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Ed_Silvia
Guest
I would say the Holy Spirit would, in it’s infinite wisdom, apply any and all prayers/offerings of sacrifices to it’s interests or even to that of the person offering, but you wouldn’t know all that until you enter eternity. The Holy Spirit will give you peace of mind about it if your heart is pure.
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Pat_Albertson
Guest
If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the experience of purgatory has a temporal component, how long would the average penance be? And what would the standard deviation be?
In physics, there are usually thought to be seven* arrows of time. I would think that most of them don’t exist in purgatory because purgatory is a place of the spirit, but one of them is a psychological arrow, and if purgatory is experienced as a temporal period of penance by fire, then by definition at least the temporal arrow, subjective though it may possibly be, still exists.
In physics, there are usually thought to be seven* arrows of time. I would think that most of them don’t exist in purgatory because purgatory is a place of the spirit, but one of them is a psychological arrow, and if purgatory is experienced as a temporal period of penance by fire, then by definition at least the temporal arrow, subjective though it may possibly be, still exists.
- *]the thermodynamic arrow
*]the cosmological arrow
*]the radiative arrow
*]the causal arrow
*]the particle physics (due to the weak force) arrow
*]the quantum arrow
*]the psychological arrow
The seven arrows of time
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GEddie
Guest
Interesting. The “psychological arrow” is physical?
The Church has never defined duration of canonical penance in relation to duration of Purgatory.
ICXC NIKA
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Pat_Albertson
Guest
I assume (yes, I know, making assumptions is a dangerous move!) that they do that because they equate the operation of the mind with the operation of the brain, and the operation of the brain with physiology. Perhaps one could then say the seventh arrow is superfluous, being a combination of the first thermodynamic arrow and the fourth causal arrow, except that it has a subjective component that virtually everybody says they experience, which then makes it a case unto itself.
Yes, that is what I am really getting at. I remember when I was very small there were various indulgences listed in our little missalettes, so many hundred days off of time in purgatory for this prayer, so many years off for this combination, so many thousand years off for this practice (or so I seem remember . . . it was decades ago though . . .).
So I was wondering; days (it seems like at one point St. Faustina said something about days in purgatory), years, hundreds of years, thousands of years, millions, billions, trillions of years, 6.023 x 10^23* years, 10^100 years (that’s a google of years), more???
Anybody know? Anybody want to take a guess???
Me, I have no idea even of the order of magnitude; I’m totally clueless . . .
Just thought I’d put something forward that’s been on my mind for a while.
*6.023 x 10^23 = one mole in chemistry; the number of molecules in 22.4 liters of air, or a cube of air roughly 1 foot on a side.
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GEddie
Guest
Those written references to time of indulgence (now all over 100 years ago IMS) refers to canonical penance, never to duration in Purgatory.
The Church, despite the understandable confusion in this matter, has, IMS, always understood Purgatory as lying in eternity and not therefore subject to measured durations.
ICXC NIKA.
The Church, despite the understandable confusion in this matter, has, IMS, always understood Purgatory as lying in eternity and not therefore subject to measured durations.
ICXC NIKA.
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GEddie
Guest
But psychological time has different durations that do not match the rate of brain activity. Subjective time in your mind, such as in dreaming, does not correspond to a multiplied rate of nerve transmission.
“Clocks lack imagination” —Isaac Asimov
ICXC NIKA
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PJM
Guest
First this is not a literal ststement of fact; because hevens Gates were not reopened until the Ressurection [Easter Sunday]. What it is saying that this then unbaptized sinner was admitted into heaven along with all the souls in “Limbo of thr Fathers”
Is is quiote possible that Christ granted this sinner the grace of Baptism of Desire, which qualifed him for this gift. However; God is God, and as maker of the Rules John 3:5 He can choose to change them.
God Bless you,
Patrick
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Pat_Albertson
Guest
True, but we all, or at least most of us, have experienced the phenomenon of wondering what time it was, making a guesstimate, and then looking and seeing that we were right to within a minute or so.
I don’t always do so now, but it used to be my practice to go to sleep with the intention of waking up at a specified time and then reliably waking on time to within about a minute or two. And if I set my alarm, I still wake up withing five to ten minutes of the time just before my alarm is set to go off because I find the sound of it so unnerving.
