother or my brother is in the most terrible delusion, full of passions and sins and with all pulsation of sins unfulfilled in hell for all eternity… How is this possible

But For you, what are you thinking? Is forgetting a solution? Or a legalistic God?
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Would you want to forget?
 
MaximilianK said:
I don’t understand how I can be happy in heaven for all eternity, if my mother or my brother is in the most terrible delusion, full of passions and sins and with all pulsation of sins unfulfilled in hell for all eternity… How is this possible
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This probably won’t really help you now, but my understanding is that the Church teaches that you will understand when it actually happens. Not forget, but understand and believe that it really is just.
 
This is exactly what led to people making up things like eternal marriage( Mormons) and no hell(Jehovah’s Witnesses) when Christ explicitly condemns the notion.
It is falling into the trap of viewing the afterlife in a sense that we can perceive. It’s basically playing God which is the worst blasphemy.
The truth is in heaven we can see our family sure but remember it isn’t the same.The entire human race is our family in heaven. God gives us marriage and family here on earth to give us a taste of the love that will be experienced in heaven. But in reality the euphoria of heaven is to much for us to even comprehend. Simple answer is, we aren’t capable of understanding it because our minds only can relate to love here on earth.
 
Common answer is that:" you will be happy because you will forget about your mother."
 
As the Catechism says, at the end “We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end.” (CCC 1040).

We will understand how their sufferings are just and appropriate, etc. and in accordance with God’s perfect will.

In the Summa, St. Thomas discusses the following, relevant questions here:

Do the saints see the sufferings of the damned?
Do they pity them?
Do they rejoice in their sufferings?

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5094.htm
 
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MaximilianK said:
Common answer is that:" you will be happy because you will forget about your mother."
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It’s a common answer to a question I didn’t ask. Which was: Would you WANT to forget.
 
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As we have no way to know who is in hell, I would advise the OP to pray for the souls of his deceased family members. There is no way he/she will know the eternal destination of these people until he/she themself enters eternity.
 
Pray for the dead and never assume anyone is in Hell.

However, to answer your question, you really have to look examine it closely. Can you be happy without your mother and brother? I know the quick, gut reaction is to say no, we couldn’t, but let’s examine that.

What is the source of our happiness?

Is it our mother? Is it our brothers or sisters? No.

Our source of happiness is God. We were literally created to spend eternity with Him. That is why we exist. Now, the presence of our mother and brother may make that eternity with God even better, but the fact of the matter is that if we make it to Heaven we will be enjoying the very meaning of our existence. There is no way not to be happy doing that.

What’s more. After the second coming and the general judgment (if not before), we will know and understand the why of each person’s damnation, and we will understand that they chose to be there. We will pity them in so far as we are able to, but in the end it won’t prevent us from embracing God and enjoying the joy of forever with Him.

That’s if we make it, of course. Let’s also not presume our own salvation.
 
This is not the common answer as far as I know. I believe the common answer is that we will see and appreciate God’s perfect justice for what it is.
 
In the end we have to trust God’s mercy. I believe there are a lot fewer people in hell than most believe on CAF.
 
This is what you do.
Pray and intercede for them every day.
Draw closer to God, who is the highest good (remembering we shall have no other gods beside Him).
Be a good example to them in word and deed.
Keep in mind that He loves them way more than you ever could.

And turn it over to God, have peace and be joyful.

❤️:pray:t2:🙂
 
MaximilianK said:
I don’t understand how I can be happy in heaven for all eternity, if my mother or my brother is in the most terrible delusion, full of passions and sins and with all pulsation of sins unfulfilled in hell for all eternity… How is this possible
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I have always wondered, and I cannot prove this, whether part of our purification in purgatory will be to see all things as God sees them, and that we will come to be perfectly satisfied that God’s justice means some will be in hell, even if that includes some of our loved ones in this life.

That would indeed be a bitter pill to swallow, but we can’t say that it doesn’t happen that way. Perhaps that is part of the idea that the least pain in purgatory will be greater than the greatest pain we could suffer in this life. That, too, is only a pious belief, not necessarily the teaching of the Church. We don’t know much more about purgatory than the fact that it exists.
 
All I can tell you is that God loves you and your mother so much. I miss my mother a lot and hope her very strong Christian faith, trust In God and selfless life means I will see her in heaven. Now just need to work on me !!
 
One thing you can do is pray that your mother and brother were granted final repentance before their death. God is outside of time. All things are possible with Him.
 
What I have heard is that once you are in heaven you will understand God’s divine justice in such a situation and accept it completely. Here on earth like many of us you have to deal with sentimentality and emotion. When you attain Heaven you will be in perfect agreement with God. No exceptions. I think it is St. Thomas that talks about this.
 
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MaximilianK said:
How is this possible
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Being in Heaven and having possession of God for all eternity will absolutely blow us away. It would be (although a very poor comparison) like plunging into an infinite ocean of pure joy, love and happiness. We will understand that everything else besides God is meaningless, even our own family members.

If other family members are condemned we will understand they are there because of their own fault and because they wanted to be there. It would be the same as when somebody wins millions of dollars and suddenly their parents arrive, initially the joy is so great nothing else matter.

However since God is the ultimate and eternal good we can possess our joy would be unimaginable.
 
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