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Glutted
Guest
What does the Catholic Church teach about God giving punishemtns to living people for their sins?
Perhaps we strive all our lives to pray as Jesus taught, to pray that God’s will be done, not ours and perhaps our striving only finds its fulfillment when we surrender to God at the moment of death. Saints might be able to surrender completely to God’s will, but even for them I think there still remains something held back…until that encounter with God.
All of this, however, should remind you that God does not punish us. If we don’t get something we pray for–even if it is something good like peace in the world–it is not that God does not hear us, or is mad at us, or isn’t listenening to our prayers for one reason or another–No, it is because our prayer should always include, “Your will be done.” We don’t know why Jesus had to suffer and die on the Cross so as to provide means of salvation to all men and women but we simply have to trust in God that he chose the way necessaery for that salvation. If we knew the reason for all unanswered questions we have or the world has, we would no longer be human but rather divine. Perhaps that was the temptation in the Garden of Eden–to know everything with the eyes of God. We are invited instead to TRUST in God, to let him decide what is for our good.