So, my conclusion is that while we do indeed experience time in a subjective fashion with varying rates of flow, we are also aware at some level of the passage of time in a manner analogous to the time kept by a clock. Even animals (cats, for example) can become accustomed to being fed at a certain time of day, and if food is not forthcoming loudly, noisily, and imperiously demanding to know the reason why.
Anyway, I don’t want to seem like I’m defending their choice of arrows. The seven arrows aren’t something that I made up, other people made them up. I’m just offering them to the forum as a common background for my question.
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PJM
Guest
Originally Posted by Thorns View Post
So for the souls that will be there until the end of time, and we don’t know who or how many, it is basically pointless to pray for them, wishing them to be released more quickly. Right?
REPLY
We therefore ought to earnestly pray for the Souls in Purgatory, trusing in God’s Mercy to be shown once again
So for the souls that will be there until the end of time, and we don’t know who or how many, it is basically pointless to pray for them, wishing them to be released more quickly. Right?
REPLY
Not so; Because prayers are accepted and applied by God in amounts and ways we don’t know.=Ed Silvia;12070415]I would say the Holy Spirit would, in it’s infinite wisdom, apply any and all prayers/offerings of sacrifices to it’s interests or even to that of the person offering, but you wouldn’t know all that until you enter eternity. The Holy Spirit will give you peace of mind about it if your heart is pure.
We therefore ought to earnestly pray for the Souls in Purgatory, trusing in God’s Mercy to be shown once again
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PJM
Guest
PERHAPS you did=Ed Silvia;12073533]Oh, I thought I said that
I’m near 70 and MAY have missed it, sorry!
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DomSavio2
Guest
Hi everyone. I’m just trying to get a grasp on what time in purgatory is like.
My religion teacher said that we send ourselves to purgatory because when we die and see God, we will feel so ashamed of all those times we disobeyed him by sinning that we will take some away from him to basically forgive ourselves and allow ourselves to enter into Heaven. Since this time is spent away from God, it is a sort of punishment however it isn’t as bad as Hell of course.
I also heard that purgatory is like if you wake up and open up the curtains only to be blinded by the light. You then close the curtains and wait until you can handle the light. This time when the curtains are closed is purgatory.
Is this a good way of understanding purgatory?
My religion teacher said that we send ourselves to purgatory because when we die and see God, we will feel so ashamed of all those times we disobeyed him by sinning that we will take some away from him to basically forgive ourselves and allow ourselves to enter into Heaven. Since this time is spent away from God, it is a sort of punishment however it isn’t as bad as Hell of course.
I also heard that purgatory is like if you wake up and open up the curtains only to be blinded by the light. You then close the curtains and wait until you can handle the light. This time when the curtains are closed is purgatory.
Is this a good way of understanding purgatory?
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SuperLuigi
Guest
I don’t see anything wrong with those comparisons. Purgatory though is a place of purification.
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Jon_S_1
Guest
I don’t think these are bad analogies. Take a look at my blog post which includes some quotes form St John Paul the Greats Spe Salvi
findingthecatholicchurch.blogspot.com/2013/02/cs-lewis-believed-in-purgatory-rightly.html
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chimo
Guest
As I understand Purgatory it is only a temporary state that always leads to heaven. However because Purgatory is given in this life it only activates itself in the next life. It is in the next life when God is more freer to give you graces. Since Purgatory deals with some business left undone it is usually because we were either very lazy with our Christian duties or we were careless with our Christian duties or we abused our Christian duties. Your analogies seem applicable but I oftened felt that souls in a Purgatory state have not yet learned to glorify God in its fullness. For instance if you did not glorify God in this life but do not deserve any sentence of hell, you are not going to glorify God immediately after death. I think God would give us time to learn to glorify Him and Purgatory would be that time. As one saint had said “ingratitude has never entered Heaven”. St. Maria Faustina had a vision of the Holy Souls and asked them what was their greatest suffering and they all answered in one voice it was their longing for God. It seems after death this longing becomes more apparent than before they died. Perhaps those who go directly to Heaven has this longing long before they die.
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His_helpmeet
Guest
We explained Purgatory to DSD as “heaven’s mudroom”. Imagine that you were really dirty - not so dirty that it couldn’t be cleaned up, but too dirty to enter the house. You’d need to be cleaned off first before you could come inside. That’s what Purgatory is.
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PJM
Guest
Nicely Done, thanks
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fred_conty
Guest
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