Troubled by Matthew 7:13

[JimB4]

The key to the Beatific Vision is merit. Through St. Augustine we come to think the merit is required for that.

Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)

Very tough words indeed… St. Paul wrote in many ways that we cannot, “Merit” our way into Heaven… to do so would mean that Our Lord’s Crucifixion… was not enough.

I do not believe that, a baby that has been aborted, will never have any peace or or eternal happiness, because of the choice of his/her parents… my God is all-loving, and all-merciful… not cold, and uncaring to His children.

 

[Techno2000]

That’s tough reading.

Didn’t Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI bring limbo to an end?

I have read from private revelation that there is such a thing as limbo, but only until the end of the world .

 

[Techno2000]

The key to the Beatific Vision is merit. Through St. Augustine we come to think the merit is required for that. So we have the dogma of faith that:

Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)

Of course baptism of water, desire, or blood would suffice for elimination of original sin. In the case of those that have not attained the age of reason, there is no election that we know of. The Church cannot say any more than that we hope for them.

This could mean that the Beatific Vision is the highest level of Heaven, but there are other levels of happiness in Heaven too.

 

[Vico]

This could mean that the Beatific Vision is the highest level of Heaven, but there are other levels of happiness in Heaven too.

From Catholic Encyclopedia:

That the blessed see God is a dogma of faith, expressly defined by Benedict XII (1336):

We define that the souls of all the saints in heaven have seen and do see the Divine Essence by direct intuition and face to face [visione intuitivâ et etiam faciali], in such wise that nothing created intervenes as an object of vision, but the Divine Essence presents itself to their immediate gaze, unveiled, clearly and openly; moreover, that in this vision they enjoy the Divine Essence, and that, in virtue of this vision and this enjoyment, they are truly blessed and possess eternal life and eternal rest"

Hontheim, J. (1910). Heaven. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm

 

[TK421]

In private revelation, such as those of St Padre Pio, a person experiencing mortal death is moved towards the opportunity of a sacrament (sacrament with a little ‘s’ as in: a channel through which one experiences grace). This would be immediately prior to the soul separating from the body.

So in the case with the Holy Innocents this may be done - regardless of intellect, which is merely material in nature as opposed to the superior intellect of spirits - and they could presumably accept or reject grace in an act that is rational and given through the faculty of free will. This could even include an actual baptism by desire, although it is not strictly necessarily for God to provide revelation in such a fashion in order to bring a person into sanctifying grace, as is the known case with St John the Baptist, who in tradition was removed of Original Sin in the womb through an act of God, whenever the Blessed Mother brought the news of the Incarnation to St Elizabeth.

Original Sin by itself is all that is necessary to remove a person from the Beatific Vision, so as is always the case, salvation is an act that comes through God and does not occur passively. This would be no different for the Holy Innocents.

 

[Vico]

In private revelation, such as those of St Padre Pio, a soul experiencing mortal death is moved towards the opportunity of a sacrament (sacrament with a little ‘s’ as in: a channel through which one experiences grace). This would be immediately prior to the soul separating from the body. So an unborn soul - regardless of intellect, which is merely materialistic in nature as opposed to the superior intellect of spirits - could presumably accept or reject grace in an act that is rational and given through the faculty of free will.

Do you mean ‘a person experience death of the body’? And what is an unborn soul? Catholic teaching is that the soul and body are created together at the moment of conception and remain together until the body dies.

 

[TK421]

I edited my post. I was using ‘soul’ as a synonym for ‘person’.

 

[Vico]

Very tough words indeed… St. Paul wrote in many ways that we cannot, “Merit” our way into Heaven… to do so would mean that Our Lord’s Crucifixion… was not enough.

I do not believe that, a baby that has been aborted, will never have any peace or or eternal happiness, because of the choice of his/her parents… my God is all-loving, and all-merciful… not cold, and uncaring to His children.

We receive the merit as a gift, through filial adoption. Personally I think there will be peace for those infants.

2009 Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God’s gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us “co-heirs” with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life."60 The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness.61 "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due. . . . Our merits are God’s gifts."62

 

[Techno2000]

“But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’

-Jesus to Julian of Norwich

 

[Vico]

I edited my post. I was using ‘soul’ as a synonym for ‘person’.

That is good. The Church cannot say any more than that we hope for them, because there is nothing revealed about the instant of death and election for those that have not attained the age of discrimination.

