So easy to sin mortally

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PatK63 said:
Jesus is the gate and the way. This translation is different than the one sited earlier. My hope is remembering the good thief when Jesus told him, this day you will be with me in paradise. It was not difficult for him IMO.
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The “good thief” (Dismas) , while on the cross himself and in horrible agony, in the few words that he spoke, that we have, actually speaks volumes in those few words.
  1. He recognized he’s guilty and deserved to be there, while Jesus is not guilty of anything
  2. He defended Jesus to the other thief when the other thief challenged Jesus
  3. He recognized Jesus as God
  4. He asked Jesus for mercy
All while in agony himself, had the presence of mind to give that incredible example. A whole theology course in a few words
 
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I disagree! More in another note.
I misspoke nothing here to disagree with.
 
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@steve-b. @MiserereMeiDei

This morning I went to a bible study to discuss the readings for next Sunday’s mass led by two deacons. The readings IS 66:18-21 and LK 13:22-30. The text is taken from the website of the US Catholic Bishops Conference. Not sure which translation of the Bible they use but it has different words than what Steve-b quoted!

The Catholic method of understanding scripture is to take the Bible as a whole not look a one verse. In Isaiah is says, Thus says the Lord: I know their works and their thoughts, and I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory…They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations as an offering to the Lord,…

In Luke Jesus was asked: will only a few be saved? Jesus did not answer that question! Jesus did say many would not be strong enough to enter the narrow gate.

Our discussion was about hope which is a theological virtue given by God. Later in Luke: And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.

Yes there are lots of people committing sins of grave matter but they know not what they do!
It is difficult to separate yourself from God’s love! It is not easy to commit mortal sins! The mind and the will have to be fully engaged. Please stop judging others. They may be doing very bad things but because of ignorance and lack of Will they have not cut themselves off from God. Of course we who know better will be held to a higher standard!
God has given me the gift of hope!
 
PatK63 said:
@steve-b. @MiserereMeiDei

This morning I went to a bible study to discuss the readings for next Sunday’s mass led by two deacons. The readings IS 66:18-21 and LK 13:22-30. The text is taken from the website of the US Catholic Bishops Conference. Not sure which translation of the Bible they use but it has different words than what Steve-b quoted!
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the translation I used is from the RSV-CE
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PatK63:
In Isaiah is says, Thus says the Lord: I know their works and their thoughts, and I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory…They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations as an offering to the Lord,…
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AND ?​

Re: ALL OF HUMANITY, who will ever live, the saved are few
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PatK63:
In Luke Jesus was asked: will only a few be saved? Jesus did not answer that question! Jesus did say many would not be strong enough to enter the narrow gate.
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as in few who will
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PatK63:
Our discussion was about hope which is a theological virtue given by God. Later in Luke: And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
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Jesus describes the few HERE

And why a few?

[Mt 24:12-14] Jesus explained. “Peoples love will grow cold because wickedness is multiplied, for most mens love will grow cold. Those who endure to the end (the few) are saved. When the gospel is preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; then the end will come”

Do you think for one second, Jesus doesn’t know everything including how many are saved and how many are NOT?

Remember, it’s the Father Jesus is speaking for. I posted this before

Jn 12:49
For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.
Jn 12:50
whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say."
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PatK63:
Yes there are lots of people committing sins of grave matter but they know not what they do!
It is difficult to separate yourself from God’s love! It is not easy to commit mortal sins! The mind and the will have to be fully engaged. Please stop judging others. They may be doing very bad things but because of ignorance and lack of Will they have not cut themselves off from God. Of course we who know better will be held to a higher standard!
God has given me the gift of hope!
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Apparently most people die in mortal sin. If they didn’t, Jesus would have said the opposite of what He actually said… namely only a few are lost.

HOWEVER​

that contradicts what He said
 
steve-b said:
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PatK63:
@steve-b. @MiserereMeiDei

This morning I went to a bible study to discuss the readings for next Sunday’s mass led by two deacons. The readings IS 66:18-21 and LK 13:22-30. The text is taken from the website of the US Catholic Bishops Conference. Not sure which translation of the Bible they use but it has different words than what Steve-b quoted!
Click to expand...
the translation I used is from the RSV-CE

AND ?​

Re: ALL OF HUMANITY, who will ever live, the saved are few

as in few who will

Jesus describes the few HERE

And why a few?

