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SAVINGRACE
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WOW! I like this explanation. Clear and easy to understand. Is it okay with you if I use it?
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SAVINGRACE
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Thorolfr
Guest
I second that answer!
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SAVINGRACE
Guest
If I lie today and get run over by a bus tomorrow without attending Confession am I clean enough to enter Heaven?
What if I haven’t been to Confession for a week or a month and get run over by a truck?
What are sins, but bad or wicked works (see Mt 7:21-23, Jn 8:40, Gal 5:19-21)? If these works do not represent sins and imperfections, why would they need to be eliminated?
It is impossible for a sin to be cleansed apart from the human being who performed it. We are, in a certain sense, what we do when it comes to our moral choices. There is no such thing as a sin floating around somewhere detached from a human being that could be cleansed apart from that human being.
What if I haven’t been to Confession for a week or a month and get run over by a truck?
What are sins, but bad or wicked works (see Mt 7:21-23, Jn 8:40, Gal 5:19-21)? If these works do not represent sins and imperfections, why would they need to be eliminated?
It is impossible for a sin to be cleansed apart from the human being who performed it. We are, in a certain sense, what we do when it comes to our moral choices. There is no such thing as a sin floating around somewhere detached from a human being that could be cleansed apart from that human being.
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Vanez
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We’ll all be sleeping in Christ.
No matter if purgatory exists or not…
i’m thinking of: be Catholic, or Orthodox, have both Catholic and Orthodox friends, they will still pray for you after you died. Be Protestant, have Protestant friends, they are friendly and such, but after you died, no one prays for you
I’d say, whether you believe it or not, if it does exist, when you died and see/know that your Protestant friends don’t pray for you, wouldn’t you be screaming,“pray for me! Pray for me, pls! Helpppppp!” — which is heard by no one
:byzsoc:
No matter if purgatory exists or not…
i’m thinking of: be Catholic, or Orthodox, have both Catholic and Orthodox friends, they will still pray for you after you died. Be Protestant, have Protestant friends, they are friendly and such, but after you died, no one prays for you
I’d say, whether you believe it or not, if it does exist, when you died and see/know that your Protestant friends don’t pray for you, wouldn’t you be screaming,“pray for me! Pray for me, pls! Helpppppp!” — which is heard by no one
:byzsoc:
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Kmon23
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We may believe in the prayers of the dead, but Orthodox pretty adamantly believe otherwise regarding purgatory. They would say prayers for the dead =/= purgatory, hence why many Orthodox reject this doctrine.
Also there is the eastern Catholic belief of “final theosis” which seems to be a Latin teaching of purgatory meshed with Theosis, something Orthodox also reject as far as my knowledge goes.
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Tommy999
Guest
Hi SAVINGRACE,
I have a question that I hope you or another Catholic can clarify for me on the scenario you listed.
In the scenario listed above, what happens if you confessed your sins directly to God in a contrite manner soon after you sinned (or the next morning when you woke up) with the intention of going to Confession later in the day or week but get run over by a truck in the meantime?
Were your sins forgiven because you confessed them contritely to God on your own or were they not forgiven because you hadn’t made it to Confession yet to be absolved by a priest? Are you doomed to hell because you had un-confessed mortal sin that hadn’t been absolved by a Catholic priest when you died, or would it be Purgatory?
Let’s say the sin you were going to confess was getting drunk at a New Year’s Eve party, which I think is a mortal sin, although I’m not totally sure. Let’s say New Year’s Day was on a Thursday, you woke on Thursday and confessed to God and you intended to go to Confession two days later at the prescribed time for your parish (that coming Saturday) when the unfortunate accident takes place where you get run over by a truck.
I guess what I’m trying to figure out is what is more important – being contrite and approaching God through repentance or the act of being absolved by a priest. I realize that for Catholics the two go hand-in-hand and the sacrament of Confession is the right way to handle this situation and the scenario I mentioned regarding the accident is very unlikely (thank God), but it helps me understand the Catholic position on Confession and Purgatory a little better.
