Thought this article was interesting - any thoughts?

[MorningSong51]

Morningsong: “Again, and as a repeat, first how do we know that this person didn’t ask God to forgive him, at the time of death? and how do we know what kind of relationship that this man had with God? Who can judge? Only God - but I believe that “Yes” God can hear your prayers for this person and with all certainty this man can be reconciled back to God.”

I posited the concept of the person being an unrepentant sinner at his death. It was a ’ given’ hypothetical for the sake of probing an issue. However I think, as you mention, time is quite… flexible… relevatively speaking. Yes it may be quite possible that God may take prayers from the ‘future’ and apply them to the process of the unrepentant sinner’s death experience. He may then perhaps repent at that ‘point’ of time.

All very speculative of course. Yes?
’

Yes.

Hi Nimzovik - unrepentant sinner at his death? How do we know if the sinner was unrepentant? How can we judge between what we understand about good and evil of the soul? We view things from the outside perspective of a person’s behavior - but what is truly within is something only God and this person know (and quoting again from scripture) 11 “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them?”

Understandable that this is a “given” hypothetical question for the sake of probing an issue - and the issue is about the soul at the time of death for a sinner. However, one suffer’s many things in this life (and its said), but that suffering cleanses any sins that maybe on the soul - as to purge out the uncleanliness.(Hebrews 12:6 “the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”) What I’m saying is “how” do we know how God has dealt with this person in this lifetime - what made him/her the person he is today, or yesterday? How do assume the balance of good and evil that this person might have done or did do, in this life. I remember a story from years back, and I’m total against this thought, that a person can be born evil? If that be so, if we could determine (at birth) good and evil, would that stop this life from being played out? Would we lock up the life that God sent?

What is the image and what is the likeness of God, I have to remember the story of Joseph - “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." - What was done in evil (or to harm), was actually for the good of both Jacob and Egypt during the time of the famine. God always has his hands into every affair under the sun - Whatever you might conceive as a sinful state, all things work for the betterment of the Almighty. There are reasons for a person’s state of soul, that we might not be able to answer - only God knows every soul - and knows each of us by name and also what sufferings that we endure due from sin as well as what blessings - but these are “Given” at sometime during our own time here - heaven or hell. When our Lord deals with us, he dealt with us “Today” - remember this:

“Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.10 That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.11So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
***We know that the physical part of our body dies but the soul is eternal, in which, where does the soul return? ***

The miracle of the word is “TODAY”! - 12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 1 5As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.”

So that you know - it is important that we pray for the souls of those who are in a sinful state- but it is important to pray for those who are in need. It is also important to know that God - deals with each one of us and knows us throughout our life time and will send people into our lives to help us change and grow into the people that “He” wants us to be. There have been moments in my life - that I thought, that God was no where in sight, it is very lonely place to be because all persons, no matter the circumstance, need the assistance of prayers - even the most sinful person can be the face of the poor in the soul - a begger, sort of speak.

Understand?

 

[Nimzovik]

OK. Thanks.

 

[MorningSong51]

OK. Thanks.

Nimzovik;

Didn’t mean for my last post to be so long. However, to shorten the text, it is difficult to assume what happens to the soul of a sinner because none of us are completely blameless before God, so we can’t really judge each others state of sin. Also, in this life, we are disciplined/sometime reprimanded by God for sins that we’ve committed to each other, there are signals within ourselves that set an alarm button - feelings of guilt or by being ashamed. In the initial post, I said, some people feel those signals and may ignore them while others may feel repetitive and confesses (like in the case of King David before Nathan) however, we are to make reparations to the people or situation that we caused harm to. This would be impossible at the time of death but to come to realization that we’ve sinned, is a big accomplishment and healing.

We can’t escape the punishment - but God finds away for us to pass through it and learn, remember the veil over Mose’s face or the cover over the ark of the covenant - to cover one’s sin, that’s grace (Apostle Paul quoted this). So when discussing about the state of the soul at death - what makes the punishment any different than what we receive in this life when God deals with us on a every day basis, do some honestly think that God waits for them at death? We learn everyday about sin -about choices, but each sin has a degree of punishment. As some punishment can be carry over at death, unfortunately they may not be erased so easily in this lifetime but our Lord finds ways to forgive and have compassion on the sinner. Our prayers, since the soul is eternal, does heal for those who need our prayers, even after they have passed on.

