What will send me to hell?

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Magicsilence

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Is it ONLY unrepented mortal sin?

Or is not praying enough?

Or playing cards when I could be praying, is that a mortal sin?

Gah, this is confusing.

It is said that God condemns no one to hell, but we choose it by sinning. Im just having trouble seeing ( lets take for example ) a mum of 5 bringing up five kids for her whole life, making them outstanding Catholics, never sinning, making her husband extremely happy, donating to the Church, spending all free time in prayer, and then, on the day of her death, she is so tired from life (but still healthy) that she decides to miss mass just once, and then, WHAM, eternal fire.

It does seem a tad unfair.
 
your understanding of mortal sin, condemnation and hell is too simplistic. there are too many links to carry over but please return to the CA home page and click on the Salvation and Last Things articles in the library on the left. There are also several good articles in the This Rock archives.
 
MS,
Sounds like you just jumped on the bus to “scrupulosity” and you really don’t wanna go there. Martin Luther took that same ride and look where it got him and a bunch of other people. :eek:

What Is Scrupulosity?

In Catholic moral teaching, scrupulosity defines the spiritual and psychological state of a person who erroneously believes he is guilty of mortal sin and is therefore seldom in a state of grace. A scrupulous person has difficulty making choices and decisions even though he desires above all else to please God and to follow God’s law. For a scrupulous person, it isn’t that he doesn’t “carefully attend to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church” (as the Catechism teaches), but that he becomes overwhelmed with the details and nuances that may be present in the decision.

Here’s a link to something that might help.

God bless you my friend,
 
Please remember that God is perfect Justice, Mercy, and Love. This mum of 5 who is so wiped out she wants to sleep in may NEED to sleep in so she doesn’t end up in the hospital from exhaustion. God is a loving Father. He doesn’t give us “tricky” rules to try to trap us into going to hell. He wants us with Him! And everyone is in different places on their paths to holiness. A hardened sinner who just got into the faith will most likely not be judged for saying a curse word as harshly as someone who has known for a lifetime how much these words hurt the ears of our Lord. Put your trust in God’s perfect love and ask what He wants of you right now. Guilt can be a good tool and guide, but it can also be easily taken too far and become a tool of the devil. If you want to enjoy a game of cards, make time for prayer earlier in the day or spend a couple extra minutes before bed. Unless you’re gambling away your grocery money, God expects you to enjoy recreation in this world. Just be thankful for it. 👍
 
the solutions are simple.

Pray. Pray the rosary (daily if possible, I know it’s hard). Go to Mass, more than once a week if possible. Make a holy hour (at least once a week). Read: the bible, other catholic books. non-catholic books. Live life, and learn. If something is diffifcult, pray for the grace to get through it. When you immerse yourself in the faith you’ll worry less about hell. As long as your trying God will take care of you. Remember that God has INCREDIBLE patience. He will teach you to also have great patience. I’ve learned much patience through suffering (and am thankful for it). See the protestants/fundamentalists/etc., those that believe in “once saved always saved”, they are aware of something we sometimes neglect. The incredible grace of God. We can completely fudge up, go all to hell (metaphorically), and come back to the lord through the sacrament of reconciliation and penance. While learning something in the process. When we sin, we forget. When we come back to God, we are renewed. We remember again. When I sin, I don’t run to the confessional right away always. I seek to find contrition first. I ask God to show me why and how I got there so as not to repeat the same thing. Rather than continuing in the cycle of confessing the same sin over and over again. The answer is usually, pray more, make more holy hours, ask for more grace, read scripture, etc.

Anyway, I do go on and on

god bless
 
I don’t think you are understanding the effects of a life striving for holiness, and the grace it imparts. The scenario you give is extremely unlikely and undervalues the grace this hypothetical woman has received over the years. Also, a devout woman such as you describe would be extremely unlikely to view Mass as a bother and a mere obligation that she has to fulfill.

You’re looking at this in a very simplistic way, and also in a kind of legalistic way, as if God isn’t keeping up His end of the bargain, in your eyes, by not doing what you think He ought.

It isn’t confusing. A life spent loving God and increasing in holiness is not likely to produce the mind set towards Mass that you posit. The more you grow in holiness, the more you will desire to do the good out of love for God.