 

[Techno2000]

From Catholic Encyclopedia:

That the blessed see God is a dogma of faith, expressly defined by Benedict XII (1336):

We define that the souls of all the saints in heaven have seen and do see the Divine Essence by direct intuition and face to face [visione intuitivâ et etiam faciali], in such wise that nothing created intervenes as an object of vision, but the Divine Essence presents itself to their immediate gaze, unveiled, clearly and openly; moreover, that in this vision they enjoy the Divine Essence, and that, in virtue of this vision and this enjoyment, they are truly blessed and possess eternal life and eternal rest"

Hontheim, J. (1910). Heaven. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm

There are different levels and degrees of glory in Heaven.

Council of Florence (1439) declared the souls of the perfectly just clearly behold the Triune and One God as he is, but corresponding to the difference of their merits, the one more perfectly than the other. The Council of Trent defined that the justified person merits an increase of the heavenly glory by good works. (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 479)

 

[Vico]

There are different levels and degrees of glory in Heaven.

Council of Florence (1439) declared the souls of the perfectly just clearly behold the Triune and One God as he is, but corresponding to the difference of their merits, the one more perfectly than the other. The Council of Trent defined that the justified person merits an increase of the heavenly glory by good works. (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 479)

Certainly, but they all have the Beatific Vision.

 

[Techno2000]

Certainly, but they all have the Beatific Vision.

True, but what kind of merit in Heaven does a wretched soul have who at the last minute confesses on his deathbed because he’s afraid of going to Hell ?

 

[Vico]

True, but what kind of merit in Heaven does a wretched soul have who at the last minute confesses on his deathbed because he’s afraid of going to Hell ?

Minimal I guess, yet with corresponding degree of Beatific Vision.

Catholic Encyclopedia Beatific Vision:

The various degrees of beatitude are not limited to the accidental blessings, but they are found first and foremost in the beatific vision itself. For, as we have already pointed out, the vision, too, admits of degrees.
Hontheim, J. (1910). Heaven. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm

And:

The immediate knowledge of God which the angelic spirits and the souls of the just enjoy in Heaven. It is called “vision” to distinguish it from the mediate knowledge of God which the human mind may attain in the present life. And since in beholding God face to face the created intelligence finds perfect happiness, the vision is termed “beatific.”[9]

Pace, E. (1907). Beatific Vision. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm

 

[JimB4]

From the book, “My Spiritual Guide For Souls” … (The Divine Mercy Chaplet, and Excerpts From the Diary of St. Faustina)

*"God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous, and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything is lost, but it is not so. The soul illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment, with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance, or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things.

Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy! But - horror! - there are also souls who voluntarily, consciously reject and scorn this grace! Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to God for them, and even the efforts of God Himself…"
[Diary 1698]*

 

[Techno2000]

From the book, “My Spiritual Guide For Souls” … (The Divine Mercy Chaplet, and Excerpts From the Diary of St. Faustina)

*"God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous, and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything is lost, but it is not so. The soul illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment, with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance, or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things.

Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy! But - horror! - there are also souls who voluntarily, consciously reject and scorn this grace! Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to God for them, and even the efforts of God Himself…"

                                                                                             [Diary 1698]*

Dante’s Purgatorio
The Unshriven: Violent Deaths

We are all souls who met a violent death,
and we were sinners to our final hour;
but then the light of Heaven lit our minds,

and penitent and pardoning, we left
that life at peace with God, Who left our hearts
with longing for the holy sight of Him.”

 

[Techno2000]

St. Faustina said that by prayer, “God’s mercy can touch the sinner even at the last moment, in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything is lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, can turn to God even in the last moment, with such a power of love that in an instant, it receives from God, forgiveness of all sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things”. (Diary 1698)

An Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory
Excerpt :
I can tell you about the different degrees of Purgatory because I have passed through them. In the great Purgatory there are several stages. In the lowest and most painful, like a temporary hell, are the sinners who have committed terrible crimes during life and whose death surprised them in that state. It was almost a miracle that they were saved, and often by the prayers of holy parents or other pious persons. Sometimes they did not even have time to confess their sins and the world thought them lost, but God, whose mercy is infinite, gave them at the moment of death the contrition necessary for their salvation on account of one or more good actions which they performed during life. For such souls, Purgatory is terrible. It is a real hell with this difference, that in hell they curse God, whereas we bless Him and thank Him for having saved us.