[Mt 24:12-14] Jesus explained. “Peoples love will grow cold because wickedness is multiplied, for most mens love will grow cold. Those who endure to the end (the few) are saved. When the gospel is preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; then the end will come”

Do you think for one second, Jesus doesn’t know everything including how many are saved and how many are NOT?

Remember, it’s the Father Jesus is speaking for. I posted this before

Jn 12:49
For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.
Jn 12:50
whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say."

Apparently most people die in mortal sin. If they didn’t, Jesus would have said the opposite of what He actually said… namely only a few are lost.

HOWEVER​

that contradicts what He said
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Bp Barron addresses this issue in this week’s homily at Word on Fire:


Here’s the bigger issue: there are various ways to interpret scriptures and this (these!) passages specifically.
Catholics are never to be fundamentalists by taking scripture in isolated proof texts, out of context with the whole.
So while there are various ways of interpreting this, one thing is for certain:
the Catholic Church has never ever dogmatically proposed the above quantitative approach to salvation, ie “few” as in less than some other quantity.

The above is a theological opinion and conjecture, and should be taken as such. And much if not most solid Catholic opinion does not endorse this quantitative approach to salvation.
 
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@steve-b

I used the the Bible that the Catholic Bishops used or recommend.

That is all I have to say on the subject.

I think @goout
Comments were insightful.
 
goout said:
Bp Barron addresses this issue in this week’s homily at Word on Fire:
The Narrow Gate - Word on Fire
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Barron’s final question he asks, summing up his homily

Barron asks, How many will be saved?

Barron answers,

who knows ? IOW no body knows. Which not only contradicts what Jesus said, It suggests not even God knows…

God told us, in the end, only a few are saved.
 
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PatK63 said:
Please stop judging others.
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Whom have I judged?

To make matters even more stark, there is no salvation outside the church. Whether they sin gravely or venially, if they die without baptism of water, desire or blood and perfect contrition they aren’t going through the narrow gate and they aren’t going to heaven. Most of the world is not nor has ever been catholic, let alone christian. Broad is the path that leads to destruction…

If what you teach is true, the best thing anyone could do is never talk about God, that way no one could ever intend to turn away from Him. Fr. Xavier, S.J. had a much different teaching for the Japanese.
 
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For the sake of what used to be “many years ago”. I used to work in an office downtown. If I took a day off, it was frowned upon. Their idea was that even if you’re sick and have to drag yourself to work, you go anyway, It was considered an act of loyalty to the job and responsibility. Once I was really sick. They gave me a cup of lipton soup and let me relax a little bit in the lounge instead of sending me home. I don’t know if any churches were ever so fanatical as to insist on attendance, even if you were dying.

Needless to say many people had colds, sore throats, and the flu while trying to be productive.
 
You are correct everyone has to accept Christ in their heart. They may not know His name or ever enter a church. God wills all to be saved but He doesn’t take away anyone’s free will. One of the key ways He will judge is “whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.”
 
MiserereMeiDei said:
To make matters even more stark, there is no salvation outside the church. Whether they sin gravely or venially, if they die without baptism of water, desire or blood and perfect contrition they aren’t going through the narrow gate and they aren’t going to heaven. Most of the world is not nor has ever been catholic, let alone christian. Broad is the path that leads to destruction…
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This is not Church teaching, at all. Please educate yourself.
 
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There are a lot of different mortal sins. That’s a well-known fact. The sins that seem the most apparent and the meanest are those where cruelty is involved. Not a day goes by that someone hasn’t hurt someone: their kids, their spouse, the people they meet. Hurting and killing children is one sin that no one can honestly say they “didn’t know” was wrong. News online and in publications also reveal excessive cruelty to animals. A girl in a you tube video was caught tossing a kitten into a bonfire. Then later on (I don’t know the names involved) a man kidnapped a toddler. They found her charred bones in a firepit somewhere in the woods. Some of this stuff is absolutely diabolical and I cannot understand why in the world someone would do those things.
 
This is in addition to what I just wrote. You tube doesn’t seem to have the one about the girl tossing a kitten into a bonfire, but they sure have a lot of other cruelty going on: people throwing animals on a freeway, putting them in the garbage, a young girl tossing puppies into a river, etc. Then there was one with a guy putting a small dog in the oven. I can’t understand who was making these videos, but whoever it was should have tried to stop it.
 
