When a person dies is she immediately judged?

  • Thread starter Thread starter anneramones
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A

anneramones

Guest
Happy Christmas Vigil everyone 🙂

In the recent weeks there have been three deaths of relatives/family friends. They were all old people, at an age when death is expected soon.
These events made a question arise in my mind: when a person dies, is this person immediately judged by Jesus?
If this is the case then, our prayers for mercy towards the dead person are useless because Jesus has already decided and sent them in either Heaven,Hell or Purgatory.
So why do we, for example, pray for the soul of a dead person at her funeral, that is held( in my country at least) a day or two after the person died? Isn’t it too late already to ask God to be merciful towards this person or to ask Our Lady’s intercession?
I,myself, pray for my dead grandparents that died years and years ago to be in peace with the Lord in Heaven but they died years ago, haven’t they already be judged? I guess my prayer can do something for them only if they were sent to Purgatory. In that case my prayer could be useful to cut the time they have to spend in Purgatory.

Sorry for the lengthy post, I would really like some clarification about this matter and the examples I provided. Thank you all and Merry Christmas.
 
anneramones said:
If this is the case then, our prayers for mercy towards the dead person are useless because Jesus has already decided and sent them in either Heaven,Hell or Purgatory.
Click to expand...
If they are in Hell the prayers won’t help them, if they are in Heaven they don’t need the prayers but if they are in Purgatory they will be very grateful for the prayers.
 
anneramones said:
So why do we, for example, pray for the soul of a dead person at her funeral, that is held( in my country at least) a day or two after the person died? Isn’t it too late already to ask God to be merciful towards this person or to ask Our Lady’s intercession?
Click to expand...
I thin the funeral is a more powerful type of prayer and reminds those in attendance to pray also.
 
In reality I think we can only help those in purgatory with prayer. This is the Church’s teaching on the “particular judgment”:

1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification594 or immediately,595 – or immediate and everlasting damnation.596

At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.597

The last quote, from St John of the Cross, sums up all Catholic teaching on God’s criteria for judgment in a nutshell.
 
anneramones said:
These events made a question arise in my mind: when a person dies, is this person immediately judged by Jesus?
Click to expand...
Yes.
anneramones said:
If this is the case then, our prayers for mercy towards the dead person are useless because Jesus has already decided and sent them in either Heaven,Hell or Purgatory.
Click to expand...
No necessarily. Our prayers are to an entity who is outside time, so they are also timeless. Mercy will always be shown by the Lord to those who genuinely seek it, but I guess our prayers are partially in hope that the deceased person has died in a state of seeking mercy and that Jesus will show mercy.
 
anneramones said:
Isn’t it too late already to ask God to be merciful towards this person?
Click to expand...
My condolences go out to you. One death is already hard to manage, three deaths must be really tough even if they were elderly.

This is a great question and one that I have asked myself as well. As someone else posted, the church’s teaching is that Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death which I wasn’t sure of.
So as others have already said our prayers are only valuable to those who are in purgatory.
 
We pray for all of the departed. At every mass.
Is that consistent with the superfluousness of praying for the damned?
 
Those in Purgatory may remain there for many years. Out prayers may shorten their time there, and let them reach Heaven sooner.

Also while we are limited by the passage of time Jesus is eternal and knows all times at once. He may grant a prayer today that I won’t say till tomorrow or next week.

So it’s quite possible for my prayers at Mass today to benefit the souls of family members who died twenty years ago.
 
Yes. It is appointed unto man (used as the universal term for humans) once to die and after that the judgement.

You die, you then meet God and go to heaven, purgatory or hell.

We pray for the dead as they are outside of time as we know it.

The only time we do not need to pray for the dead is when we pray for a validly baptized person who had not yet reached the age of reason, or, when the person who died received the Apostolic Pardon. Everyone else, we pray for, we offer Masses for, no prayer is ever wasted.
 
This is what I ask myself. Why don’t we specifically say that we are praying for the dead in purgatory instead of saying that we pray for all the dead?
 
So prayers to dead are actually effective because Jesus lives in a different time-space than us ? But who said this? Thank you so much
 
Prayers for the dead serve two general purposes. The first is for relief of the souls in purgatory. The second is for the grace of repentance before death. Remember that God is outside of time, so He can apply the grace received from future prayers to a person at the time of their death, thus perhaps stirring them to repentance on their deathbed.
 
No prayer is wasted. Praying for the souls in Purgatory is a spiritual work of mercy.
 
The scriptures says this after death.

Hebrews 9:27
27 And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment…
 
I pray for all the non believes are the ones who really need prayers .
 
Since those in heaven, purgatory, or on earth are all part of the church, praying for either of the 3 groups strengthens all of the 3 groups.
 
anneramones said:
This is what I ask myself. Why don’t we specifically say that we are praying for the dead in purgatory instead of saying that we pray for all the dead?
Click to expand...
Because Catholics presumably know that.

And we pray for all the dead because we do not know who are in purgatory and who are in hell. So we include everyone. If they cannot benefit from them (in hell) or no longer need them (in heaven), then your prayers are applied to another soul who needs them.
 
Yes, I think as soon as we die, we will immediately be presented to Jesus / God for our personal judgement, which will encompass all of our life actions, thoughts and words.
 
Because the Church doesn’t take a position that anyone specifically is damned. Truth is, it is not crystal clear.
 
I know of one council and there a finite group of political opponents. And there, the names were known and still NO NAMES OF DAMNED.
NOT HITLER. Not Pol Pot. Not Mao. Not Stalin. NOT EVEN JUDAS is named. Many Saints were named going to heaven.
So that remains a basis of my statement. I didn’t say UNIVERSALISM. I said unclear.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top