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Reuben_J
Guest
Yes, you shall go to heaven. We call that special circumstance. Similarly the good thief at the cross. The circumstance is similar to Baptism of desire.
Getting drunk is not a sin. lol. It is what you do when drunk that can get you to sin.
The Sacraments are what you receive and do in living the Christian life.
Good questions though.
Have a blessed day.
Reuben.
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Reuben_J
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SyroMalankara
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I’m not aware of any mesh with the scholastic medieval view of purgatory, only that it can be seen as compatible.
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Techno2000
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ChibiViolet
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I just found the answers to my questions and since others have had the same questions I did, here they are; I got them from an Orthodox website:
“The term Original Sin (or first sin) is used among all Christian churches to define the doctrine surrounding Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, in which Adam is identified as the man whom through death came into the world. How this is interpreted is believed by many Orthodox to be a fundamental difference between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western Churches. In contrast, modern Roman Catholic theologians would claim that the basic anthropology is actually almost identical, and that the difference is only in the explanation of what happened in the Fall. In the Orthodox Church the term ancestral sin (Gr. προπατορικό αμάρτημα) is preferred and is used to define the doctrine of man’s “inclination towards sin, a heritage from the sin of our progenitors” and that this is removed through baptism. St. Gregory Palamas taught that man’s image was tarnished, disfigured, as a consequence of Adam’s disobedience.”
“The Orthodox Church has neither explicitly recognized the term ‘purgatory’ nor officially accepted such a state…”
“That said, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Kallistos Ware acknowledges several schools of thought among the Orthodox on the topic of purification after death. This divergence indicates that the Catholic interpretation of purgatory, more than the concept itself, is what is universally rejected. Also, there are Orthodox sources that indicate some sins can be forgiven after death[4];(Mt 12:32) but which also reject the notion of purgatory because of the indulgences and idea of purgatorial fire that are tied to it.
Some Eastern Orthodox sources, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate, consider Purgatory to be among “inter-correlated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church” that are not acceptable within Orthodox doctrine,[5] and hold to a “condition of waiting”[6] as a more apt description of the period after death for those not borne directly to heaven. This waiting condition does not imply purification, which they see as being linked to the idea “there is no hope of repentance or betterment after death.” Prayers for the dead, then, are simply to comfort those in the waiting place.
Other Orthodox believe in the “toll gate” theory by which the dead go to successive “toll gates” where they meet up with demons who test them to determine whether they have been guilty of various sins during life and/or tempt them to further sin.[7] If they have not repented and been absolved of those sins, or if they give in to sin after death, they will be taken to Hell.”
“The term Original Sin (or first sin) is used among all Christian churches to define the doctrine surrounding Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, in which Adam is identified as the man whom through death came into the world. How this is interpreted is believed by many Orthodox to be a fundamental difference between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western Churches. In contrast, modern Roman Catholic theologians would claim that the basic anthropology is actually almost identical, and that the difference is only in the explanation of what happened in the Fall. In the Orthodox Church the term ancestral sin (Gr. προπατορικό αμάρτημα) is preferred and is used to define the doctrine of man’s “inclination towards sin, a heritage from the sin of our progenitors” and that this is removed through baptism. St. Gregory Palamas taught that man’s image was tarnished, disfigured, as a consequence of Adam’s disobedience.”
“The Orthodox Church has neither explicitly recognized the term ‘purgatory’ nor officially accepted such a state…”
“That said, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Kallistos Ware acknowledges several schools of thought among the Orthodox on the topic of purification after death. This divergence indicates that the Catholic interpretation of purgatory, more than the concept itself, is what is universally rejected. Also, there are Orthodox sources that indicate some sins can be forgiven after death[4];(Mt 12:32) but which also reject the notion of purgatory because of the indulgences and idea of purgatorial fire that are tied to it.
Some Eastern Orthodox sources, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate, consider Purgatory to be among “inter-correlated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church” that are not acceptable within Orthodox doctrine,[5] and hold to a “condition of waiting”[6] as a more apt description of the period after death for those not borne directly to heaven. This waiting condition does not imply purification, which they see as being linked to the idea “there is no hope of repentance or betterment after death.” Prayers for the dead, then, are simply to comfort those in the waiting place.