QwertyGirl said:
This is not Church teaching, at all.
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If this teaching is hard for you, I’m sorry, but it is the teaching of the church. It’s why it is imperative to evangelize the world rather than sit back and watch people go to hell thinking they can believe whatever they like and do whatever they like.
QwertyGirl said:
Please educate yourself.
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As Our Lord stated to Nicodemus,
“Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith to him: How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born again? Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
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THE TRENT CATECHISM:
“Infidels are outside the Church because they never belonged to, or never knew the Church and were never made partakers of any of her Sacraments.” “She (the church) is also called universal, because all who desire eternal salvation must cling to and embrace her, like those who entered the ark to escape perishing in the flood."
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Pope Saint Pius X quotes from his predecessor, Benedict XIV, the following:
“We declare that a great number of those who are condemned to eternal punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be numbered among the elect.”
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The ex cathedra proclamation of this dogma from Pope Eugene IV, 1441, the Bull Cantate Domino reads as follows:
“The most Holy Roman Catholic Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great at it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remains within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”
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Session 7, Canon 4 of the Sacraments in General from the Decree Concerning the Sacraments:
If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, and that without them or without the desire of them men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, though all are not necessary for each one, let him be anathema.
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QwertyGirl said:
Please educate yourself.
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The Japanese asked of St. Francis Xavier when he was preaching in Japan, what became of their ancestors:

“The principal trouble of those men of good will before they received the light of faith was inability to reconcile the infinite goodness and mercy of God with the fact that He had not made Himself known to them and to their ancestors before the coming of St. Francis. If it was true, as Francis taught, that all those who did not adore the true God went to Hell, then their ancestors must have gone there, even though they had been given no opportunity by God of realizing their duty to Him…One of the things that most of all pains and torments these Japanese is, that we teach them that the prison of hell is irrevocably shut, so that there is no egress therefrom. For they grieve over the fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives, and they often show their grief by their tears. So they ask us if there is any hope, any way to free them by prayer from that eternal misery, and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none. Their grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully; they almost pine away with sorrow. But there is this good thing about their trouble—it makes one hope that they will all be the more laborious for their own salvation, lest they like their forefathers, should be condemned to everlasting punishment. They often ask if God cannot take their fathers out of hell, and why their punishment must never have an end. We gave them a satisfactory answer, but they did not cease to grieve over the misfortune of their relatives; and I can hardly restrain my tears sometimes at seeing men so dear to my heart suffer such intense pain about a thing which is already done with and can never be undone…

“‘Our Lord helped us to deliver them from this terrible misgiving [said Francis]. We gave them very good reasons for holding that the law of God was imprinted on men’s hearts from the beginning. Before even the law of the Buddhists came from China to Japan, the Japanese, their ancestors, knew that it was wrong and wicked to commit murder, to steal, to bear false witness, or to break any other of the Ten Commandments, and their consciences smote them if they did so, proving that they knew the commandments of God without having been taught them except by the Creator of all peoples.’” Fr. James Broderick, S.J., Saint Francis Xavier , The Wicklow Press, New York, 1952, pp. 437, 438; n. 1, Schurhammer, Epistolae S. Francisi Xaverii, 2:262-267
 
QwertyGirl said:
Please educate yourself.
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St. Francis de Sales on the fate of the Japanese before Francis Xavier came:

“But concerning them that remain in the sleep of sin: Oh! what good reason they have to lament, groan, weep and say: woe the day! for they are in the most lamentable of cases; yet they have no reason to grieve or complain, save about themselves, who despised, yea rebelled against, the light; who were untractable to invitations, and obstinate against inspirations; so that it is their own malice alone they must ever curse and reproach, since they themselves are the sole authors of their ruin, the sole workers of their damnation. So the Japanese complaining to the Blessed Francis Xavier their Apostle, that God Who had had so much care of other nations, seemed to have forgotten their predecessors, not having given them the knowledge of Himself, for want of which they must have been lost: the man of God answered them that the divine natural law was engraven in the hearts of all mortals, and that if their forerunners had observed it, the light of heaven would without doubt have illuminated them, as on the contrary, having violated it, they deserved damnation. An apostolic answer of an apostolic man, and resembling the reason given by the great Apostle of the loss of the ancient Gentiles, whom he calls inexcusable, for that having known good they followed evil; for it is in a word that which he inculcates in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. Misery upon misery to those who do not acknowledge that their misery comes from their malice.” Treatise on the Love of God , translated by Fr. Henry Benedict Mackey, O.S.B., The Newman Book Shop, Wesminster, MD, 1942, p. 178.
 
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