The point with the story of Joseph & the brothers, whatever evil befalls us from others, the Almighty always has a way to turn any situations around in his favor - for His glory. Remember the story of Judas, when the disciplines asked Jesus, it was not for us to say or to judge the state of Judas’s soul, our Lord stated this specifically. If memory serves me correctly - the whole event was judged. You can’t judge one without judging others who were involved, so when one discuses the idea about death, I would hate to have that on my soul. However, Our Lord said “Forgive them for they know not what they do!” - he release us from punishment and told us to do the same, to forgive as we ask for forgiveness. Isn’t that what Joseph did, forgive his brothers? How much so, at our hour of death…Imagine, how we can turn someone’s life around (just) by praying for the sinner and by the act of forgiveness.

Blessings,
Mary

 

[Nimzovik]

Thanks again. Interesting read.

 

[MorningSong51]

Thanks again. Interesting read.

Yes, it is.

993 The Pharisees and many of the Lord’s contemporaries hoped for the resurrection. Jesus teaches it firmly. To the Sadducees who deny it he answers, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?"542 Faith in the resurrection rests on faith in God who "is not God of the dead, but of the living."543

We know that God is the God of the living not of the dead when we read about the transfiguration of Jesus:

“In Christian teachings, the Transfiguration is a pivotal moment, and the setting on the mountain is presented as the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal, with Jesus himself as the connecting point, acting as the bridge between heaven and earth”

994 But there is more. Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person: "I am the Resurrection and the life."544 It is Jesus himself who on the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who have eaten his body and drunk his blood.545 Already now in this present life he gives a sign and pledge of this by restoring some of the dead to life,546 announcing thereby his own Resurrection, though it was to be of another order. He speaks of this unique event as the "sign of Jonah,"547 the sign of the temple: he announces that he will be put to death but rise thereafter on the third day

996 From the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with incomprehension and opposition.550 "On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body."551 It is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life?

 

[MorningSong51]

Continue:

1004 In expectation of that day, the believer’s body and soul already participate in the dignity of belonging to Christ. This dignity entails the demand that he should treat with respect his own body, but also the body of every other person, especially the suffering:

The body [is meant] for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? . . . . You are not your own; . . . . So glorify God in your body.563

1019 Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death he has conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men.

In Short:

1431 Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of his grace. This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart).24

1432 The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart.25 Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: "Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored!"26 God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God’s love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced:27

Let us fix our eyes on Christ's blood and understand how precious it is to his Father, for, poured out for our salvation it has brought to the whole world the grace of repentance.

and in brief:

Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen

Read more: ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/pater2.htm#ixzz1fDbxBv8t

At the hour of death, but hopefully prior to, we ask God to forgive us for our debt as we have to learn to forgive others of theirs - again, we could turn the life a sinner around at or before death in order for that person to live the life that God intended them to live. God had forgiven us a long time ago - on the Cross. The Cross, is that symbol, that ultimate forgiveness at the hour of death.

 

[MorningSong51]

and last,

Read Nehemiah 1 & 9:

this is about precedence - we sin everyday and suffer in that sin, which some are are blind to their own sins and others (a blessing) are not. There are some sins that only God can forgive and there are sin that we must learn to forgive. Some souls are “dead” inside, spiritually in the soul from the forgiven that God can bring us, as to return us back - that suffering in the soul is only from which God can arise the soul back to him - it is a blessing and a miracle, it the equivalency of returning back to the Garden of Eden, that is the innocents. The hour in which we die - we leave our earthly bodies but the soul returns back to God - as it states "998 Who will rise? All the dead will rise, “those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”

“LORD, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

8 “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’

and in Nehemiah 9:

19 “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. 21 For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen."

Everyday we sin and everyday we ask for God’s mercy, God is full of compassion toward the sinner as he is with the righteous. Who is more righteous than our Lord, even Martha said it the best:

21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

continue to read:

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

---

Why Say the Chaplet of Divine Mercy?
Christ said, "Whoever will recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death…

When they say this chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person, not as the just Judge but as the Merciful Savior…
Priests will recommend it to sinners as their last hope of salvation.
Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy.
*** I desire to grant unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in My mercy…
Through the Chaplet you will obtain everything, if what you ask for is compatible with My will." ***
Reference:

chapletofdivinemercy.net/

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a11.htm