Never been consufe about Confession but now I am

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Well, I thought that when we confess our sins, that’s it. We are forgiven. God does not remember the offenses you’ve made against him right? Well I’ve been reading Threads about purgatory, and this is where am confuse. If am clean why am I still paying for my sins? Am a cradle catholic and this is the first time that doubt is coming into my mind. I’ve never doubt the teachings of the Church before. But is just not making sense. I’ve always thought of God as a forgiving and merciful God and he is One. But these teachings are not making him so. I thought purgatory was a place for extra cleansing to reach the promises of God in Heaven, but not a place to pay for your sins again with fire. Cleansing I understand but paying for your sins again no… help?
God Bless…
 
yes, our sins are forgiven but we still have to atone for them-Jesus died for all of us & paid the price for our redemption, but when we sin we have to make up for what we did wrong—like a kid who breaks a window—he has to replace the window (even though he has no money to pay for it)his parents pay for it & the neighbour is happy
that atonement has been—it is the same thing with sin–Jesus has paid the price but we have to give our few pennies to help make up for what we did wrong…did i thoroughly confuse you–didn’t mean to
 
I would add to post #2 that the purpose of Purgatory is to purge the last vestiges of sin from our soul. These represent, as was stated in that post, the remaining temporal punnishment for sins for which we have been forgiven as well as that sinfulness within us that is simply part of our lack of perfection. When the Catholic Church teaches that your sin is forgiven, it truly is because your sin, which would have barred you from heaven, is no longer counted against you. Remember that Purgatory is only for those who are going to heaven. It is for those who are just, but not perfectly so, because “no unclean thing can enter heaven.”
 
The way Purgatory has been explained to me it may have more to do with our fleshy desires than the guilt upon our souls. Our sins can be forgiven in this life and yes He does forget them in as much as He welcomes us back home to His side. We are forgiven and our “sins are as far as the east is from the west.” But, are we always interested in going back home? Do we not have hard hearts at least some of the time? Do we not we still desire to sin? Any time we look away from God and choose not His will, but our own, we are culpable or at least vulnerable. I don’t mean to say He can’t help with our hard-heartedness, but that doesn’t necessarily mean He (and we) will finish that work while we’re still walking this Earth.

Understand that when I say “nature” I’m referring to our “fallen” nature, not the nature God gave us. In other words, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. … God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” He created us and it was good, but it was as His children He created us to be. Can a little child survive without his parents or adult guardian? So there you have it, we turned from God and death entered the human experience, but God had a plan. Praise Him for His faithfulness!!

Christopher West, on JP II’s “Theology of the Body” explains it something like this. This is kind of my own paraphrase, except for the scripture verse. Jesus says, “You have heard the commandment not to commit adultery, but the problem is that you desire to commit adultery.” Jesus also tells us He didn’t come into the world to give use more laws, but to fulfill the law; to give us life in the spirit - as opposed to living by the flesh - so that we may not need the law, because we have no desire to break it. Christopher uses this example: You don’t need the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill" to keep you from killing your wife, because you have no desire to do so.

If you have no desire to sin at all, you are indeed a saint! But even they struggled with temptation and even they committed sin. Yes, we all know how difficult it is to let go of our worldly possessions and ideals, but why is it that we desire to sin? Because we were made to worship. The problem being, if we don’t worship God, we’ll find something else to worship - money, power, esteem, knowledge, sex, self, pop stars, science, the universe, etc, etc, etc…

It must be difficult to let go when Reality opens His arms to receive you into His eternal embrace. Those lesser gods get in the way of our seeing the Truth, but they all must die. When we see the “fullness” of Truth we have no desire to sin. I think it’s good to ask God to help others to see the Light of Truth, so that they may let go of their lesser gods and enter into His glory.
 
TCE, I’m familiar with the difficulty you’re experience in understanding and accepting the teachings of the Church. I too struggled with it and although I’ve learned to trust the teachings, I still get a little weak-kneed when I don’t understand something. It’s just my own foolish pride getting in the way. Please understand, I’m not making any implications about where you may be in your own faith, but just sharing what I’ve gone through myself. I apologize if the next post sounds like endless babbling.

I hope it helps in your efforts to know and trust the Church. Aslo understand, I’m not saying I got over all of that. I still struggle with idea of having simple faith, but I do believe that it too is a gift from God, so I pray that God may help me overcome my pride. I find that learning to trust His Holy Church is indeed a consoling endeavor.
 
Since we’re on the subject of desire to sin, as in turning away from God and choosing lesser gods, there’s a big one we all struggle with nowadays. God gives us so much, such as the gifts of the spirit, including wisdom and knowledge. He gives us these gifts and charisms to build up His Church and to glorify His Holy Name, but we often use them toward our own ends, to glorify ourselves. I think some people call this vain glory.

The gifts themselves are not meant to be gods, but this world lifts them up (wisdom and knowledge) as if they were gods. There are things that the Church teaches that I don’t fully understand, but through prayer and a little research on my part, God sometimes chooses to reveal the mysteries of His holy Church. No mater how much we study or contemplate the goodness of God, there will always be paradox in Christianity; our minds are just way to small to wrap themselves entirely (or even partially) around the concept of God. A good read on that subject is G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy”. I think I’m going to read it again.

A person could spend his whole life investigating this mater or that, but in vain effort draw none the closer to intimacy with God. Clever argumentation can always be countered with clever argumentation; the truth can be buried under the bright glitter of deceit. There is often an unfortunate tragedy to this end. If one cannot know truth by faith, nor by reason, can it be known all? If God has not given us a means to knowing the Spirit of Truth, then how can this world save itself? If a self proclaimed prophet tells you the spirit says “do this” and another tells you the spirit says “do that” you end up asking the spirit yourself, “which one is it that should I do?” You should ask yourself, is the spirit that speaks to you the spirit of truth? Are you your own final authority? What do wisdom and knowledge look like to you?

God is a loving Father and He has not only given us His word, but a means to infallibly interpret His word? Jesus says, “…thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The spirit reveals what God so chooses to be known; “…when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall show you.”

Ultimately, I think God want’s our humility. I said this before and I’ll say it again. The world insists upon seeing in order to believe. We always want to see with our mind’s eye; if we can’t rationalize it, we refuse to accept it. But Jesus says, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” When we insist on always understanding, we must ask ourselves, is it really Him that we are seeing? If not, then what are we believing in?
 
There is a great example in the OT of forgiveness of sin followed by punishment.

2 Sam 12:13-18 tells us,

*David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.” Then Nathan went to his house. And the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became sick. David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in and lay all night upon the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground; but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. On the seventh day the child died.
*
There is punishment for Sin even after the sin has been forgiven

Sins are great wounds that require healing and detachment. Purgatory and temporal punishments during our life on earth remove the final attachments to sin. Confession brings forgiveness and we are made to do a small penance to help heal the wound and to avoid sinning in the future. God the Father is disciplining his adopted sons and daughters.

Purgatory is simply our final sanctification.
 
Thank you very much for all the replies. You have given me food for thought! And no, I don’t think I am confuse:o
 
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