Other Orthodox believe in the “toll gate” theory by which the dead go to successive “toll gates” where they meet up with demons who test them to determine whether they have been guilty of various sins during life and/or tempt them to further sin.[7] If they have not repented and been absolved of those sins, or if they give in to sin after death, they will be taken to Hell.”
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ChibiViolet
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Deliberately getting drunk is of grave matter.
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Reuben_J
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Yes, if deliberated.
Not, if one has one drink too many, in being courteous following local social etiquette, and rest if being intoxicated. Just like we can forgo fasting in respecting of our host’s dinner. There are some priests who cannot hold their Eucharistic wine and become tipsy at mass, while some in rare cases unfortunately have gone alcoholic as a result of prolonged exposure to intoxicated wine.
I admit though, there is a thin line separating the two.
Thanks, btw, for the information on Orthodox’s view on purgatory.
Reuben
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spedteacherita
Guest
Thanks, Reuben. I appreciate how you answered! I know you all confess your sins and the sacraments are a beautiful and tangible gift given to us helping us in our daily walk with Jesus. I definitely would rather experience the Sacraments rather than bathe in a muddy river but if Jesus told me to do it I would!!
In Christ,
Rita
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Reuben_J
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spedteacherita
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Preachy is fine to me…God uses many ways and people to speak to us…sometimes I get up on my pulpit, too.Thanks. I hope you do not mind if I did sound a bit preachy.
God bless.
Reuben
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spedteacherita
Guest
That’s why I don’t put my trust in the people around me. My trust is solely in Christ and His atoning death on the Cross.We’ll all be sleeping in Christ.
No matter if purgatory exists or not…
i’m thinking of: be Catholic, or Orthodox, have both Catholic and Orthodox friends, they will still pray for you after you died. Be Protestant, have Protestant friends, they are friendly and such, but after you died, no one prays for you
I’d say, whether you believe it or not, if it does exist, when you died and see/know that your Protestant friends don’t pray for you, wouldn’t you be screaming,“pray for me! Pray for me, pls! Helpppppp!” — which is heard by no one
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Hockeygurl
Guest
There are some really neat perspectives here. I would like to maybe put a spin on things, why I or others might have “issues” with this topic.
After a relative of mine died, I had mentioned something about him hopefully being in heaven and was accosted by this woman who insisted that he was still in purgatory. How would SHE know this?
The problem is that some people take the idea and run with all sorts of crazy ideas that might have been mentioned by a saint or a pope and declare it to be fact.
We don’t know if purgatory is a place or just a process, we don’t even know if it exists as Time. I can accept that a cleansing will happen, but how or where or how long, no one knows. It could be instantaneous along with us getting our glorified bodies for all we know… so please…people that act with the above actions and words do NOTHING to promote the Catholic faith, they just get used as examples of “crazy” Catholic beliefs. And do make people like me very wary of anyone in the religion.
Oh, and at my Grandfathers funeral, we DID pray for him…so I don’t know where the idea that protestants don’t pray for dead people came from.
After a relative of mine died, I had mentioned something about him hopefully being in heaven and was accosted by this woman who insisted that he was still in purgatory. How would SHE know this?
The problem is that some people take the idea and run with all sorts of crazy ideas that might have been mentioned by a saint or a pope and declare it to be fact.
We don’t know if purgatory is a place or just a process, we don’t even know if it exists as Time. I can accept that a cleansing will happen, but how or where or how long, no one knows. It could be instantaneous along with us getting our glorified bodies for all we know… so please…people that act with the above actions and words do NOTHING to promote the Catholic faith, they just get used as examples of “crazy” Catholic beliefs. And do make people like me very wary of anyone in the religion.
Oh, and at my Grandfathers funeral, we DID pray for him…so I don’t know where the idea that protestants don’t pray for dead people came from.
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Denise1957
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What is your understanding about why we should avoid sin? I’m not sure I understand the Lutheran reasons for avoiding sin in the first place.
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