Questions of the Church

[Emly]

Hi, I am sorry, but there are some things I do not fully understand…

1. Since a nun becomes a bride of Christ, is that a metaphore to to repersent Christ and his bridegroom the Church?
2. Is it two different things to say someones venial sins are forgiving by God, as opposed to saying their “wiped away” in confession? Can confession releave some purgitory time, if we do not commit the sins anymore?
3. When it is said that the Body of Christ leaves the host before dijestion, does that mean the host is still in our body, as theh host is being broken down (not a biology person here)?
4. If someone says “100 day indulgence”, what does that mean?
5. And odd question but what’s the Church’s stance on hipnotizeing someone? I was just thinking about it…
6. Can someone get a devorse, and never marry again, and not commit a mortal sin?
7. My parants don’t believe me when I say we can’t eat met on fridays outside of lent, so they still have meat, so when I am abstaining from somthing else outside of lent, can I abstan from somthing other then food? I thought I read somewhere you can choose another food, but what if I gave up tv, and that is pretty hard?

8

 

[Pjs2ejs]

EMLY,

I’m not sure where you are going with all of these questions. They seem so diverse and scattered. To be honest, I do not have all of the answers. Your best bet would be to ask each to “Ask an Apologist”

I do know that no one is forced to marry. There is no sin there.

Only in lent are we obligated to abstain from meat on Fridays.

As far as hypnotizing, I would think that the church frowns on any activity which relinquishes someone’s will and/or power. But I would recommend talking to a priest about it.

The others are all legitimate questions which will have answers by apologists.

 

[mosher]

1. Yes, the nun is a type of the Church it is the mystical marriage just as there is a mystical marriage between Christ and His Church.

 

[mosher]

1. Yes, the nun is a type of the Church it is the mystical marriage just as there is a mystical marriage between Christ and His Church.
2. No there is no difference and yes Sacramental confession can wipe away some aspects the temporal punishment of sin provided one performs the requisite penance.
3. What is trying to be expressed is the idea that as the sacred species cease to have the accidents of bread and wine then the substance of Christ ceases to be “in” the host.
4. This is a human convention used to express the “amount” of temporal punishment has been remitted through the particular indulgence. Being that there is no time in heaven, hell or purgatory it is substantially meaningless but it helps us understand its effect on our soul.
5. There is no official stance just as long as the person is not being exploited.
6. No, because if it was a valid marriage then the act of having a divorce is a scandal against the institution of marriage.

7.On Fridays outside of Lent it is permissible in some jurisdictions to supplement the universal penance of abstinence with some other penance.

 

[JB]

Emly:

…6. Can someone get a devorse, and never marry again, and not commit a mortal sin?..

Yes, it is possible. A spouse who is being dangerously abused, for example, may obtain a civil divorce to protect herself or himself, to protect children, and/or to ensure a just distribution of marital property to ensure that the abused spouse is not impoverished by leaving his or her abuser. It is possible for a wronged spouse in such a situation to seek a divorce without commiting any sin at all, let alone a mortal sin. Such an ex-spouse who remains unmarried while her or his ex-partner is alive remains a Catholic in good standing even if this marriage is never brought before a Tribunal to consider whether grounds for a decree of nulity may exist.

 

[mosher]

JB.:

Yes, it is possible. A spouse who is being dangerously abused, for example, may obtain a civil divorce to protect herself or himself, to protect children, and/or to ensure a just distribution of marital property to ensure that the abused spouse is not impoverished by leaving his or her abuser. It is possible for a wronged spouse in such a situation to seek a divorce without commiting any sin at all, let alone a mortal sin. Such an ex-spouse who remains unmarried while her or his ex-partner is alive remains a Catholic in good standing even if this marriage is never brought before a Tribunal to consider whether grounds for a decree of nulity may exist.

You are correct, thank you for this further clarification.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Emly, good questions!

Mosher, good responses!

VC

(P.S. – Mosher and Emly. . . as I understand it the “100 Days Indulgence” didn’t actually refer to the “time” in purgatory, but rather to time on earth of doing penance. Thus an indulgence that granted 100 days, is really saying “100 days worth of penance” meaning it was equivalent to doing 100 days of pennance on earth.)

 

[mosher]

Verbum Caro:

(P.S. – Mosher and Emly. . . as I understand it the “100 Days Indulgence” didn’t actually refer to the “time” in purgatory, but rather to time on earth of doing penance. Thus an indulgence that granted 100 days, is really saying “100 days worth of penance” meaning it was equivalent to doing 100 days of pennance on earth.)

