Guess Ralphy has a question. How do Roman catholics get to heaven. Ralph
Well Ralph, this question tells more than it asks. Well informed and well catechised Catholics know that we should not think of heaven as if was a cracker-jack prize to be won. That’s not what heaven is all about at all and that kind of attitude will work against us and conspire to keep us out of heaven. The focus needs to be on searching deep within one’s soul through daily prayer and by God’s grace received by going to mass and using the sacraments and by reading and pondering scripture and contemplating God’s works so we can come into a love relationship with God. This is what its all about Ralphy. If we don’t know God in His 3 persons and have a relationship with Him before we die - we missed out and never knew God and will not enter into eternal beatitude with Him.
So you see my friend we have a limited time in this life to come to know, love and serve God and become His friend and let Him transform our nature from primitive fallen human beings into higher ordered divine-human beings in the image of Christ Himself. This is the form of spiritual life that is able to pass from this material life into the eternal abode to be with God. It’s all about love Ralph – its not about “salvation phrases” and “raptures” and salvation-formulas and super-rigid rules and “being saved” and all this nonsence. It’s all about loving God and entering into a relationship with Him and The Catholic Church knows how best to do that. But as far as rules and dogmas go - these are what do empower us to have the highest freedom in our relationship with God. In other words - we need to know how not to get in trouble since we humans are given amazing liberties and freedoms - so much so that we can lose our relationship if we are foolish. If one reads their bible they will see that there are a long list of things we must do to “be perfect” and to follow Christ. But God wants us to be perfect and not everyone will be perfect - some will some won’t. But God calls us all to be all we can be. Thus the Church has taught the surest and safest path to let us attain our highest spiritual growth.
Here are the minimums we need to do Ralph to enter into an eternal relationship with God.
We need to love God above all else in every way our talents let us express that (thought, word, deed & actions) because to much that is given much is expected.
We need to love our neighbor as ourselves and be fair and just and forgive each other.
We need to accept Jesus as the Son of God and be baptised in Him.
We need to pray daily with quality time. And we should feel a desire to want to do good things for God and our neighbor - not so we can “earn” our way into heaven but because when somone loves somone we should need to want to express that affection. God gave us life and that is reason enough to give our life back to God and let Him make us all that we can be.
We need to worship with The Church as a community of One Faith and One Baptism and One God since it is not good for man to be alone (we are social creatures) and we are all somehow mystically linked together as brothers and sisters (as if in the same spiritual womb struggling to emerge). We are asked to worship together and help each other just as we would if we were all family - because we are.
We need to show mercy to all - even our enemies because God has shown us Mercy in permitting us to make ourselves right with God by way of Christ’s atonement.
We must repent of all our grave sins committed after we dedicate ourselves to God since these rupture our souls and we are literally “disgraced” and grace is the only thing we carry into the next life without it we die. We must also seek forgivness of these sins and the surest way to do that is to get absolved of our sins by an apostolic priest who has the authority to forgive sins in Jesus’ name - Christ works through the priest. If we do not go through an apostolic priest then we might be forgiven if we can fully repent and show absolutely sure sorrow for offending God - but to gain this we must be sorry for offending God and not just for fear of going to hell. This is called perfect contrition and only God can give the grace to do this. Thus sacramental confession is so very important.
We must eat of the body and blood of Christ as commanded. God has His reasons for giving us this precious gift. For one thing is demonstrates who is in communion with His Church and gives every person an opportunity to reflect if they are worthy to receive and if not - to abstain and go to confession. It is also a source of incredible grace that God gives us each time we receive in proportion to our own inner preparation and disposition.
I mentioned that we must be charitable - but especially to the poor, downtrodden, widows and the lowest of the low in our society who are in desperate need of all help we can give.
We must press ourselves to grow in grace and knowledge and especially seek to carry the hardships and burdens God gives us joyfully - our own personal crosses. We should offer every suffrage we are given to God as if a prayer since Jesus carried his pain and suffering all the way up the hill of Calvary.
We must also TRUST God - Trust in His Love and Trust in His Mercy - and not be worried to the point where wory becomes a kind of self-worship.
These are the basics Ralph. If one does these thing through Love (not through an attitude of reward) then they will be on the fast-path to sainthood and be able to be in a very high quality love relationship with God. These are the one’s who God will pull into His love on their deaths - and that is enough reward itself.
James