Church Militant is right: be careful of scrupulosity. It is often associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder—is this something you struggle with?
 
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Magicsilence:
Is it ONLY unrepented mortal sin?

Or is not praying enough?

Or playing cards when I could be praying, is that a mortal sin?

Gah, this is confusing.

It is said that God condemns no one to hell, but we choose it by sinning. Im just having trouble seeing ( lets take for example ) a mum of 5 bringing up five kids for her whole life, making them outstanding Catholics, never sinning, making her husband extremely happy, donating to the Church, spending all free time in prayer, and then, on the day of her death, she is so tired from life (but still healthy) that she decides to miss mass just once, and then, WHAM, eternal fire.

It does seem a tad unfair.
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Any sin, done with malice of God’s will, is grave. If one does trutly and deliberately choose grave sin, with full knowledge and perfect consent of will, then they choose to pick from a forbidden fruit and indeed deserve the eternal consequences if they remain impenitent until death of such deliberate defiance of God’s will.

Futhermore, you seem to start from the premise that every created human deserves heaven. Heaven is therefore not a gift according to this view, but is an obligation imposed upon God. This is a flawed understanding.

Every soul who dies impenitent of mortal sin or merely in original sin will not attain eternal life in heaven. Furthermore, every soul is gifted with sufficient grace to attain eternal life in heaven. This rule applies to everyone, and so seems rather fair to me.
 
Hello magicsilence,

The failure to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength and with all your soul will send you to hell. God defines love for God as obedience to God. You do not have to love God through obedience perfectly but only with all your heart. God desires our love, desires our precence in heaven and He is very merciful and forgiving. It is those who love God with all their hearts who enter into heaven through the blood of Jesus.

Please visit Jesus, What Must I Do To Share In Everlasting Life?

INT 1JO 5:3****This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.INT JOH 14:15

"If you love me, you will obey what I command."
NAB LUK 10:25

"Teacher, what must I do to inherit everlasting life?" Jesus answered him: "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" He replied:

**"You shall love the Lord your God **
**with all your heart, **
**with all your soul, **
**with all your strength, **
**and with all your mind; **
and your neighbor as yourself."
Jesus said, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you shall live.”
 
You may want to read Ezekiel chapter 18. Here is verse 24:
24 And if the virtuous man turns from the path of virtue to do evil, the same kind of abominable things that the wicked man does, can he do this and still live? None of his virtuous deeds shall be remembered, because he has broken faith and committed sin; because of this, he shall die. 25 You say, “The LORD’S way is not fair!”…
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Consider that the woman will have deeply ingrained habits and grace to help her, and it would be unlikely for her to suddenly skip mass without cause. More likely she is exhausted, which means it is not mortal. Nonetheless, it remains possible to commit a mortal sin even if one has been virtuous for many years. It is only after we die that the time of choice is past.

Catholicism is not a religion of accumulated deeds getting one into heaven. There is no adding up two piles of deeds to see which is the weightier.
 
Evangelicals suffer from the notion that Once Saved Always Saved and that works are not important. Some Catholics, on the other hand, suffer from the notion that only enough works can get us into heaven. Balance is important. There is a simple daily prayer, sometimes called “The Morning Offering”, that covers this. One version goes," Jesus through the Immaculate heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day in union with the Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the intentions of the Holy Father and the Souls in Purgatory, and especially for…(what ever other intentions you want to add.)" So you see it is not just prayer time, or works and the like, but your whole day that becomes a prayer in itself. How else to follow Paul’s command to “Pray always.” Some pretty profane tasks can become part of your daily offering of yourself to God. Cleaning up after a child or even relaxing with a good book. 🙂 🙂
 
This is probably a little over- simplified, but utterly refusing to die to yourself is probably one of the easier ways to find yourself headed for Hell. It’s hard to find a sin that isn’t ultimately self-centered.

Christ said it better when he said (paraphrasing here of course) that the greatest commandment is to love God with all that your are and to love your neighbor with equal enthusiasm.
 
Church Militant:
. :eek:

What Is Scrupulosity?