This is sort of true but is still extremely vague considering that not all penances are equal. No matter which way it is sliced it is not an adequate way to understand indulgences this is why in the current Handbook of Indulgences this terminology has been abandoned

 

[ComradeAndrei]

That is true as why the days or years time of Indulgence reckoning was abandoned and now are stated instead as plenary and partial.

However, that was the way it was understood. The “100 days indulgence” was understood to be worth 100 days of public penance. As the Church has control over the treasury of indulgences-it is by the Church’s call as what certain acts, prayers, etc. are worth in indulgence.

Now, what is 100 days worth of public penance or an indulgence of this ammount worth in the eyes of God? We don’t know, thus, getting back to why the Church just simplifies it and calls them either “partial” or “plenary”.

 

[Emly]

1. What is trying to be expressed is the idea that as the sacred species cease to have the accidents of bread and wine then the substance of Christ ceases to be “in” the host.QUOTE]

Thanks but this part I don’t understand…I’m a dumb person btw lol.

 

[mosher]

3. What is trying to be expressed is the idea that as the sacred species cease to have the accidents of bread and wine then the substance of Christ ceases to be “in” the host.QUOTE]

Thanks but this part I don’t understand…I’m a dumb person btw lol.

For the substance of Christ to be present in the Host it is necessary for the host to retain the accidents of bread and wine. Once it ceases to have the properties of bread and wine then it is no longer capable of sustaining the substance of Christ.

So what this all means is that once it does not look like bread and wine anymore it no longer is Christ present either. I hope that clarifies the issue for you. If not we can continue to discuss it.

 

[kleary]

Pjs2ejs:

EMLY,

Only in lent are we obligated to abstain from meat on Fridays.

Correction. In the United States we *MUST *either abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year or replace that abstainence with abstaining from something else or performing some work of charity.

It is a misnomer that the weekly Friday abstainence has been aboloshed.

Ken

 

[MariaG]

kleary:

Correction. In the United States we *MUST *either abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year or replace that abstainence with abstaining from something else or performing some work of charity.

It is a misnomer that the weekly Friday abstainence has been aboloshed.

Ken

This was found through ask the apologist here

from Catholic Culture

For these and related reasons, the Catholic bishops of the United States, far from downgrading the traditional penitential observance of Friday, and motivated precisely by the desire to give the spirit of penance greater vitality, especially on Fridays, the day that Jesus died, urge our Catholic people henceforth to be guided by the following norms:

1. Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year, a time when those who seek perfection will be mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind which they are called upon to help expiate in union with Christ Crucified;

1. Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday be freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ; 3. Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance which we especially commend to our people for the future observance of Friday, even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of abstinence as binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat. We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law.

 

[Sir_Knight]

4. This is a human convention used to express the “amount” of temporal punishment has been remitted through the particular indulgence. Being that there is no time in heaven, hell or purgatory it is substantially meaningless but it helps us understand its effect on our soul.

I respectfully disagree that time does not exist in Purgatory. We are told that at the end of time, Purgatory will cease to exist. Therefore, purgatory must exist within time and not outside of it.

 

[mosher]

Sir Knight:

I respectfully disagree that time does not exist in Purgatory. We are told that at the end of time, Purgatory will cease to exist. Therefore, purgatory must exist within time and not outside of it.

You are assuming that Purgatory is an actual place or location. This also gets into the question about the nature of time. If time is just a measure of motion then it is not possible for there to be time in purgatory as there is no physicality in purgatory.

 

[Sir_Knight]

I’m saying that Purgatory exists within time. Not outside ot it. As you correctly pointed out, since time is a measure of motion, there is no way to guage [sp] time for those IN purgatory (in the lives of the saints, the story is told of a monk complaining to his guardian angel of the several years that he had been in purgatory and the angel replied that he had been there for only one hour) but for those of us on earth, we can guage [sp] that “time”.

 

[Liberian]

7. My parants don’t believe me when I say we can’t eat met on fridays outside of lent, so they still have meat, so when I am abstaining from somthing else outside of lent, can I abstan from somthing other then food? I thought I read somewhere you can choose another food, but what if I gave up tv, and that is pretty hard?

Emily,

I don’t know how old you are or what your life situation is, but I would like to say from personal experience that giving up TV was probably the best thing I ever did in my life–short of making Jesus Lord of my life explicitly. The purpose of these disciplines is to make us better people and bring us closer to God, and giving up TV does both of these things. First of all, while there is a lot of good stuff on television, there is also a lot of dreadful stuff. Thirty years ago the head of the FCC denounced television as “a vast wasteland”–and that period is now touted as “Television’s Golden Age.” On top of this, television can be a great waste of time, time that can be better spent praying, thinking about God, or living a fulfilling life.

• Liberian