In Catholic moral teaching, scrupulosity defines the spiritual and psychological state of a person who erroneously believes he is guilty of mortal sin and is therefore seldom in a state of grace. A scrupulous person has difficulty making choices and decisions even though he desires above all else to please God and to follow God’s law. For a scrupulous person, it isn’t that he doesn’t “carefully attend to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church” (as the Catechism teaches), but that he becomes overwhelmed with the details and nuances that may be present in the decision.
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If you’re someone who has attention deficit disorder (like you guessed, me), watch out because your brain is going in every direction and that can REALLY effect the way you think and if you’re scrupulous or not! I know I am scrupulous and I haven’t even gone to my first Confession yet!

I swear, having a mental disorder causes more damage to you than a tornado that touches down in a big city!
 
Hey, Magicsilence, don’t worry about playing cards – God only sends Baptists to Hell for that! 😉
 
don’t worry so much about what will send you to hell…
rather, concentrate on what will get you to heaven…

your Father, won’t abandon you…

🙂
 
Unrepented Moral sins, apostacy, diet cokes, looking at that cute girl over there, Mary Worship, foul lauguage, ping pong. by your question it souns like you are to worried to do any sins because your to busy being worried so don’t worry about it. JohnSelby is right if your too busy doing good thing you won’t have any time to do bad things. Kinda like Mary with the “Full of Grace” because she is full of grace there is no room for non-grace.
 
Instead of only trying not to do bad things, try to do as much good as you can. When you fall into mortal sin go to confession. If you do this, and pray, you will receive many graces and continue to grow in the spirit. These graces will make it easier to abstain from sin and to grow to hate sin.

I also recommend the Rosary. You will find much solice in it. It will teach you many things.

To simply avoid a laundry list of sins is not the way to get to heaven.
 
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itsjustdave1988:
Any sin, done with malice of God’s will, is grave. If one does trutly and deliberately choose grave sin, with full knowledge and perfect consent of will, then they choose to pick from a forbidden fruit and indeed deserve the eternal consequences if they remain impenitent until death of such deliberate defiance of God’s will.

Futhermore, you seem to start from the premise that every created human deserves heaven. Heaven is therefore not a gift according to this view, but is an obligation imposed upon God. This is a flawed understanding.

Every soul who dies impenitent of mortal sin or merely in original sin will not attain eternal life in heaven. Furthermore, every soul is gifted with sufficient grace to attain eternal life in heaven. This rule applies to everyone, and so seems rather fair to me.
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Hello Dave 🙂

Could you please elaborate on paragraph 3, sentence #2, i.e. “every soul is gifted with sufficient grace…”.

Thanks in advance.

Peace…
 
When you hear that at that time the Lord freed the souls from hell and the regions of darkness and that He descended into hell and did an amazing work, do not think that this does not have any personal meaning for you. Man, indeed, can readily accept the evil one. Death has its grip on the children of Adam and their thoughts are imprisoned in darkness. And when you hear mention made of tombs, do not at once think only of visible ones. For your heart is a tomb and a sepulcher. When the prince of evil and his angels have built their nest there and have built roads and highways on which the powers of Satan walk about inside your mind and in your thoughts, then really, are you not a hell and a sepulcher and a tomb dead to God? … But the Lord descends into the souls of those who seek Him. He goes into the depths of the hellish heart and there He commands death, saying, “Release those captive souls that seek after me, those that you hold by force in bondage.” He breaks through the heavy stones that cover the soul. He opens the tombs. He truly raises to life the dead person and leads that captive soul forth out of the dark prison.
St. Macarius
 
The road to condemnation is clearly spelled out, over and over and over by Jesus.

Those who forgive will be granted forgiveness, those who condemn others will be condemned as they condemn others. In parables and in simple direct words Jesus says it over and over. It is clearly stated in the Lord’s prayer

People who live virtuous lives (scrupulously(sp?) virtous) may run the risk of condemning those who don’t. In which case they would have been better off being a little less scrupulous.

Following God’s commandments will give us life. If we occasionally make a mistake, we still can have a substantial share of life. But if we stand in mortal judgement of others who make mistakes, then the consequences we will face for making mistakes will be much greater.

peace

-Jim
 
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